| Photo By Gerald E. McLeod
The Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, northwest of Lubbock, looks like a French landscape painting. The rolling hills covered in a sea of long-stemmed prairie grass seem to move in waves, pushed by the relentless wind under an endless sky. The simplicity of the color palette of this small square of the giant quilt of the state's ecosystems gives the park an uncommon beauty. "We have a guy from England who visits us every year in the summer on his vacation," says Harold Beierman, manager of the federal preserve. "I guess he comes for the view and the experience." Muleshoe NWR was the first of 15 wildlife refuges in Texas maintained by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the refuge by executive order in 1935. The 5,809 acres were once part of the XIT Ranch and later the Muleshoe ranches.
A sweet discovery
2205 Wilton Drive, Wilton Manors; 954-564-2987; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. tothemoonmarketplace.com.
Owner: Antonio Dumas
Wow factor: With more than 6,000 items in 1,100 square feet, Dumas stocks hard-to-find candy and other confections from 42 countries and every region of the United States. There are also gag gifts, novelties and gourmet foods.
Editor's picks: I grew up in Canada and found two chocolate bars -- as we call candy bars back home -- from my childhood: Sweet Marie ($1.79) and Coffee Crisp (99 cents). But there is candy from Austria, Germany and Israel to name just a few. Stateside, To the Moon has Choward's Violet Scented Gum (99 cents) from New York, Pearson's Nut Goodie bars (99 cents) from Minnesota and Abba Zabba bars (99 cents) from California.
A mother is tested at 350 degrees
My mother was a very good mother. Her three children turned out rather nicely, if I do say so myself. We all have good teeth and write prompt thank-you notes and not one of us has spent the night in jail, well, not recently. And the thing was, my mother couldn't bake. I bring this all up because of the cupcakes. I love to cook, but baking is chemistry and, had it not been for my math-major boyfriend, I would have failed chemistry. Unlike cooking, you can't play with a dish once the thing is in the oven, which you can't say about a stew. Plus, it has to look good. In that regard, baking is the trophy wife of gastronomy. I have precisely one dessert in my repertoire, an almost flourless chocolate cake that I pilfered from my Great-Aunt Nancy. It never fails to please because it is made with copious amounts of butter and premium chocolate.
Navi Mumbai getting its share of luxury
Vashi2Panvel.Com : Navi Mumbai : April 13: The proposed international airport coming up in Navi Mumbai has already started attracting lifestyle and leisure spots here. With the new galleria of malls and restaurants, the city is surely getting quite a glamorous look. New luxurious hotels have started sprouting in Navi Mumbai. Two new joints, which are the talk of the town currently, are the Park Hotel in Belapur and the Tunga Regency Hotel in Vashi. Park Hotels, promoted by Apeejay Surrendra Hotels, has launched the first boutique hotel "The Park" in Navi Mumbai's CBD Belapur, a thriving business district and a IT-manufacturing hub. The Rs 32 crore property - the sixth boutique hotel of the group - became operational on February 1.The hotel's General Manager Abhijit Bose said, "The hotel is aimed at the business travelers looking for a calm and rejuvenating experience.
Dining room diplomacy puts devolution back on
Assembly members and their staff may have been disappointed that they were unable to access their dining room offering such gourmet delights as pan-fried monkfish with pancetta and pea risotto and grilled fillet of beef with celeriac roast, spinach and wild mushroom gratin.
But many were more than happy to swallow the previously unthinkable image of the Rev Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting beside each other, having concluded a deal which will see power-sharing in six weeks.
Over the weekend it had been clear that an historic deal was cooking at Stormont after the DUP insisted it had the ingredients for a return to government.
Mr Paisleys party warned that if Assembly members followed Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain's recipe for devolution, they would end up with a half-baked deal.
Pupils showcase their inventions
MONSON - Following the lead of famous inventor Thomas Edison, Quarry Hill Community School fourth-graders put their thinking caps on and came up with inventions of their own. The pupils in Geri Laferriere's and Dawn Lecours' classes also had a special guest talk to them about inventions: James M. Goldberg, whose company Deep River Snacks in Old Lyme, Conn., makes gourmet kettle chips, pita chips and popcorn. Goldberg's connection to Monson is his niece, Emily H. Hedspeth, 9, who is in Laferriere's class. The pupils displayed their inventions on their desks for Goldberg to see. "This is my Uncle Jimmy," Emily told her peers. Goldberg then opened up boxes of his kettle chips and tossed them to the children, who enthusiastically reached in the air for bags of sweet Maui onion and original kettle chips.
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