boomerblog

I have a neighbor with orange trees who lets the fruit drop. So I asked him if I could make wine from his oranges. In return for the oranges, I promised him some of the finished product. He agreed and pointed me to the tree with the oldest oranges. Apparently, some of these oranges had been on the tree for two years. So even though it was February, and Valencia oranges typically ripen in summer. I made this wine from Valencia oranges. These oranges were ugly! Ugly on the outside but sweet on the inside. Probably like people as they grow old. They had aged on the tree, like we age on the tree of life.

The recipe I made up for 5 gallons of spiced orange wine:
52 really ripe oranges
10 guavas (Hawaiian)
1 tin of frozen mango juice (from supermarket)
1 tin of concord grape juice (from supermarket)
9 lbs of honey
2 lbs of maple syrup
2 lbs of sugar
25 cloves
25 allspice seeds
5 gallons of filtered tap water to make six gallons total
5 Campden tablets

Directions:
Wash and cut the 52 oranges in half. Juice them and pour the juice into a primary fermenter. Add the frozen mango and grape juice. Heat up 2 quarts of water to a boil. Add your honey, maple syrup, and sugar while stirring—so nothing sticks to the bottom of your pan. Turn down the flame and let it simmer. While it simmers, bruise your allspice and gloves with a spoon and wrap them up in a coffee filter, wound up with a piece of thread so it looks like a big cocoon. Let the spices simmer for 5 minutes while you keep stirring. Let the water cool down slightly and pour into the primary fermenter. Bring the water level to 5 and 1/2 gallons with filtered tap water. Place the top on the fermenter and add water to the fermentation lock. When the brew cools to 75 degrees add 5 crushed campden tablets and close the lid. Adding the crushed campden tablets assures mass destruction of all bacteria—both good and bad. Mutual destruction of all the bacteria living in your fermentator. After 12 hours add 2-1/2 teaspoons of pectic enzyme. This is the magic stuff that will eliminate the pectic haze from all the orange juice. Eventually, you’ll want your wine to be clear and sparkling so you can convince people to drink it. Pectic enzyme will help you achieve this goal. Let the pectic enzyme sit in this sweet batch of juices for another 12 hours. Start your yeast starter per the instructions on the yeast you have chosen. I used champagne in mine, only because it was the only yeast I had at the time. You may want to use Lalvin D-47 or Montrachet yeast to add more flavor to the wine. What ever yeast you’ve chosen, it is now time to add it. Within 12 – 48 hours you should start to see the start of fermentation.

After 10 days or so when fermentation starts to slow down, rack your wine into a scondary fermenter, leaving behind your spice cocoon. Let it sit in a dark cold place for a month before racking again. Repeat the racking experience in a month. Each time you rack, try to avoid sucking up the yeast at the bottom of your fermenter. Each time you rack, you’ll come up a little short of your fluid level. It’s important to keep the level 3 inches from the top of your secondary fermenter. Add wine to “top up” with if your feel your brew needs more “body”. Or add brandy if you feel it needs more alcohol. After the third racking, let your wine age for 6 months in a dark cold bedroom closet. Then you should be ready to bottle.

Living in Southern California north of San Diego I have a few tropical guava trees—ranging from big Thai guavas which grow to 6” wide to tiny Mexican crème guavas that are around 1” wide. This year with the fruit dropping from the trees faster than we could pick it I decided to try my hand at making some fruit wine. Better than throwing the fruit away, I reminded myself.

So I found myself at a wine shop, buying a giant food-safe plastic fermenter bucket with a tight lid and a place for a fermentation lock to fit. I made wine. Fruit wine. If you’re interested, here’s the recipe:

10 lbs. of honey
3 cans of frozen Welch’s Grape Juice
1- 16 oz. container of white grape concentrate (from a wine-making supply store)
10 lbs of extremely ripe African Tropical Guavas
4 extremely ripe mangoes
6 lbs. of extremely ripe bananas
1 pineapple
3 extremely ripe oranges
3 limes
Three tablespoons of loose green tea
3 pieces of cinnamon
6 whole nutmegs.
5 gallons of water
German wine yeast
Camden tablets

The process:

1. Peel the extremely ripe bananas cinnamon, grated nutmeg and place them into a cheese cloth fruit bag. Bring 1 gallon of water to a boil. Pour in the honey—while stirring like crazy. Then keep the water hot—but don’t let it boil. Plop in your fruit bag and let the bananas linger in the hot water for around 5 minutes. This will also work to disinfect your honey. Add green tea bags to the water (or bulk tea in a strainer).

Chop up your guavas into slices, peel your oranges and limes, and Remove your fruit bag. Add your fruit into the hot bag, and squish the fruit with your hands or potato masher (if you’re squeamish) into the plastic (food grade) fermenter. Add four gallons of water into the fermenter, along with your frozen grape juice and grape extract. Pour your hot water into the frementator and add 1 Camden tablet for each gallon of water. Close the fermentator tight and place fermentation lock on top.

The Camden tablets act like germ killers and in this case you want a sterile environment for your yeast to grow strong and flourish. Wait 24 hours and then add your yeast. Stir everything up once a day for the next five days. After 5 or so days when the fermentation slows down, siphon into a 5-gallon glass water bottle and attach a fermentation lock to the top. Allow another three weeks to go by. Then siphon off the clear liquid from the poop at the bottom. Add sterile water to bring up to within 3” from the top of the glass fermentator. After 6 months bottle and enjoy!

As the holiday season draws near we usually visit or hear from our parents. For many of us boomers, our parents may be getting up there in age and may require our help, no matter how we deny this.
People are living longer today than ever before, and the times are a changing:
•This is the first time in history that American couples have had more parents than children.
•Today, the average American woman can expect to spend 18 years caring for an older family member, compared to 17 years caring for her children.
•Almost 40% of all U.S. workers are more involved with caring for a parent instead of caring for a child.

If you realize the impact of these trends in your own family situation, may help you be able to react now, before your parents’ needs become more acute and you have to stop everything and take action as a reaction to a crises.

So, what is a person to do when he confronts the reality of his parents aging and their possibly needing more time and attention in his life?

The critical factor seems to be learning about your parents’ needs and wishes, and communicating with them and your siblings to set up an effective plan—before a crisis arrives.

It may be helpful to categorize these needs and wishes into several areas:

Personal Desires. Do your parents have strong feelings about being independent? How important is it for them to be close to friends versus close to family? Are there health concerns that might soon dictate their living location?

Housing Issues. Is it possible that they can stay in their home forever? What would be their choice place to live if they could no longer stay at home? Is it possible they could live with a family member? Have they thought about a retirement community or assisted living facility? What alternative is more appealing to them?

Trust Issues. As parents age, there will likely come a time when someone else will have to step in to make decisions in their behalf. Ask which of your siblings or relatives they would trust to take care of these issues. Perhaps they have some siblings or relatives that they don’t trust. Documents like living wills or power of attorney should be filled out and signed early and involve the people that your parents place their trust in. There is a family agreement form that can be downloaded for FREE at http://www.boomer-books.com that covers family agreements on taking care of an aging parent.

Legal Issues. Aging parents should make sure their legal affairs are in order and understood by the family. Or at least the family should have an idea of who the executor of the assets is, or who hold Power of Attorney. If those arrangements are being made or need to be made, now is the time.

Financial Issues. Spending some time understanding your parents’ financial status is critical at this point. Are all their insurance policies up to date? What are their monthly financial needs and how are these needs currently being met? If care for your parent needs to be increased to full-time, what are sources would be available to fund this need? Should this be something to worry about?

Healthcare Issues. Which health care providers are used by your parents? Who are their doctors and what are their phone numbers? What medications are they currently take? Do you have a list of them? Does your parent have a living will or other health care directives in place? If not, should they? You can find FREE forms to download to help with these at http://www.boomer-books.com and you can find step-by-step instructions on handling all of these issues in the book Helping Your Aging Parent at http://www.boomer-books.com/bookstore/bookstore_hyap.html

What gift do you get for an aging parent?

I remember getting my mom a new microwave oven. I thought this was the perfect gift for an elderly woman living alone. Meals could be made quickly and easily, and there would no longer be the long waiting for her old crusty teapot to come to a boil.

But my mom never used this microwave – despite my persistent visits to show her how easy it was to use. I finally came to realize that the microwave wasn’t a gift that she’d ever use.

So what do you get as a gift for aging parents?

Here are a few suggestions:

A senior cruise is the ultimate gift. There are substantial discounts on cruises for groups of seniors. This offers your parent a chance to meet and socialize with others on board, as well as a chance to get out and live a little. Some cruises go for as little as $350. Of course, you have to provide transportation to the dock. To find out more on senior cruises try http://www.mustcruise.com/cruise_info/seniors.html http://www.cruisecheap.com/senior_discounts.asp
http://www.michaelstravel.com/senior_cruises2.htm

If you can’t afford a cruise, how about a computer? It’s doubtful that your aging parent may need an expensive high-velocity computer. But you may have an old computer around the house that can be made Internet-ready, and you can introduce them to the wonderful world of e-mail. If not, you can buy refurbished computers cheaply (around $400) through computer geeks at http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=SYS or Frys at http://shop1.outpost.com/template/index/

How about an CD Player with an FM Radio? I remember giving my mother-in-law a Sony Walkman last year with a few CD’s and it opened up a new world to her. She walked around the house singing to herself for days. And when she got tired of the CD’s I burned her, she would listen to National Public Radio. For her, it was a great gift. If you are creative, you could buy a small mp3 player with FM and load all of your parent’s favorite songs on it. That should keep them humming their favorite tunes for months. You can find a few of these for as low as $40.

If your parents live far away, and you can’t see them, give them tickets to a theater with http://www.theatersguide.com/edwards/ Be sure and ask for the senior discount.

What ever you give them, remember the old saying “It’s the thought that counts”. A good gift is normally something a person wouldn’t lavish on themselves – even though they may want it. If your parents are over 70 make sure that your parents are lavished in love. It doesn’t cost much in material wealth, but it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

If you have other questions on your aging parent please check the Free forms at http://www.boomer-books.com

The holidays may be one of the few times that you get together with your parents, especially if you have your own life and your own family. What you find may seem normal on the surface, but there may be chaos underneath.

This holiday season, take a few minutes to really evauate your parent’s situation. I remember one Christmas I found out that my 75-year-old mom had signed up to have the foundation of her house reinforced for earthquakes—just beause she was talked into it by a fast talking salesman. She was on the brink of spending her entire nest egg on something that she really didn’t need, and I had just found out by accident.

After a few quick calls to the salesman and his company, I was able to help my mom wriggle out of the contract. She ended up moving to a retirement home a few years later. But this incident served as my wakeup call that my services were needed in my aging parent’s life. My dad had died years earlier, and though my mom fiercely clung to independence, it was slowly slipping from her grasp.

So if I can be bold enough to post a message; When you visit your aging parent during the holidays, look carefully into their lives and their actions. Make sure that everything is going well. Make sure that their house is in order. Look deeply. Take off the glasses of your own denial.

If you suspect that something is awry, check out the dementia checklist at www.boomer-books.com There is a lot of helpful information posted there to help you enter the life of your aging parent.

There is also a great step-by-step book tiitled Helping Your Aging Parent—A Step-by-Step Guide That include a FREE CD ROM to help you to help your aging parent—should you need it. You can find out more about this unique book at http://www.boomer-books.com/bookstore/bookstore_hyap.html

If you’ve looked in the juice department of your local Costco you might have seen pomegranate juice for sale there, and perhaps wondered why anyone would pay so much for the stuff.

Apparently research has shown that daily consumption of the antioxidants in pomegranate juice may offer health benefits such as:

Heart Health – Studies in laboratory mice have show that consumption of pomegranate juice reduced the buildup of plaque in the lining of the inner artery. In fact, it reduced the size of atherosclerotic lesions by 44%.

Reduction of LDL (bad) Cholesterol – Studies in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition have shown that the antioxidants found in pomegranates reduce the LDL oxidation in mice, and help to lower blood pressure in hypertensive humans.

Neutralize Free Radicals – pomegranates contain antioxidants like Polyphenol. Antioxidants help repair damage done to the body’s cells by Free Radicals, (unstable oxygen molecules associated with cancer, heart disease and the effects of aging).

Improved Carotid Artery Health and Lower Blood Pressure in Patients with Carotid Artery Stenosis. Fight prostate cancer – Drinking 8 ounces of pomegranate juice daily may suppress prostate cancer activity in men with recurrent prostate cancer.

For more on boomer health discoveries go to:
http://www.boomer-books.com/health_page/healthpage.html

Making wine from fresh pomegranate can let you enjoy the health benefits of pomegranates and offer a slight buzz as well. Last weekend I was lucky enough to join a few friends in making 5 gallons of pomegranate wine. The pomegranates they grew were sweet, and a far cry from the bitter fruit I remember from my childhood in San Diego, CA where the trees grew wild and were foraged by young scavengers hunting for a quick meal.

The recipe for pomegranate wine:
20 lbs of pomegranates (remove and save the seeds— throw away the rest—best done underwater with a knife unless you want your kitchen colored with magenta colored spray.)
8 lbs of sugar
5 gallons of water
2 pints of grape concentrate (from a wine making store)
1/2 oz. of citric acid (from a wine making store)
1 tsp. of tannin (from a wine making store)
1 tsp. pectic emzyme (from a wine making store)
1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient (from a wine making store)
1 package of champagne yeast (from a wine making store)
4 camden tablets (from a wine making store)
A big bag made out of cheese-cloth.

A great place for wine-making supplies is http://www.homebrewit.com

Remove the seeds from the pomegranates. Place them in the cheese cloth bag. Then squeeze them, crush them, or mash them with a potato masher, being careful to save all of the juice as it will be the elixer of your brew.

Pour the juce into a 5-gallon glass bottle or tub, or food-approved plastic bucket. Add your bag of goodies (tie off the top first). Pour in your water and the pectic emzynes, grape concentrates, tannin, citric acid, yeast nutrient, but hold off on the yeast. Instead of yeast, crush yourself 4 camden tablets and stir the dust of those in last. They serve to kill all the mold, or bacteria that would want to make your brew a home and make it taste funky. Without this procedure you would be casting your fate to the wind, hoping that the wind blew in a “good” wild yeast and not a “bad” wild yeast.

If you have a hydrometer take your “starting gravity”. If not, say a small prayer.

Put a cover over the top and let your ingredients sit in the killing zone for the next 24 hours. When this time passes, the ingredients of your camden tablets will have turned your brew into a bacterial wasteland. Every living thing will be killed off. That when you mix your little packet of yeast with some water. Bring it back to life and stir this to your mix. You have given your yeast its own garden of Eden.

This action assures that your yeast will be the dominant life form on your new mini-planet. Mr. yeast eats the sugars in your mix and poops out alcohol. In a day or so you’ll start to see some activity. That’s good. Activity means that your yeast is hungry and happy. Nothing works up an appetite like being freeze-dried for a while. Don’t seal off your brew at this stage. It needs to let all that carbon dioxide out. You might want to cover it with a sheet of plastic to keep out bugs or curious onlookers.

In a week when things slow and it appears that your yeast is going to sleep you’ll need to siphon the liquid into a 5 gallon glass water bottle and place a fermentation lock on the top. If you don’t have a fermentation lock, don’t dispair. Your can use a cork with a hole in the middle for a hose (the same plastic hose you used for siphoning will work). Put one end of the hose into the cork in your bottle and run the other end under a small pan of water. If you are paranoid, you can seal your connections with sealing wax like we did in the 1960’s.

Now you can place your bottle in some dark corner with a stable temperature where you can forget about it. Recant to another bottle in 6 months. Bottle in 9 months when all activity has stopped.

A new study suggests that eating fish at least once a week is good for the brain, slowing age-related mental decline by the equivalent of three to four years, a new study suggests.

The research adds to the growing evidence that a fish-rich diet helps keep the mind sharp. Previous studies have found that people who ate fish lowered their risk of Alzheimer’s disease and stroke. Fish such as salmon and tuna that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids also have been shown to prevent heart disease.

For this new study, researchers measured how well people did on simple tests, such as recalling details of a story. The participants were all Chicago residents aged 65 and older. Each resident took the tests three times over six years. They also filled out a questionnaire about what they ate that included 139 foods.

Those that ate fish were found to have 10% less cognitive decline. So eat your fish and stay smart. You may want to make sure that fish smells fresh—not “fishy” which can often indicate that it’s old. Also, fresh fish often tastes sweet. Avoid swordfish which can contain mercury. Best place to buy fish is a fish store or an oriental market where you can see the color of the gills to make sure they are bright, and that the eyes of the fish look clear and not glazed over.

For the results on more studies on keeping mentally sharp click here: http://www.boomer-books.com/health_page/healthpage.html

One of the greatest misconceptions is that travel has to be expensive. Two years ago I traveled to China with my family for $1000 per person. This included airfare, meals, hotel and all. We flew to Bejing to visit the Forbidden City, then flew to Xxiuan see the Terra Cotta Soldiers, and then to the Westlake district where most of the tea in China is grown, to the Great Wall, and then back to Shanghai. Ten days of travel in a guided tour for only $1000 a person.

I think we visited every park along the way. Many nights we attended performances and banquets at no extra charge. The hotels were all four-star hotels, some with two TV’s. It’s a lot of fun to watch Chinese commercials.

The catch. Actually, there are three:

1. It is a little like a time-share sales presentation. Everyday the tour bus stops at a “government approved” store where they grow pearls, tea, silk worms. Most just happen to have a warehousesized show room where you can purchase items—and the pressure is on.

2. They keep you from the people. You have to sneak out of your hotel room at night and walk down to a Chinese Mall or night club to have some real fun.

3. The reason for the great price is that these tours are really made for Chinese, and Chinese-speaking. However, if Chinese is not your native language, they will help to direct you into a group of English-speaking Asians.

4. In our tour, in each town or area we visted we were assigned a new tour guide. You are pressured to tip the tour guide around $5 per day.

Don’t put off traveling—remember, we aren’t getting any younger. See the world while you still can.

If any of this sounds interesting let me recommend a tour agency with great prices. http://www.bravotravel.com

I’m finally through the Efudex-40 treatment for skin cancer. And I can describe the experience as being similar to rubbing battery acid on your face twice a day. It just burns and burns and burns. Then after two weeks of this seriously masochistic procedure, you stop applying it . My face was looking a lot like a pepperoni pizza from the reaction. UGLY! So large I would wear Elton John sized sunglasses to go to the grocery store. Ugly, but worth it to be skin cancer free.

Then pieces of skin started coming off. Small ones at first. Then larger, dark ones. All the strange unusual growths on my face became pieces of skin on my pillow in the morning.

A week of this and I’m starting to look halfway normal. Strange women haven’t yet come up to me to rub my face and coo “There’s something about an Efudex-40 man”. But all those little dark spots on my cheekbones and those little growths above my eyes are gone. And I’m feeling better—less cancer prone. Most of all, I’m slathering SPF 40 sun block on my face every morning as I’ve seen what 50-something years under a hot sun can do.

I’d advise all of you to do the same. The sun may feel like your friend, but he leaves parasites in your skin that can multiply and tenacle like an alien being. Cancer isn’t good, it can eat you alive. Skin cancer isn’t much better. Get a check up today. Don’t delay.

From the last blog on Skin Cancer you probably all (all five of you) realize that I had squamous cell skin cancer, had the doctor cut it out, only to find from the lab that not all the skin cancer was removed. I was referred to a dermatologist who suggessted that I tried applying Efudex-40 (a kind of chemo-therapy in a tube) to my forehead two times a day for two weeks, and return for a check-up and biopsy in 3 weeks.

Well now I’m 12 days into this and looking really ugly. The skin on my forhead is covered in purple blotches. My eyes are almost swollen shut and the skin on my face burns like I slathered myself in battery acid. It sucks, but I keep telling myself that the end is near. I’m trying to avoid leaving the house and the staring faces. Also, I’m suppose to avoid ultraviolet radiation. So I only leave the house at night. I’ve tried to avoid all friends, jumping into bed to pretend I’m sick when they show up at the door. I do feel sick. Sick of this treatment.

Efudex-40 is used for removing basal cell skin cancer. It penetrates the skin to attack abnormal skin cells, while leaving the healthy skin cells unscathed. I must have a lot of unhealthy cells on my face cause I’m looking a lot uglier than usual. Supposedly, when the treatment has run its course the skin in the affected area will be as smooth as a baby’s butt.

With that thought in mind, I just imagine strange women coming up to me rubbing their hands across my forhead while they coo “There’s something about an Efudex 40 man”. I guess you’d have to be old enough to remember the Aqua Velvet commercial to appreciate this fantasy.