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Post by Gracie on May 29, 2008 14:28:32 GMT -5
One thing you can do is sift it...that removes the bran, so it's a little less fiber but still much more healthy. I do that when I make whole wheat pancakes (which, btw, are delicious, they taste sort of like graham crackers....) Another thing is to use part white and part whole wheat. Another thing is to use whole wheat pastry flour, which is finer milled and will give you a nicer crust. I bet it tastes good when it's baked, no matter what....
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Post by gailkate on Jun 5, 2008 9:29:03 GMT -5
I've been waiting for Lirio's assessment of her pie crust - how did it turn out? I'm also glad to hear about the sifting business because every time I've tried to put whole wheat flour in anything (cookies usually ) the results are not felicitous.
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Post by liriodendron on Jun 5, 2008 14:55:49 GMT -5
It was actually pretty darn tasty, but I'm not sure I'd be thrilled to find it underneath my fresh strawberry or lemon chiffon. It had a rather dense consistency but it worked alright with the chicken filling. I wonder if there are actual recipes written for using whole wheat flour? I will have to look when I'm at work tomorrow.
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Post by Gracie on Jun 5, 2008 15:15:13 GMT -5
It was actually pretty darn tasty, but I'm not sure I'd be thrilled to find it underneath my fresh strawberry or lemon chiffon. It had a rather dense consistency but it worked alright with the chicken filling. I wonder if there are actual recipes written for using whole wheat flour? I will have to look when I'm at work tomorrow. Here you are, chicks and chicklets....from my online sources, these two sound the best, based not only on what they say but what I know from my own whole grain baking experience: Whole wheat flour is a bit harder to work with and may crumble, but just be patient! This recipe makes a single 9-inch pie crust. One and a half recipes should do for a covered pie or pie crust art. Quantities for one recipe are given first, with numbers for one and a half shown in parentheses and italics after. 1/2 cup Crisco or other shortening (3/4 cup)--I personally would use butter flavored Crisco, and ONLY Crisco--no other shortening for pastry in my house 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (2 1/4 cups) dash of salt (dash) 3 TB ice water (4 1/2 TB) Sift the flour and then measure it. Resift it into a bowl along with the salt. Add the shortening and use a pastry blender to mix it with the flour until it’s the size of small peas. (If you don’t have a pastry blender, you can use two forks or your fingers.) Using your fingers, mix in the ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time. Mix just until it holds together, only a few seconds. Press the dough into a flat disk. Sprinkle a little flour on a cool, dry surface and place the dough on it. Sprinkle a little more flour on top of the dough. Rub a little flour onto the rolling pin so it won’t stick and roll the dough in a rough circle a little larger than the diameter of your pan. If the dough sticks, sprinkle on a little more flour. The dough should be about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Use a spatula to loosen the dough from the surface, and fold it in half and then quarters to make lifting it easy. Place in the pie pan and press to shape. If you’re so inclined, use your fingers or a fork to make a pretty edge on the crust. Making the top crust: Shape remaining dough into a flat disk and roll out as above. Determine how big to make the crust based on how much fruit you’ve piled in the pie. Place crust on top of fruit and seal the edges. If you want to make it fancy, cut out some shapes before you put the crust on top; otherwise, just cut some slits in the top to allow steam out. Alternatively, you may choose to do a lattice crust or pie crust art. Tips from Jane — Whole wheat dough tend to be crumbly and may be a bit harder to work with. You may need to use your fingers to shape it in the pan. — Pie crust is very forgiving. If yours tears or splits, as mine often does, just patch it together with your fingers or a little bit of dough. It doesn’t matter if it’s a little bumpy or uneven— after all, it’s going to be covered with yummy filling! You don’t want holes in the crust, however, as that could allow the filling to seep underneath. — I find with whole wheat flour it tends to take less water to make the crust. — You can also use a combination of white and whole wheat flour. — For this recipe, do sift the flour as directed. This tends to lighten the flour. I recently tried this crust without sifting the flour, and it didn’t come out as well. — Crimping the edge to make it look nice isn’t hard. Just use your fingers to shape small indentations, working your way around the crust. You can also use the back of a fork to make an edge. AND * 1 1/2 cups sifted whole wheat flour * 1/2 teaspoon salt * 1 tablespoon wheat germ * 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 7 pieces * 1 egg yolk * 2 tablespoons ice water Directions Combine flour, salt and wheat germ in bowl. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Add egg yolk and water, stirring until mixture forms a ball. Wrap in waxed paper or plastic wrap; chill for 30 minutes to 24 hours before using. I do know that the whole wheat pastry flour will give you the best results. Sift it again if you care to. And in the second recipe, the wheat germ added would give a wonderful flavor. Betsy has asked me to teach her to cook this summer, and we're using nothing but my WW cookbooks and recipes, or things from the sneaky books (like last night's meatballs for her spaghetti, which had mashed sweet potato in them and she COULD NOT TELL) or the recipes I create myself. So stay tuned....
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Post by liriodendron on Jun 5, 2008 15:19:03 GMT -5
Gracie, I swear, you should write a cookbook. It would be a bestseller.
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Post by Gracie on Jun 5, 2008 16:55:13 GMT -5
I AM writing one! Who told?
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Post by booklady on Aug 17, 2008 13:58:39 GMT -5
I'm not sure where to put this. I almost posted it in a particular thread on "For Members Only," but it seemed broader than that. Anyway, it's got to do with food, and with the health possibilities of food, so here it is. I should have read it before I bought that red meat I just bought at the store because I was craving some. Honestly, though, despite the cravings from time to time, I think I'm closer than ever to becoming at least a lacto-ovo (limited quantities) vegetarian. Diet & Fitness: Nutrition (msn)
10 Superfoods That Should Be in Your Daily Diet Supercharge your diet with these doctor-approved upgrades As Told to Max Alexander, Best Life My interest in what is now known as integrative medicine began many years ago when I was a teenager and witnessed my grandmother battle a breast-cancer recurrence. In those days, it was typical for patients receiving chemotherapy to be confined to a hospital bed. Nothing was done to stop her decline—not nutritionally, not physically, not really medically—and she eventually wasted away and died in her bed.
A few years later, in medical school, I began suffering from ulcers and migraines. None of the physicians I visited provided any significant relief. Month after month, I tried to find a cure. Hypnotherapy, acupuncture, Rolfing massage—nothing worked. Out of desperation, I stopped eating the roast beef, burgers, and fried chicken I'd been raised on in favor of whole grains, legumes, and fruit. The idea that nutrition could help fight pain and illness was, in the medical community of the 1970s, unheard of. Yet within weeks, my ulcers and migraines disappeared.
As the medical director of the Block Center of Integrative Cancer Treatment, nutrition now plays an important role in the individualized treatment plans we develop for our patients, as well as for those patients interested in the prevention of other diseases. There is a significant amount of research that shows that eating the wrong fats and proteins, primarily from animal sources, but also including omega-6-rich vegetable oils, can actually inflame cells and create a perfect environment for cancer, like a dry forest waiting for a spark.
By contrast, diets based on plants and cold-water fish or omega-3 supplements lead to a "wet forest" that can affect the cells by reducing inflammation and work toward extinguishing the cancer spark. In patients who already have cancer, the right diet can help them tolerate chemo and radiation. At the grocery store, kale, tomatoes, and mushrooms probably won't have a single label touting their nutritional benefits, but that's only because fresh produce doesn't have much of a marketing department.
Here are 10 superfoods to integrate into your daily diet.
Garlic This is a powerful organosulfate that's important in detoxification. It will help clean your body of leftover chemical residue from drugs or pollutants, secondhand smoke, and metabolites from alcohol.
Tofu It's made from soybeans, which have all the benefits of other beans, including stabilizing blood-sugar levels to prevent diabetes. Try stir-frying it.
Mushrooms Maitake and shiitake mushrooms are among the best sources of beta-glucan, which is known to stimulate the immune system. They also contain the protein lectin, which hinders cancer-cell growth.
Blueberries These have an extraordinary amount of anti-oxidants, but many people are surprised to learn that one of their compounds, flavonoids, makes you smarter by boosting neuron signals in your brain. Look for wild varieties, which pack more antioxidants.
Kale Possibly the healthiest food on earth, kale is rich in isothiocyanates, a phytochemical that suppresses tumor growth. Kale also contains indoles, nitrogen compounds that prevent lesions from converting into cancer cells.
Flaxseed "In addition to omega-3 fatty acids, flaxseed contains lignans, which are antioxidants that suppress tumor growth. If you can't find flaxseed cracked, buy it whole, grind it, and then sprinkle a teaspoon over cereal.
Beans Like other legumes, kidney and garbanzo beans are high in saponins, which are compounds that shield your DNA from invasion by so-called free radicals—unstable atoms that damage tissue and are associated with cancer.
Carrots Besides beta-carotene—which helps prevent many types of cancer—carrots contain falcarinol, a chemical that slows the growth of cancer cells.
Tomatoes Eat ripe tomatoes every summer. They're loaded with lycopene (an important phytochemical with antioxidant properties) and glutamic acid (an amino acid), which work together to prevent prostate cancer. Shop for organic varieties with a deep red color at your local farmers' market.
Strawberries If you do a lot of grilling, eat strawberries. They're high in folic acids that scavenge the carcinogenic amines that are created when meat is cooked over high temperatures. They're one of the most important foods to buy organic, because they have a unique capacity for leaching pesticides.
Keith Block, M.D., 54, is the author of the forthcoming Life Over Cancer. He lives in Illinois and surfs Lake Michigan year-round.
Best Life online: Get recipes for Dr. Block's favorite mousse, pie, and cobbler at BestLifeOnline.com/drblock.
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Post by Gracie on Aug 17, 2008 16:42:52 GMT -5
I eat them all, every one, every day. They just happen to be foods I really like anyway.
I make the tofu into something resembling yogurt and layer it with berries, wheat germ and ground flax, and it's sort of like a parfait.
I put the ground flax into every bit of bread I bake.
And mushroom and cheese quesadillas, on whole wheat tortillas, have become a new house favorite around here.
And every salad I make has a lot of kale in it, along with spinach and cabbage, and just a bit of lettuce.
I still like to think I am doing myself and my body more good with my food and exercise rather than yet another drug....we'll see. Having tests on Tuesday to find out why I'm bruising so badly and why I am so exhausted and queasy.
(No. I am not pregnant.)
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Post by booklady on Aug 17, 2008 17:20:01 GMT -5
Puttin' dear Gracie on the prayer list.
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Post by Gracie on Aug 17, 2008 17:48:49 GMT -5
Oh, bless you, sweet lady. I'll keep you all posted. All I know now is there's gonna be a lot of blood drawn....I hate that....
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Post by booklady on Aug 17, 2008 18:11:18 GMT -5
Gracie, - do you get the ground flax at a health food store?
- do you use frozen berries when fresh are out of season?
- can you recommend a good health foods cookbook? (Just one, hopefully, to get me started.)
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Post by joew on Aug 17, 2008 19:29:00 GMT -5
Gracie, I hope the tests result in a clear diagnosis, and that whatever it is can be readily cured.
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Post by Gracie on Aug 17, 2008 21:18:10 GMT -5
Gracie, - do you get the ground flax at a health food store?
- do you use frozen berries when fresh are out of season?
- can you recommend a good health foods cookbook? (Just one, hopefully, to get me started.)
No, I buy flax seeds at the health food store and grind it fresh, myself, in a little coffee grinder. It tastes better. I do use frozen berries when the fresh are out of season, and I eat lots and lots of them, especially blackberries and raspberries, because I also make homemade yogurt and I love that, mixed with fruit and homemade granola (and yes, wheat germ and flax) and almonds or pecans. I personally LOVE Crescent Dragonwagon's book on vegetarianism. I really do. Her name is ridiculous but her food is tremendous, plus, she's just a hoot to read. She has a website, here's a link, so you could check it out and see what you think--and you might check to see if her book is at your local library. I have my own copy but we do have it at WCPL, too... www.dragonwagon.comAnd check out www.animalvegetablemiracle.comand look at the recipes. They are divine! (We love the grilled vegetable sandwiches.) This is from a book of the same name, written by the wonderful Barbara Kingsolver, and I'm certifiably nuts about it. It makes me want to chuck it ALL and go live just like that.... There's always the Moosewood books, of course, but the above two are ones most people don't think of. Check 'em out.
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Post by Gracie on Aug 17, 2008 21:18:51 GMT -5
Gracie, I hope the tests result in a clear diagnosis, and that whatever it is can be readily cured. Thank you. Me too.
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Post by slb2 on Aug 18, 2008 1:03:33 GMT -5
Books, we have two or three Moosewood books, but that DragonWagon book sounds like something I'd like to pick up for my vegetarian daughters. I just started eating kale because I read that it was good for inflammation and my arthritis is getting worse. So let's hope that the raw kale will do me good. It sure is tough to chew when the whole meal is raw. (Tonight's supper was kale leaves and raw pea pods. Oops. I drew the pods through black olive hummus, so that part wasn't raw, I don't think so anyway. No, I'm sure of it. The chickpeas must be cooked in order to mash them.) I do eat a lot of those foods (all of them over a period of time), but not every day. I could add the flaxseed, ground with my tiny grinder, and put that on my salad. Gracie, I understood that flaxseed loses some of its beneficial qualities when cooked or baked? I recommend Dr. Andrew Weil as a reference for scientific food knowledge.
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Post by booklady on Aug 18, 2008 6:22:14 GMT -5
Great! Thank you! Would one of you or somebody else please post something here, if only a "bump," to remind me to look at this again later when I can write it all down? Thanks.
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Post by brutus on Aug 18, 2008 6:34:43 GMT -5
Great! Thank you! Would one of you or somebody else please post something here, if only a "bump," to remind me to look at this again later when I can write it all down? Thanks. I'd be more'n' happy to "bump" ya, once in a while! Oh..... you meant give this thread a bump. Sorry....really, very sorry, got carried away with myself. ~B~
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Post by gailkate on Aug 18, 2008 10:45:24 GMT -5
That's because you're full of flax and vinegar, ~B. I bought whole seed and a little grinder, but I keep forgetting to use it. Also I think you need more than just a sprinkling. I've seen recipes that use flax as a big part of the flour and was going to try that, but if Gracie thinks it won't taste good, well I follow Gracie like a guru. You can buy big jars of ground flax in some supermarkets here. Refrigerate after opening. Good luck, Gracie!
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Post by Gracie on Aug 18, 2008 13:24:51 GMT -5
It still tastes good, pre-ground, I'm just a crank about things. Whichever you buy, store it in the freezer, it'll last indefinitely. I mix it into my multi-grain bread, which is whole wheat, rice flour, corn flour and high gluten flour. And it is really good....lighter than you'd expect, great taste, if you let it rise a couple times it's quite fine-textured. I've also used cooked oatmeal and/or cooked cornmeal or grits in this if I didn't have the rice and corn flours. (Rice flour is great for shortbread cookies, by the way....) And it's also good stirred into steel-cut oatmeal after it's cooked, which is what I made for me and the Kid this morning: flax/oatmeal with sauteed apples, a few raisins, cinnamon and maple sugar. If you want to go more whole or multi grain, just replace a portion of the bread flour with some nonfat powdered milk (I also use skim milk in place of water) because milk makes for a more tender bread with a finer crumb, it also makes it high protein and high calcium. So it's all good. You know, if I had the means, I'd open a cooking school. Wouldn't that be fun? No nouvelle cuisine, just Gracie stuff, a/k/a comfort food. And slb was right when she said Andrew Weil was a good one to follow, he sure is....try his Eating Well for Optimum Health. It's where I learned that my food cravings had some serious use when I was diagnosed...amazing connections if you listen to your body.
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Post by slb2 on Aug 18, 2008 15:40:05 GMT -5
Gracie, we're alike in many ways, but this food drive of yours isn't one of mine. I enjoy cooking and baking once in a while, but overall, the amount of effort isn't worth the results for me. I'd rather go biking than baking.
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Post by slb2 on Aug 18, 2008 15:41:51 GMT -5
Oh, but for a chore this morning, my 8 y.o. made banana bread with some assistance from me. I pulled out ingredients, he measured and stirred and poured, then I put away ingredients and washed dishes. Most of the bread is gone already.
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Post by Gracie on Aug 18, 2008 20:16:55 GMT -5
Gracie, we're alike in many ways, but this food drive of yours isn't one of mine. I enjoy cooking and baking once in a while, but overall, the amount of effort isn't worth the results for me. I'd rather go biking than baking. I understand perfectly and I do respect it. I've never thought everyone should do all that I do. Heck, I don't even do all that I used to do, now that I can't be stay at home all the time. But some of what I do is surprisingly easy, like the bread. It's like this: yeast and warm water in the bowl of my professional mixer. Splash of honey. Let it stand until it's puffy. Then I just start throwing things in. I don't measure the flour(s), I just add what I want to until it looks and feels right, and I do know when it looks and feels right. I might add eggs, I might not. Herbs sometimes, if it's a sweet dough I sometimes add vanilla. Some oil or some melted butter, depending on how rich I want it to be and what I'm going to use it for. Some salt, which you always add last because it makes the gluten firm up and the dough fights you when you knead. ("IN this corner......") The mixer has a dough hook and I let it do the kneading for me. Shaping it is a snap and then it just has to rise a time or two, and then I bake it. This is the reason my cookbook is taking some time. You can't publish a recipe as haphazard as what I just wrote, you know? And then there's Audrey: an active sourdough starter is also a good and useful thing, but it's not the boss of me and I only take her out and feed her and use her when I want to. No old wad of dough is gonna tell ME what to do... Yogurt as I make it is pretty easy too and it just tastes too good not to. Basically it means heating milk to a certain temp, adding some nonfat powdered milk to thicken it a bit, and a couple spoonfuls of plain yogurt (you can do a whole chain thing, like pressing the sliver of soap onto the new bar, you know....) and then it cools to a different temp--pour it into a warmed jar, screw on the lid, set it on a heating pad set on low, cover it with a stock pot and cover that with a towel, and forget about it for 12 hours. And voila. Yogurt. I usually sweeten it with honey, maybe some vanilla, and eat it as aforementioned. It's thicker than any kind I could buy so it's great for cooking, too... ANYWAY. I like biking, too. Very much. And hiking. And kayaking. (And lying in the hammock with a good book.)
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Post by booklady on Aug 18, 2008 20:23:52 GMT -5
Gracie, we're alike in many ways, but this food drive of yours isn't one of mine. I enjoy cooking and baking once in a while, but overall, the amount of effort isn't worth the results for me. I'd rather go biking than baking. Amen, sister by choice. Although Gracie the food-driven one is also a sister by choice.
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Post by Gracie on Aug 18, 2008 21:22:45 GMT -5
Do you know how I got to be so 'food-driven'? Because during those Army wife days, I had way more time than money. And there were so many young wives there, younger even than me--I was 20, and some of those girls were 16 years old and married...and homesick. Couldn't cook anything beyond Hamburger Helper. It got started because I used to spend my weekends cooking things for the freezer: soup stock that I froze in ice cube trays and then bagged. Homemade marinara sauce, homemade bread, and so on. I was the manager of the apartment complex where I lived, then, and I got in the habit of giving each new tenant a jar of my sauce, a loaf of bread, and a box of spaghetti (which cost all of a quarter then, so even I could afford to do that much) for their first meal. Something that simple tasted so good after all the fast food you do when you're moving, especially moving across the country, as many of us did. Well, one of my tenants--Gina--came to me begging for the sauce recipe because her husband said it was the first decent thing she'd ever served him. And so I started teaching her to cook. Meat loaf. Fried chicken. Perfect mashed potatoes. How to roast a turkey. Brownies not from a mix, and apple pie with homemade crust and fresh apples. Buttermilk pancakes and biscuits. Homemade bread, and beef stew, and stroganoff. Food at the commissary was so cheap that it was cheaper still to make it from scratch, and one thing we ALL had too much of was time on our hands. And it just sort of snowballed....one young wife told another, and so on. We even got into how to iron a shirt, how to sew on a button, how to hem a pair of pants or tailor a shirt to fit better. I remember telling my staff at camp the same thing...that I wasn't teaching them how to be a camp cook, but simply to cook--that you could cook for 2 or 20 or 200 if you knew the basic principles. And I also told them that LIFE= Love Is Feeding Everyone. It could be as simple as homemade cocoa and cookies when someone was feeling especially blue....and it was as warming as a hug (which, yeah, I do a lot of, too.... .....) And that's all I got to say about that...
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Post by slb2 on Aug 18, 2008 23:14:39 GMT -5
I understand about loving others via food. I do it. My mom does it. My 18 y.o. does it, too. Of the Five Love Languages (a book by someone I can't remember) service is one of the languages and it's the one that I speak best. I show others that I love them through service. No smart remarks, either, you know what I mean.
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Post by slb2 on Aug 18, 2008 23:18:29 GMT -5
This is where it's at:
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Post by Gracie on Aug 18, 2008 23:33:02 GMT -5
I understand about loving others via food. I do it. My mom does it. My 18 y.o. does it, too. Of the Five Love Languages (a book by someone I can't remember) service is one of the languages and it's the one that I speak best. I show others that I love them through service. No smart remarks, either, you know what I mean. Gary Chapman. Great book, great concept. No one way is better or more valuable than another, and they are all good. My actual language is language, though....it's all about words, for me. I find them eminently powerful and seductive, and I don't set a single word down without a great deal of feeling behind it. Grizzy's is touch, and we have had to work consciously at loving one another the way the OTHER wants/needs, and not the way we ourselves want. And that's a delicate balance! According to Network, my cooking for others is a spiritual gift, the gift of hospitality. And it's late and I'm making no sense and I just ate the last food I can have for about 12 hours (stayed up late so I could, so I wouldn't feel so hollow in the morning) so it's off to bed with me, I bid you all a good night, sweet dreams, all that....
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Post by slb2 on Aug 19, 2008 10:39:09 GMT -5
Not surprisingly, Gracie, at a church retreat I attended a couple years ago, I learned that I had the spiritual gift of hospitality, too.
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Post by Gracie on Aug 19, 2008 11:02:27 GMT -5
Not surprising at all...
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Post by gailkate on Aug 19, 2008 17:42:35 GMT -5
So did you get results of at least some of the tests, Gracie?
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