Solution of vinegar and soap

I was just reading a funny post about how this lady hated fruit flies, and guess what … I DO TOO!

Hate them.

I don’t like them hovering my bananas, and I certainly don’t like them to hover over my garbage bin and then fly over to hover over my fruits!

Apparently, there are scores of people who have tested ways to kill these buggers (don’t you just love this British term?) and here are the environmentally freindly ways to do so.

1. Alcohol kills 

One guy found out that a few inches of wine in a standard wine bottle works extremely well - as he found out the next morning, after he took a glug of wine with some dead flies floating in it!! The little bugs love wine and they will dive into the bottle only to drown after having a few hick sips. Apparently, the reason why they can’t fly out of the narrow opening of the wine bottle  is because these lovable  fruit flies can only fly side to side, not up and down. 

Here’s what he says “I don’t like killing anything, but I salve my conscience by shaking the bottle regularly, to drown them so they don’t swim for hours, struggling…”

Note to self, look INSIDE the alcohol bottle to make sure there’s no drowned animals before having a go at the hoo-hoo-hoo. However, if you already ate these bugs … accidentally … consider this. They are a good source of uncooked protein. 

2. Wash / hand slap trick

This same wino guy tried another tactic which he said worked well for him. He washed the  fruits right away and then hand slap the flies as soon as they appear, right before they settle in and procreate. 

3. A deadly cocktail of apple cider vinegar and soap

If you are too lazy to wash the fruit or kill hand slap the silly buggers, then you might want to try this instead. Leaving a mixture of foamy, soapy apple cider vinegar solution on the table next to the fruits. It seems the pesky flies are attracted to the vinegar. But the foam traps them and they die. Something you can easily try at home.

Speaking of insects, I found that they drown easily in soapy water. If you are a sadist, you can try picking up ants, cockroaches, bees, whatever takes your fancy and slowly release them into the soapy water … to test my theory. There’s one insect I truly dislike with passion, and that is mosquitoes. Just one mosquito can cause so much damage to a baby. One day, I found multiple Mozzie bites on my precious baby’s skin. Horrified I tell you. So this fuming mommy sat there, waiting patiently with soapy wet hands. I took a slow easy swipe at the nasty mozzie just as it was about to make another meal out of my kid and it promptly got caught in the foam. Then, I walked to the bathroom and triumphantly release the struggling mozzie into the soapy water and watched it slowly sink down into the abyss.

Bliss! No more bites that night. 

So, if you don’t like nasty insects like me, you know what to do.

Peace!

Image and info taken from Re-Nest.com

I just so love the banana leaf cups featured here. So gorgeous. And eco  friendly too. Just eat whatever that is in the cup and then, toss the biodegradable cups into your compost heap. And yes, the Thai snacks shown are delectable looking as well aren’t they? The Thai lady chef who took these pictures is Kasma Loha-unchit. Currently, she’s got a Thai cooking school at Oakland, California, across the bay from San Francisco.

The instructions to make the biodegradable banana leaf cups are at eThaiCooking.com page.

Can you believe this is really good looking reusable sandwich bag was once an old shirt, a piece of scrap cloth and a clean Ziplock bag?

How cute. I love it when old stuff are brought back to live as a new and so reusable item.

So gorgeous, you’d want to bring it to work Every. Single. Day.

The bag just folds up and snaps shut with a piece of velcro

The inside of the bag is a gallon size Ziploc bag (cut apart)

It’s a breeze to make, doesn’t take much time at all. Best thing is, you can just drop it in the washing machine, and then hang it up to dry in time for the next use.

Check out the tutorial at Salt Water Kids

Apparently, there’s a new strain of rice that does not need to be cooked at all. Super duper crazy stuff for all you lazy cooks out there! Downside is, you gotta wait for the agri scientists in India to sell it to ya! This soft rice is called the Agihoni Bora rice.

Apparently, it just requires a long soak (45 minutes), and that’s it!

Can you imagine? Finally, we are able to eat raw rice that has not lost all the great enzymes that might have been destroyed during the cooking process. Also, it’s definitely environmentally safer because we don’t have to use any fuel to cook it. It’s a boon to the poor who can’t afford to buy fuel, that is if the Indian farmers decide to price the rice grains within the reach of the poor.

Image taken from http:/macrocosm-magbook.blogspot.com/2010/02/rice-grains-that-need-no-cooking.html

In the old days, restaurants used to buy blocks of ice from ice vendors who would make ice probably from tap water. And once the blocks of ice is made, they would wrap the ice in saw dust before transporting them over to the restaurants in motorbikes and bicycles. Once the guys get the ice blocks, the would bring out the ice picks and hack away to make smaller pieces of ice to put into drinks.

Thankfully, that’s all in the past. Today, vendors are very professional. Their crew members run around all over town carrying clean ice cubes in large clear plastic bags stored in refrigerated vehicles. These guys bring in ice, once a day, twice a day, or even more, based on the quantity and frequency required.We may take things for granted, but they really provide an important service to the community. By offering clean ice to street vendors, for example, they are really reducing the level of food poisoning in the community. Think about it. I would cringe if I saw restaurant workers breaking up ice in kitchen sinks, and who knows, even at floor level if someone allowed them, at the back of the kitchen. It’s unsanitary, and you know, in the old days, nobody would have bat an eyelid because it was pretty much the norm.

Anyways, I’m just reminiscing, for it’s nice to look back and remember how it was done in the old days.

Some of the Atlas Edible Ice crew members. Atlas is one of the biggest ice manufacturers in Malaysia.
That’s one of the vehicles that carry ice, shown in the background.

I love the idea of reusing, reducing and recycling just like any other tree hugging Joe, but this, my friend, is a bit extreme. But it’s too funny not to share.

What is it?

It’s a video of a cheapskate genius cutting away the crotch of his old underwear to fashion it into a sports bra. I shouldn’t show this to my husband. He might actually think it’ll work, thus saving him tons of money.

Me? What would I do with an old unwanted underwear? I’d cut the thing up and use it as a rag. Maybe to wipe an engine oil stains out. Yeah, it’s boring, nothing what that outrageous guy is doing, but that’s just me.