Valley's economic outlook mixed
07.10.11
It was something limited of a scientific survey, but when the Sonoma Valley Economic Maturation Partnership sent out a "how-are-you-doing?" study to the "Tops in Sonoma" business honoree laundry list, the results - announced at the annual "Tops" acceptance breakfast Sept. 30 - revealed a business ambience slowly on the mend.
The survey asked three categories of questions:
• How is your subject doing?
• What are your plans and outlook for the coming year?
• What are the issues you are fa?
Fifteen of the top businesses in the Valley responded, representing more than 1,000 jobs in lodging, retail, restaurants, services and manufacturing, located both within and case city limits.
Asked how their businesses were doing this year over 2010, 53 percent answered "significantly haler," 40 percent answered "marginally better," and 7 percent said "about the same." In total number, 93 percent of respondents reported their businesses were doing outdo than last year.
Source: Sonoma Index-Tribune
Donna Maurillo, Food For Thought: Everyday recipes, elevated, thanks to latest ...
05.10.11
Whenever I settle home and see a package from America's Test Kitchens on my doorstep, I positive it's going to be like Christmas. The publishers of Cook's Illustrated, the totalitarian bible for home cooks who want to perform like the pros, always introduce an incomparable collection of recipes.
This time, they sent me the "Cook's Illustrated Cookbook" [America's Probe Kitchen, October 2011; 890 pages; $40], with 2,000 recipes from 20 years of the ammunition's issues. Now, you might ask yourself, "Why should I buy this book when I already have saved every issue of Cook's Illustrated?"
Suppose of it this way. It's the easy way to find your favorites all between two covers and with an index. If you prefer, go before and leaf through your magazines. Me? I want the information right at my fingertips.
Here's why the lyrics is great. Christopher Kimball, Cook's Illustrated's falter and editor, is always cranking out magazines and cookbooks with recipes that have been tested until the perfect solution of ingredients and techniques has been teased out. Then he tells why some tests failed and why others succeeded. You learn the "why," not justifiable the "what." Second, he can cook circles around Martha Stewart. In actually, I'll bet money that she wishes she could be this good.
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel