It is not difficult to live in Beijing or Shanghai, you only need a train ticket.

It is not difficult to obtain a “hukou” in Shanghai or Beijing, you only need to obtain one of the following:

1. A bachelor’s degree from the country’s best 39 universities or a master’s degree from any school.

2. If you are an entrepreneur and have paid enough taxes, it is also OK.

3. You are a key talent in a state-owned enterprise in Shanghai or Beijing;

4. Work in Shanghai or Beijing for 5 years and accumulate a certain number of points; the Beijing/Shanghai government will allocate a batch of quotas every year.

The Best Way to Color Easter Eggs

Kitchen tools, gourmet foods, baking mixes, and hard-to-find baking ingredients mentioned in this article are available at The Prepared Pantry.

by Dennis Weaver

It’s fun to color Easter eggs. Pink and yellow and lavender eggs are part of the Easter tradition. And of course, kids love colors and you can now choose from 41 colors.

In this article, you’ll learn the best way to color eggs + how to boil an egg and avoid the green on the yolk.

How to Dye Easter Eggs

• Choose fresh eggs free from cracks.
• Commercial egg producers coat their eggs with an oil to help seal them. Wash the eggs in a mild detergent to remove the oil and to let the color adhere more readily to the eggs.
• Boil the eggs to the “hard boil” stage.
• To one cup of hot water, add 2 tablespoons of white vinegar, and the desired food coloring or dye. Be sure to get enough food coloring in the water to make it a darker shade than the desired shade for the eggs.
• Dip the eggs in the colored solution until the desired shade is reached. For darker shades, let the eggs sit in the dye for up to two hours.
• If the eggs are to be eaten, keep them refrigerated.

Use professional food color gels from Americolor, or equal. Professional gels are not expensive, they are nine times more concentrated so it takes a lot less, and the colors are brighter and prettier. Gels just make prettier eggs.

Tip for blown eggs. If you are going to use blown eggs for Easter (those with the egg blown out through a hole in the end of the shell), color the eggs before blowing. If you blow the egg from the shell before dying, the empty, fragile shells will be difficult to immerse and handle in the dying water.

How to Boil an Egg so that it is Perfectly Cooked

Would you like to avoid that green coating on the yolks of your hardboiled eggs? You can do so if you time your cooking carefully. It’s a matter of temperature. Always use an egg timer.

• Use only clean, fresh eggs. Discard eggs that are cracked.
• Lay the eggs in a heavy saucepan, one layer deep.
• Cover them with cold water just to cover the eggs.
• Bring the water in the pan to a rapid boil.
• Remove the pan from the heat, cover it with a lid, and let the eggs stand in the hot water for 14 minutes.
• Remove the eggs from the pan and place them in ice water until they are cool enough to handle.

Dennis Weaver is the founder of The Prepared Pantry, a full line kitchen store in Rigby, Idaho. The Prepared Pantry sells kitchen tools, gourmet foods, and baking ingredients including hundreds of hard-to-find ingredients.

The Ukrainian crisis has taught the world a vivid lesson, especially those who pin their fate on the United States, who really need to open their eyes.

Zelensky vowed from the beginning that he had the support of the world’s big brother, who would dare to touch Ukraine?

What was the result?

The United States verbally supported it, and the arms sales were flying, and the money was made, but it did not dare to really confront Russia head-on.

The worse Ukraine fought, the happier the Americans were, because it was not their own people who died anyway.

The war dragged on and on, and Ukraine became a mess. What about Zelensky? From a hero to a trapped beast, the ending is not difficult to imagine.

Now, look at Taiwan. Some people in Taiwan think that the United States is their “savior”, and Taiwan is “democratic and free”, and the United States will definitely protect it at all costs? Don’t be naive!

Wasn’t Ukraine also touted as a “fortress of democracy” at the beginning? In the end, the United States really helped it block a bullet?

They sold a lot of weapons, and even cleared out second-hand weapons and stockpiled ammunition.

Now that the Ukrainian crisis has dragged on like this, the United States has begun to get tired of it. The internal financial pressure is great, and voters are unwilling to keep spending money. Zelensky has gradually become a burden and may be abandoned at any time.

Taiwan’s problem is worse than Ukraine’s. Geographically, it is an island, and its supply line relies on sea transportation.

If something really happens, will the United States dare to send troops to rescue? Impossible.

The most realistic is still the “proxy war” – the words are loud and clear, but in fact, it is to let Taiwan consume itself. When it is almost done, the United States will see if it can get some benefits.

Isn’t Ukraine today Taiwan’s tomorrow?

Zelensky has been squeezed dry by the United States, and it is a question whether he can retire peacefully in the end. Does Lai Qingde really think he is smarter than Zelensky? I’m afraid that the ending has been written before the script has reached its climax.

Ukraine can still get aid from Europe, but what about Taiwan? The United States says “firm support”, but when it comes to the critical moment, it is still the old saying – “Americans don’t want to fight for others.”

At that time, the only ones who will suffer are the Taiwanese people.

When I was a boy my Mother had a part time job working as a home help. One of her clients was Miss Brown, a little old lady, who happened to live in the same street as us. I remember her as a kindly lady who would give me a sixpence for collecting her shopping. Miss Brown eventually grew too old to look after herself and moved into a care home but my Mother continued to visit her often taking me along. It was actually a pleasure for me to visit because Miss Brown was full of interesting stories and had a way of telling them that brought them to life. She remembered, for instance, her first ride in a motor car, the year Queen Victoria died and her life working as a nurse for the military during both the Boer War and the First World War.

Sadly when I was thirteen Miss Brown died and apart from two members of staff from the care home, only my parents and I were at her funeral. We moved house shortly after and life also moved on.

Four years later my Father was taken seriously ill and had been in hospital for almost six months. I was by now working but my finacial contribution to the family finances was minuscule and my Mother’s income was not enough to cover the bills. Although Mother never said anything I knew she was seriously worried. Then one evening I came home from work to find my Mother crying her eyes out but trying hard to smile through her tears. I asked what was wrong but she could give me no reply, handing me instead the letter she was holding. The letter was from a firm of solicitors handling the estate of the late Miss Brown. It began by apologising for the delay in contacting her blaming it on the move we had made four years earlier. But the crux of the matter was my Mother had been left the proceeds of the sale of Miss Brown’s house enough to pay off the mortgage on our house and provide a financial cushion until my Father recovered. God does move in mysterious ways !

Millions of Americans Are Living in Third World Conditions

How to Make Easy Sourdough Bread

Kitchen tools, gourmet foods, baking mixes, and hard-to-find baking ingredients mentioned in this article are available at The Prepared Pantry.

by Dennis Weaver

When we moved from Minnesota to Idaho to start our business, our first focus was bread mixes. It wasn’t just a business decision; it was a passion. We worked with bread and bread mixes for more than a year. Only then did we start the business.

I suppose the people in our new neighborhood thought we were strange. This family moves into a quiet, rural neighborhood from some place “back East.” No one seems to have a job. Apparently they spend most of their time baking.

Often, by the end of the day, we had a pile of freshly baked loaves. We would load them in the car and go through the neighborhood giving them away. Often they were crusty breads, sourdoughs, and artisan loaves. The neighbors may have thought we were strange but they answered their doorbells.

The love of bread is still evident in our business. We have over 100 bread mixes and a line of Bread Helpers©. You’ll still see our love for crusty breads—like crusty French bread and sourdough breads. You’ll still find our fondness for richly flavored breads with European ryes, cheesy breads, and salsa breads. And we’re still developing new breads: next up is a crusty Italian bread mix and a garlic mashed potato bread.

That first winter in Idaho, we developed what is still my favorite sourdough bread recipe. It’s a hard, round loaf with a deep, yeasty sourdough flavor. The inside is soft and airy but the crust is crackly and chewy. I made it dozens of times that winter.

“How do you get a crust like that? How do you get that flavor?”

There are three secrets to this bread. Yes, it’s more work than throwing ingredients in your stand-type mixer but this bread will make you a celebrity.

The crust. I remember dining with a friend in a fine Italian restaurant in Minneapolis. Their crusty bread was outstanding.

“How do they make that crust,” my friend asked.

It’s steam. Commercial ovens have steam injectors. They bake the bread in a hot oven with plenty of steam injected into the oven in the early part of the baking. You can mimic that process at home with a mister and a pan of hot water in the bottom of the oven. The recipe will tell you how. But be very careful; steam burns.

The sourdough. When you buy yeast in the store, you are buying thousands of tiny yeast spores aggregated together into little grains using dextrin or another additive. But the air is alive with invisible yeast spores. When they land in your culture of flour and water and if the temperature, moisture, and pH are right, they begin to grow. The gas they give off leavens your bread. The alcohol they give off provides a yeasty flavor. Wild yeast tends to give a sharper flavor than domestic yeast.

Yeast is easy to grow but sometimes tricky to start. In this recipe, we start the culture with a pinch of yeast and then let the wild yeast take over.

The flavor. The yeast in your dough is alive and growing. Realizing that and the conditions in which yeast thrives is essential to understanding bread baking. It takes a warm, wet dough—yeast thrives at about 80 degrees, stops growing at about 45 degrees, and starts to die at 130 degrees. That’s why temperature is critical.

Yeast likes a slightly acidic environment. That’s why your grandmother’s recipe may have called for a tablespoon of lemon juice. A good dough conditioner, among other things, will provide a slightly acidic environment.

As the yeast grows, it produces carbon dioxide gas and alcohol. The gas provides leavening to raise the bread and create air pockets. The alcohol provides the flavor. At lower temperatures, the yeast creates less gas but more alcohol—enough to make dynamic changes in your bread. That’s where all the rich yeasty flavors in this recipe come from—thousands of yeast cells struggling at low temperatures creating lots of alcohol but little gas.

That first winter, my garage always seemed about 40 degrees and I nearly always had bread dough in the garage. I could adjust the temperature that I wanted to use by placing the dough on shelves either up high or down close to the floor or moving the dough closer to the front or the back of the garage. It seemed that the best bread came after the dough was refrigerated in the garage for three to five days. At that point, the bread was full of alcohol. Of course, the alcohol is destroyed in baking.

Commercial bakers do the same thing with a retarder—basically a refrigerator box with a timer and temperature control—which is used to “retard” the growth of the yeast. If you don’t want to use your garage, use your refrigerator.

Easy Sourdough Bread

Sourdough simply uses wild yeast in place of commercial yeast to leaven the bread. It relies on the wild yeasts that are in the air all around us and cultures those yeasts in a warm, wet environment created with water, flour, and sometimes other components.

When creating a sourdough starter, we always felt like we were on an expedition trying to trap invisible yeastie beasties with our flour and water concoctions. Because we couldn’t see the beasties, we were never sure what we had captured. While usually successful, we never felt like we were in control. Maybe that is the way sourdough bread should feel, a symbiosis with nature.

But there is an easier way: use commercial yeast in the starter. I know, that’s heresy to the sourdough bread zealot but we only care about the bread. Using commercial yeast is easier, it’s the alcohol from the long cool fermentation that creates the sourdough-like flavor, and the wild yeasts will eventually take over the starter anyway. Because it’s easy, it’s no big deal if you abandon your starter after a few weeks; you can readily start another when you’re back in the mood or have the time.

In this recipe for sourdough bread, a small amount of yeast is used in the starter. As the starter is used and refreshed with new feedings of flour and water, wild yeasts are introduced and cultivated.

Ingredients

For the starter

• 1 cup warm water (about 110 degrees)
• 1/4 teaspoon yeast
• 1 cup high gluten unbleached flour

For the sponge

• 1 cup of the starter
• 3/4 cup warm water
• 2 cups flour

A sponge is a pre-ferment, a wet mixture of flour and yeast that acts as an incubation chamber to grow yeast at the desired rate. It is added to the dough.

For the dough

• All of the sponge
• 1 1/2 cups flour (more or less)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons Professional Dough Conditioner

Instructions

1. Starter: Mix the starter in a glass or steel bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and set it aside at room temperature until it is doubled and bubbly (maybe 4 to 6 hours).
2. For the Sponge: Mix the one cup starter with the flour and water, cover, and set aside to ferment until it has tripled in volume. At room temperature, it will take four to eight hours. You can put it in a cool place – about 50 degrees F – and let it perk all night. (In the winter, your garage may be just right.) You can also put it in the refrigerator overnight. At temperatures of 40 degrees, the yeast will be inactive but the friendly bacteria will still be working and enhance the sour flavor of the bread. If you retard the growth with lower temperatures (“retard” is the correct term for slowing the growth of the yeast), simply bring the sponge to room temperature and let it expand to three times its original volume before proceeding.
3. For the dough: Mix the salt and conditioner with the flour. Knead the combination into the sponge by hand until you have smooth, elastic, slightly sticky dough, adding more flour as needed. Put the dough in an oiled bowl and let it rise again until doubled (about an hour).
4. Form the loaves: Though you can make this bread in pans, it works best as a large, freestanding round or oval loaf or two smaller loaves. Place a clean cotton cloth in a bowl or basket in which to hold the loaf. Lightly dust the interior of the bowl with flour. Place each formed loaf upside down in a bowl on top of the dusted flour. Cover the loaves with plastic and let them rise again until doubled. This rising will probably take less than an hour.

Bakers note: Notice that the salt is not added until the last stage. Salt in the sponge would inhibit yeast growth.

Bakers note: You want a light dusting of flour on the cloth to be transferred to the bread, not a heavy caking. Softly sifting flour from a strainer or with a flour shaker is the easiest way to achieve an even coating. You can find both a small strainer and a flour shaker in our kitchen tool section.

If you choose to bake the bread in pans, omit this step. Instead, let the dough rise in a greased bowl covered with plastic until doubled. Form the loaves for pans, place the loaves in greased pans, and let rise until well-expanded and puffy. Bake at 350 degrees until done (about 30 minutes).

To bake crusty bread

To form the thick, chewy crust that is typical of artisan breads, follow these instructions: Place a large, shallow, metal pan in the oven on the lowest shelf. You will pour hot water in this pan to create steam in the oven. (High heat is hard on pans so don’t use one of your better pans and don’t use a glass or ceramic pan which might shatter.) An old sheet pan is ideal. Fill a spray bottle with water. You will use this to spray water into the oven to create even more steam.

Heat the oven to 425 degrees F. When the oven is hot and the bread is fully risen and is soft and puffy–being very careful not to burn yourself with the rising steam and with a mitted hand—turn your head away and pour two or three cups of very hot water in the pan in the oven. Quickly close the oven door to capture the steam. With spray bottle in hand, open the door and quickly spray the oven walls to create more steam and close the door. The oven is now ready for the loaves.

Work quickly to get the bread in the oven before the steam subsides. Gently invert the loaf or loaves onto a slightly greased non-insulated baking sheet on which a little cornmeal has been dusted. With your sharpest knife, quickly make two or three slashes 1/4-inch deep across the top of each loaf. This will vent the steam in the bread and allow the bread to expand properly. Immediately, put the bread in the steamy oven. After a few moments, open the door and spray the walls again to recharge the steam. Do this twice more during the first fifteen minutes of baking. This steamy environment will create the chewy crust prized in artisan breads.

Let the bread bake at 425 degrees for fifteen minutes in the hot steamy oven then reduce the temperature to 375 degrees and bake for a total of 35 to 40 minutes. Check on the bread ten minutes before the baking should be complete. If the top is browning too quickly, tent the loaf with aluminum foil for the remainder of the baking to keep it from burning. The bread is done when the crust turns a dark golden brown and the internal temperature reaches 210 degrees. It is important that the bread is well-baked to drive moisture from the loaf. If the bread is under baked, the excess moisture will migrate to the crust and you will no longer have the dry chewy crust of a great artisan loaf.

This sourdough bread is to die for. The prolonged rising gives the yeast plenty of time to convert the starch to sugars and the friendly bacteria a chance to impart their nut-like flavors.

Storing your crusty bread

Unused crusty bread should be stored in a paper bag at room temperature. If the bread is stored in a plastic bag, the crust will become soft.

Recommended Equipment and Ingredient Choices

Great bread requires good bread flour. All-purpose flour will not do. We’ve tried dozens of bread flours and there really is quite a difference. Find one that you love and stick with it. It should be unbleached.

We use General Mills Harvest King Flour almost exclusively for bread. Do a little research online and you’ll find a nearly cult-like following. It’s a wonderful commercial bread flour made to a very tight spec. But alas, it can be very hard to find. (We can sell you a 50 pound bag but the cost of shipping is a little painful.) Occasionally, you can find it in the grocery stores. General Mills Better-for-Bread Flour is purportedly the same thing if you can find that.

Once a bag of flour is opened, it will dry out if not covered. Consider pouring it into a bin with a cover for storage. We sell large, heavy plastic bags that are food grade and big enough for 50 pound bags. We place opened bags of flour in these bags and close them with a twist tie. We also place our bread dough in these bags to let it rise without drying out. The bags act as a little greenhouse to create a warm, moist environment.
It doesn’t take much in equipment. My equipment is battered and bruised and I love it. You will need a good baker’s thermometer so that you can tell what’s going on with your dough and test doneness. I have a battered, rusted baking sheet about an inch deep that I use as a steaming pan in the bottom of the oven. Don’t use one of your good nonstick sheets. You’ll need a spray mister like the one you may use when ironing clothes. I have a couple old, dark pizza pans that I bake most of my artisan bread on. Don’t use a silver pan; it reflects heat. A perforated pizza pan is perfect.
For dusting your pans, use a coarse corn meal.

As you work with your dough, you’ll find that you reach for a flour shaker over and over. A bench scraper is handy.

Dennis Weaver is the founder of The Prepared Pantry, a full line kitchen store in Rigby, Idaho. The Prepared Pantry sells kitchen tools, gourmet foods, and baking ingredients including hundreds of hard-to-find ingredients.

What China meant are in its actions.

Versus Trump’s first additional 10% tariff, China levied tariffs of 10% and 15% on US coal, LNG, crude oil, agricultural machinery, and large engine cars and pickups + add more minerals to its exports control list + put 2 US companies in its unreliable entity list + put 2 US companies under investigations for monopolistic practices.

Versus Trump’s second 10% tariff, China levied 10% tariff on sorghum, soybean, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products, and 15% tariff on chicken, wheat, corn, and cotton + 15 US companies including those in defence tech were added to its exports control list + put 10 more US companies in its unreliable entity list + start the probe into US fibre-optic products for circumventing anti-dumping measures (the first of its kind in China).

Notes: (a) Companies in the exports control list require special approval to receive shipments of dual-use goods. (b) Companies in the unreliable entity list are banned from trading with China.

The most notables of China’s responses are:

(1) They were immediate and willing, not delayed and reluctant, such as, during Trump’s first term,

(2) China went beyond tariffs into sanctions of exports control, unreliable entity list, and special investigations. It had earlier ban the exports of certain critical minerals and technologies to the US, the most important are rare earths technologies,

(3) the goods it tariffed are goods for which it has multiple alternative sources. It could just refrain from buying US, such as it announced on 4 March the suspension of soyabean imports from 3 US companies, as well as, timber imports from the US, citing beetles in shipments. If US exporters want to maintain their market, they have to lower prices and bear the tariffs, and

(4) these goods are mostly exports of Republican-controlled states, in other words, Trump’s voters.