BEEF
Pick the Right Kind
High heat and smoke bring out the rich flavor of beef, making it an ideal pick for grilling. And there are lots of lower-fat options that still taste great. “Cuts such as top-, eye-, and bottom-round are among the leanest,” says Nancy Berkoff, R.D., a Los Angelesbased dietitian and chef. “Loin” or “flank” cuts are also good bets.

Before You Grill
Leaner cuts can be tough unless you treat them right. The secret? Acid, baby. Ingredients like vinegar or lemon juice will help break down toughness. “Marinate these cuts for at least 12 hours for maximum effectiveness,” says Steven Raichlen, author of The Barbecue Bible and How to Grill and host of BBQ University on PBS. A good marinade mixes one part acidic ingredients with two parts flavorful liquids like soy sauce, fruit juice, beer, or wine, plus mustard and spices.

The Heat Is On
Go ahead, turn up the heat. “Beef should be grilled over a high heat and turned as soon as little pearls of blood start to accumulate on top of the steak,” Raichlen says. Once you’ve cooked your steak to perfection — 4 to 6 minutes per side for a 1-inch-thick steak — let it stand a few minutes before slicing. “The juices flow back throughout the meat, making for a more succulent main course,” Raichlen says.

Grilling Gaffe
Pressing down on your burgers as they cook. Sure, the sizzling sounds cool, but you’re committing a mortal sin in grilling circles: squeezing out juices that add flavor and keep beef moist.

Safety First
According to the USDA, one out of every four burgers turns brown in the middle before it’s safe to eat — so peeking inside won’t work. “A safe inside temperature for ground beef is 160 degrees Fahrenheit; medium-rare steaks should reach 145 degrees,” says Shelley Feist, executive director of the Partnership for Food Safety Education. Use a food thermometer like Polder’s ($19, Polder Kitchen and Housewares).

Extra Credit
Cut the fat after you grill. Most beef cuts have 8 to 1/4 inches of fat on the outside of the cut, says Elizabeth Karmel, author of Taming the Flame: Secrets for Hot-and-Quick Grilling and Low-and-Slow BBQ. “Leave this fat during the grilling process. It helps the meat retain its juices better. Cut off the fat afterward.”

Poultry

Pick the Right Kind
Beware if going with ground. “A good chunk of ground chicken and turkey is blended with the skin, really bumping up the fat and calories,” says Leslie Bonci, R.D., a nutritionist with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Look for “extra lean” on the label of prepackaged turkey, or have a butcher grind your meat for you, she says. If you don’t want ground meat, skinless chicken breast is the little black dress of cooking — it’s perfect everywhere, and it works as well on the grill as it does on the range.

Before You Grill
If you’re struggling with dry chicken breasts, a brine (1 tablespoon of salt plus 1 tablespoon of sugar plus 1 cup of water) is a good alternative to a marinade. “The salt in brine helps keep chicken breasts moist,” Raichlen says. While chicken needs only a 2-hour brine, turkey should be brined overnight, since the cuts tend to be bigger and have thicker skins. You can add a sweetener like molasses or honey to the brine to boost flavor.

The Heat Is On
If you’re cooking boneless meat, use high heat for 3 to 6 minutes. For bone-in pieces, grill over medium heat for 12 to 15 minutes, starting with the bone side down. Keep the lid closed — “opening the lid too often reduces the temperature, increasing grilling time,” Raichlen says.

Grilling Gaffe
Slathering on BBQ sauce — it’s too sugary. “Sugar burns when exposed to heat for too long, resulting in charring before the meat is cooked through,” Raichlen says. Stick to marinades and spice rubs. If you can’t live without your BBQ sauce, apply it at the very end of cooking to get the flavor without the burn.

Safety First
Cook ground poultry to 165 and whole cuts like breasts to 170. For the most accurate readings, don’t let the thermometer touch bone.

Extra Credit
Soak rosemary sprigs in water for 30 minutes, then lay an 8- by 6-inch bed of them on the grill — thick enough so that you don’t see the cooking grate underneath. “By placing your chicken directly on top, the rosemary will scent your food,” Karmel says.

Source: Karen Vaughn Working Divas Blog

CLEVELAND – Cleveland police report that a missing 12-year-old girl was found early Wednesday morning on the city’s east side.

Cayla Bolton was reported missing on May 5 by her mother. She was found at about 3 a.m. in the Garden Valley Apartments at E. 79th and Kinsman.

Police said that an arrest has been made in connection with the case, but no other details have been released yet. 
No word on Bolton’s condition.

Keep checking newsnet5.com for the latest information.

Source

CHICAGO, IL – The social net for high school dropouts is gone forever. When the manufacturing base in the U.S. was strong, a young man could drop out of high school and safely land at a factory with an $18 an hour job. Today, young African American males are dropping out of high school at the highest rate of any group with only a net of barbed wire to catch them.

According to Jawanza Kunjufu, national education consultant and author of the newly released Reducing the Black Male Dropout Rate, ninth grade is the critical year for making the decision to physically drop out, but the seeds were planted much earlier and nurtured by academic failure.

The dropout rate for African American females is 41 percent, but for African American males it’s 52 percent. According to Education Week 26 (”Diplomas Count 2008″), each year, more than half of the 1.2 million students who fail to graduate from high school are Black and Latino. The Schott Foundation reports that 2,000 high schools in 20 cities are contributing to almost 80 percent of the dropout rate.

“The causes are many, but academic failure, social promotions, grade padding, poor teacher quality, low parental involvement, and post traumatic slavery disorder lead the way,” says Dr. Kunjufu.

Eighty-nine percent of African American eighth graders compute below grade level. Many of these students are socially promoted to ninth grade, despite the fact that they are not ready. In low-income high schools, half of African American students read below the sixth grade level. When these students find themselves in high school, unequipped to meet the rigors of algebra, biology, literature, and other first year subjects, they begin to seriously consider dropping out.

It is at this critical moment that Dr. Kunjufu seeks to save them.

Who’s To Blame?
There is no shortage of finger pointing in the media regarding the Black male dropout crisis. Dr. Kunjufu relates one study where school staff blamed parents and students – and parents and students blamed school staff.

Dr. Kunjufu takes all stakeholders to task – schools, the community, parents, and students. “There is plenty of blame to go around, plenty of responsibility that must be shared if we are to reduce the dropout rate,” says Dr. Kunjufu. “It’s all too easy to blame schools, but schools only have children nine percent of the time. It’s also easy to blame the victims in this crisis, Black males. But they desperately need our help.”

What We Can Do
Dr. Kunjufu lays out a comprehensive blueprint, and challenge, to schools, communities, parents, and students. The following highlights the major changes that must take place to get Black male students up to speed academically and to prevent them from dropping out:

Schools:
* Reduce principal and teacher turnover
* Improve teacher quality
* Implement a right brain Africentric curriculum
* Implement a school improvement plan with higher graduation and GPA targets
* Make schools safe

Communities
* Implement Saturday Academies
* Churches adopt schools
* Make communities safe
* Increase the number of Black male mentors

Parents
* Read to children, and have them read aloud (daily)
* Single mothers, keep the boyfriend out of the house
* Fathers, be a consistent, strong presence in your son’s life
* Adopt an authoritative style of parenting

Students
* Choose friends wisely
* Allocate necessary time each day for reading, study, homework
* Develop a winner’s psychology
* Learn to manage thoughts, emotions, and actions

Reducing the Black Male Dropout Rate is a book of hope. Dr. Kunjufu challenges Black males to take responsibility for their own lives. Schools, communities, and parents can do a lot, but ultimately change will occur only when African American male students begin to feel empowered and self-confident that they can master the school environment.

Source

Jones is calling for leaders around the country to join him by gathering community members and having a moment of silence on May 19th from 12 noon to 1pm. During this moment of silence people of all religious backgrounds will ask the creator for peace and the safety of the man, husband, and father Mr. Barack Obama.

“We may have different political agendas but at the end of the day life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is every American’s Dream. No matter where you’re from we have more similarities than differences. We all want peace!” says Jones.

The Peace movement will take place from California to New York where millions will follow the lead of Cleveland, Ohio’s “Moment of Silence” at the Free Stamp in Downtown Cleveland.

Please continue to listen to Newstalk 1490 WERE-AM, streaming live on www.newstalkcleveland.com, follow us on Twitter@newstalk1490 and Facebook for updates and details.

For more information please contact 216-579-1111 or email rhorne@radio-one.com

According to him, any child would think that someone taller and bigger is a monster. Monique was 7 years old when the molestations occurred. Gerald doesn’t go into detail about the acts and I’m sure no one would want to picture that, but he does admit that he is sorry. He wants to rebuild the relationship with his family and sister.

I leave you with this, should he be given that chance, should Monique forgive him?

Michelle Obama has openly made her health and fitness a priority, a first for any first lady. As Editor-in-Chief of Prevention magazine, I wanted to know more. We met recently, and she shared her rules for living a balanced lifestyle. Here, in her words, are her 9 essential moves for staying happy and healthy:

1) Allow Yourself to Be Happy

Good health is multifaceted—it’s physical, it’s internal, it’s my diet, and my emotional state. It’s all tied together. Throughout my life, I’ve learned to make choices that make me happy and make sense for me. Even my husband is happier when I’m happy. He has always said, “You figure out what you want to do,” because he’s discovered that personal happiness is connected to everything.

2) Find Balance as a Mother

I think my mother taught me what not to do. She put us first, always, sometimes to the detriment of herself. She encouraged me not to do that. She’d say being a good mother isn’t all about sacrificing; it’s really investing and putting yourself higher on your priority list. You can be a good mom and still work out, get your rest, have a career—or not. She encouraged me to find that balance.

3) Make Yourself a Priority

I have freed myself to put me on the priority list and say, yes, I can make choices that make me happy, and it will ripple and benefit my kids, my husband, and my physical health. That’s hard for women to own; we’re not taught to do that. It’s a lesson that I want to teach my girls so they don’t wait for their “aha” moment until they’re in their 30s like I was (laughs). Maybe they can experience it a little earlier.

4) Embrace Your Age

Nothing really scares me about aging. I look at my mom—she’s 72, and she’s happy and looks great. To me, with age, everything has gotten better. You have way more control; you know yourself better. My goal is to be a great-looking 70-year-old! I won’t mind being 70, but I want people to say, “You’re 70?”

5) Define Your Own Happiness

You know, happiness for me really is when my kids are good and when my family is whole. Moving [to the White House], whatever stresses would be on my husband and me, we could handle; we are grown-ups. But it wouldn’t be until the day that my kids came home and said to me, “I like it here,” that I’d feel like I could breathe and know that we’re all going to be okay here. And that happened very early into the year. My happiness is measured against theirs—when they’re in a good place, I feel really good.

6) Get Healthy While You’re Young

I always want to be in the best shape that I can be. What I’m discovering is that the older you get, the more work you have to do to stay there. When I was younger, I could eat whatever I wanted, as long as I exercised; or if I didn’t exercise and just watched what I ate, I’d maintain. Well, now I have to do both. I’m varying my workouts so it’s not just cardio but also includes moves to maintain my flexibility. I incorporated Pilates and do much more stretching. I try to tell young people to get in shape now, because it’s easier. If you’re 30 and want to drop 10 pounds, all you have to do is just walk (laughs).

7) Do Workouts You Enjoy

I’ll do intervals because I don’t run long and those are killer, so I’m always happy when I’m finished. I enjoy arm exercises because you can actually see what it’s hitting.

From Karen Vaughn – Working Divas

If you thought you knew gospel artist Kirk Franklin through his music and interviews about his porn addiction and childhood abandonment, think again. The seven-time Grammy award winner opens up further in his new autobiography, due to hit shelves on May 18.

This time, however, he provides a blueprint to help others triumph over life’s challenges through his powerful and awe-inspiring life story in ‘Kirk Franklin: The Blueprint, A Plan for Living above Life’s Storms.’ Developing a blueprint includes embracing “non-sexies” or good works that do not involve obvious payoffs, examining your relationships with others and establishing a good support team.

“I didn’t have any blueprint when I was coming up, any kind of instruction manual on how to be a man,” he writes. “All you have to do is look at any city corner to know that my education was flawed. And so was my behavior. Many of us had either no blueprint or a bad one — maybe you had to be a daddy to a drunk daddy or mama to a mama who was raising you all alone.”

Franklin’s blueprint looked like this: His father abandoned him at an early age, and his mother flat out told him she did not want him. She eventually left him in the hands of an impoverished and un-nurturing aunt.

READ MORE

Contrary to what the news is reporting we are still not out of the woods with this economic crisis. People still need jobs and home owners are still struggling to keep their heads above water. Back in March, the Obama Administration announced new initiatives to aid homeowners. The program enhancement is aimed at supporting homeowners that are behind in their mortgages due to unemployment and borrowers who owe more on their house than it is worth.

Look below to see if you are eligible:

If you are unemployed or have a reduction in income you may qualify for a mortgage payment reduction:

The company servicing your mortgage will be required to offer at least three, and up to six, months of reduced payments.

During that time, you won’t have to pay more than 31 percent of your monthly income toward the mortgage.

You have to live in the home to qualify.

The mortgage balance has to be less than $729,750, with a monthly payment that represents more than 31 percent of the gross monthly income of all borrowers who signed your mortgage, before you subtract anything for taxes or deductions.
If one person in the household works and one is unemployed, you will not be eligible if the loan payment is under 31 percent of your current total household income.

Lastly, you need to prove that you are receiving unemployment benefits and ask for help within 90 days of any late payments.
Note: The lowered payments would revert to the regular amounts once you got a job, if you became employed before the three- to six-month period ended.
If you are underwater, you owe more than your home is worth, you can seek help from your mortgage company:
The company that controls your mortgage might reduce your principal. (something that wasn’t happening much before.) The government is offering additional incentives for companies to do so.
Your property will need to be worth at least 15 percent less than the value of your first mortgage for you to qualify. If your mortgage has already been modified to lower your interest and monthly payments, you may still be eligible.
To qualify, you need to live in your home, have a mortgage under $729,750 and have a mortgage payment more than 31 percent of your gross monthly income.
Any principal forgiveness will take place in three equal amounts over the course of three years but only if you make your mortgage payments on time.

Note: Banks are not required to participate.
I hope this information has been helpful. Please check back next week, we will be discussing another hot topic.
It is my desire that you are inspired to be a good steward over these three areas of your life: Time, Talent, and Treasure. Time, you must learn to manage your time; talent you have skills and gifts and lastly treasure, your finances need to be managed appropriately. All of these areas work together; when they are managed properly you will be able to become A BETTER YOU!
Pastor George

Disclaimer: The goal of this of this blog is to review various issues and concerns that you might experience on your financial journey. The author will not be liable with respect to any direct or indirect loss or damage cause or alleged to be caused by the use of these materials.

Also see what Michelle Obama has been up to READ HERE

Recap: Cavs 96, Bulls 83 (Or, 15: Cavs get their first win of the playoffs in semi-convincing fashion)

The Cavaliers outscored the Bulls 56-41 in the first half of a 96-83 victory in game 1 of the play offs. The Bulls were able to make a run late in the game to cut the lead to single-digits, but the Cavaliers were able to hold them off and get their first victory of the 2010 postseason. LeBron James led the Cavaliers with 24 points, and Derrick Rose led all scorers with 28 for the Bulls. Shaquille O’Neal had 12 points, five rebounds, and four assists in his first game since February.

Cavs-Related Bullets:

Everyone knew coming in that the Cavs are a much more talented team than the Bulls. In the first half, it looked like Cleveland also wanted the win much more than the Bulls did. That’s a very effective combination. The Cavs weren’t running their offense like they’re capable of doing, but they were getting every loose ball and offensive rebound. On top of that, they forced plenty of turnovers, and guys were making their shots.

Even though the Cavs weren’t running the sets they usually do, everything they tried worked. Shaq was a monster in the post. Mo was aggressive and making shots off the dribble. Jamison and Mo were able to work a nice pick-and-roll game for back-to-back layups.

It also can’t be emphasized enough just how badly things were going for the Bulls in the first half. They weren’t getting good looks on offense. They committed too many silly fouls that cost them possessions. They were getting beaten to every loose ball. If the Bulls want to take a game from the Cavs, I’m not sure they can afford to play like that for a quarter, let alone a half.

READ MORE…

It’s time to make that special woman in your life smile….MOM! Mother and Me brunch on Saturday May 8th at the Cleveland improv at the powerhouse in the flats. You and Your mom will enjoy a Brunch Buffett, tons of Mother’s Day giveaways and a host of comedians and other entertainment. Plus, each mom will receive a special Mother’s Day gift bag.

Featuring the eclectic sounds of the live band The Funny Sound

Tickets on sale at the Improv Comedy Club