KELP noodles

KELP NOODLES

...health advantages:
made from mineral-rich sea kelp
no gluten, no grain
low calorie ...no fat
low carb...good for diabetes, paleo and low carb diets, etc

4 oz noodles (1 serving) =  6 calories, 0 g fat, 0-1 g carbohydrate, 0 g sugar

8 oz noodles = 12 calories, 0 g fat, 1-2 g carbohydrate, 0 g sugar

(good source of iodine, but can get too much iodine so perhaps limit to 4 times/wk)

purchase: Sea Tangle is a good brand ...locally, can buy them at Korean markets or perhaps other Asian markets
......Whole Foods has them too--look in the refrigerated section for the Sea Tangle brand (next to the produce in my WF) since won't be on the regular aisle along with other kelp noodle brands (also in packages)
...online, can buy at amazonpics of Sea Tangle kelp noodles (look for Great for Salads on front, though others may be fine too):  
https://www.google.com/images?q=Sea+Tangle+kelp+noodles

taste:  basically neutral, or might taste slightly salty haven't rinsed them well...tend to take on flavor of other ingredients
...kids seem to like them

texture: crunchy if only rinsed (for salad toppings, etc)
.....if soak 10 min, will soften some
.....if cook long, will soften a lot so texture more like most regular noodles
(don't get mushy like bean thread noodles)

appearance: clear or fairly clear when cooked (or out of pkg?)... not same as bean thread/cellophane/glass noodles (saifun, or made from arrowroot, etc) tho which are more translucent than clear 
....diameter of angel hair pasta

storage:  keeps "a long time" (at least a month) if submerged in water after opening
...unopened packages can sit for months with no appreciable deterioration

uses: like regular noodles or in other ways ...with pesto, marinara sauce, cheesy sauces of all kinds... in green salads...in soups ...with veggies (crunchy or soft)

preparation:  open bag and rinse noodles well--rinses off slightly salty liquid packaged in, for crunchy version (on salads, etc)...also separates them
...to soften more, submerge in warm water for 10 min (or in spaghetti sauce 10-15 min, or after 10 min water soak?)
...to soften a lot (so like regular noodles), cook long time (with sauces--or acidic sauces soften quicker?), etc
can then cut in shorter lengths with kitchen scissors to make easier to eat
...soak them in something acidic such as lemon or lime juice and water to soften to a more spagetti-pasta-like texture.
...if you soak them for 30 min in warm water and a bit of lemon juice, and then add the noodles to your sauce to cook for a few minutes they soften right up like any other noodle.
 

recipes:
salads:

....add about half and half to raw greens/lettuces, then add lacto-fermented veggies/kraut and perhaps half a lg avocado...squeeze 1 lemon on top and message salad with hands

...mung bean sprouts, carrots, shitake mushrooms, green onion, marinated tofu...sesame tahini...and other Asian flavors

...let noodles sit in a ginger miso sauce a few min ... great with peanut sauce, cucumber and cilantro
... my 8 year old loves them with just soy sauce on them
...almost like regular noodles if soaked in acid, or heated awhile especially mixed into heated sauces
...in Asian curries

...in stir frys

more recipes & pics:

https://www.google.com/images?q=recipes+"kelp+noodles"
https://www.google.com/search?q=recipes+"kelp+noodles"Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kathaleena46/kelp-noodles~recipes

(most people hated the shirataki noodles, which are made from glucomannan starch, an indigestible dietary fiber made from devil's tongue yams, and very little nutritional value tho zero calories)

Confederate flag text, for Philosoverts

by Raymond Nolan Scott, Jun 2015

What is widely known as the Confederate flag is a flag that was designed by William Porcher Miles (July 4, 1822 – May 11, 1899) who was the chairman of the Flag and Seal committee and among the ardent States' Rights advocates, supporters of slavery, and Southern secessionists who came to be known as the "Fire-Eaters."

It was rejected as the national flag in 1861. It was instead adopted as a battle flag by the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee.

Despite never having historically represented the CSA as a country nor officially recognized as one of the national flags, it is commonly referred to as "the Confederate Flag" and has become a widely recognized symbol of the American south. It is also known as the rebel flag, Dixie flag, and Southern cross and is often incorrectly referred to as the "Stars and Bars."

After Civil War ended, the Confederate flag became a source of Southern pride and heritage as well as a remembrance of Confederate soldiers who died in battle.

It became an emblem of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist groups. It was also the symbol of the States' Rights Democratic Party, or "Dixiecrats," that formed in 1948 to oppose civil-rights platforms of the Democratic Party. Then-South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond was the splinter group's nominee for president that same year; he won 39 electoral votes.

Now, the flag is a frequent emblem of modern white supremacist groups.

Racist symbol or not, the designer of the Confederate Flag , William Porcher Miles was indeed a white supremacist and supported slavery. Miles was one of the leading secessionists in South Carolina. He believed that slavery was a Divine institution. Miles rejected any compromise on slavery and supported Calhoun in opposition to the Compromise of 1850. Miles was selected for both the provisional and regular Confederate Congress. He was chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee while also serving as an aide-de-camp for General P. G. T. Beauregard at both Charleston.

In 1852 Miles delivered an address to the Alumni Society of the College of Charleston. Miles denied the concept of inalienable rights and maintained that liberty was an "Acquired Privilege." He argued that "Men are born neither Free nor Equal" and some men were born with the innate ability to earn liberty while others were not. Government should not attempt to either "make a Statesman of him who God intended should be a Ploughman" or "bind down forever to the plough him to whom God has given a mind capable of shaping the destinies of a People." Miles rejected the political legitimacy of abolitionists and free-soilers and responded to any attempts to restrict slavery with a call for secession.

I have no doubt that Miles designed that flag with the spirit of somebody who wanted to maintain white supremacy and slavery which were reasons for him to want South Carolina to secede. In my opinion, anybody who supports the Confederate Flag takes on Miles' spirit of those issues and probably partake in his karma. After reading about this dude, I believe that the flag belongs only in history musems. It doesn't belong hanging on flag poles at government buildings of any kind. I was born in California, and so I wasn't born in the South. My African American father was born in Louisiana, and he was born in the South. I have paternal relatives that live in Texas after moving there because of Hurricane Katrina. They used to live in New Orleans which was their birthplace. It was also my father's. As the descendants of African American slaves, we are definitely not crazy about the Confederate flag.

any way...that's my two cents on the issue. I won't type any more about it.

Thank you, Raymond

some simple ways to hang polymer clay pendants

The illustration below is a drawing I created a number of years ago showing just a few of the easy ways that polymer clay pendants could be hung using various holes, loops, U shapes, tubes, etc.  It was made for a kids' class I gave but most all the techniques are basic and used by experienced polymer clayers as well.
The tiny eye screws shown are seldom used, but eye pins are quite often used. 
... NOTE: the most secure way to insert eye pins is actually to trim the shank to about 1/4", zigzag or bend or curve the shank, insert it into a hole you've made in the clay or better into a slit you've cut, then snug the clay back around the shank--no glue needed.

For much more info and details about flat-holes (holes in flatter pendants), loops, tubes, U shapes, foldovers/roll-overs, eye pins, etc, as well as about various cordings that might be used with polymer clay pendants, see the Pendants page of my polymer clay encyclopedia site:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/pendants_cording.htm

And for info about making holes through more-dimensional clay beads and pieces, both before and after hardening, see the Beads-Holes page:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/beads-holes.htm

This seems to be the most I can enlarge the image, but you can enlarge it further by holding down the Control key on your keyboard then hitting the + (plus) key, or pinching out if on a mobile device.

polymer clay "blends"

polymer clay BLENDS

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20150222091824AAcm6Yz
(may have to click on "Hidden Answer" at YA if my answer not shown)

There are actually a number of ways to do what polymer clayers call "blends."  

(I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "how do I blend BIG PIECES" in your question, and can only find the examples I list below for these 2 people you mentioned which could use big pieces or small.  If my info doesn't answer your question, just ask another question but include an actual link to the kind of thing you want to know about.  If you're instead asking about "conditioning" polymer clay though as Mike refers to, including large pieces of it, then that's different and you can find loads of info about that on the Conditioning page** at my site.)

CREATING BLENDS:

...The old and original way was what I call *discrete* blends, and may still be used occasionally. 
Discrete blends are created by placing small variations of color next to each other, which are then perceived by the eye as smooth gradations.
Each color step was mixed by hand back then, and by adding proportionally more and more of one color to another; then each resulting color mix was placed next to another color mix, etc.

...The much more common (and easy!) way for a long time has been *Skinner blends* which are true smooth gradations of color --one color transitioning smoothly into another color, or multiple colors transitioning smoothly into each other.  
Those are usually created as *sheets* of gradient color, though they can then be cut into various sections (usually across the color changes), rolled up, wrapped, or used in many ways to create "canes" or any shape which will still show the gradient of color.
Those can be done by hand, but are much easier and quicker to make with a pasta machine so they're usually used.
Any part of a polymer clay cane or sculpt (or anything) will have much more pop!, dimensionality, interest, complexity, etc, if a Skinner blend has been used.

You can find loads of info on both Skinner blends and discrete blends as well as how to use them, on the Blends page of my polymer clay encyclopedia site:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/blends.htm
...and more on Skinner blends by googling:
how to: https://www.google.com/images?q=how+to+"skinner+blends"+polymer+clay
Skinner blend cane pics: https://www.google.com/images?q="skinner+blend"+canes


...Another sometimes-used way is to use a (inexpensive) "clay gun" extruder. 
I see that technique for example in the long ropes of hair/mane and tail of Angenia C's Felicity Unicorn.***
In that technique, 2 or more colors of clay are put into the barrel of a clay gun (the cheapie silver $10 ones will do fine as long as the clay is well conditioned or soft), one behind the other.  When the clay is extruded by pushing on the plunger, the extruded rope of clay will have smooth gradations of those colors *on the outside* of each rope.  The quickness of color change will be determined by the size of the clay colors next to each other in the barrel. (The same effect can pretty much be achieved by cutting stips of Skinner blends then rolling them up like long ropes/logs, though more tedious.)
This technique is also often used to create polymer clay Balinese filigree*** and other things.

........There are lots of other fun ways to use those gradient-color extrusions too though which are more often used. Those would mostly be extruding the ropes as above, but to then cut across those logs showing their *insides* from the cut ends.  Cutting will reveal that one color is actually inside another color, e.g. "automatically-wrapped canes" where 1/4" disks or wads of individual colors are stacked in the barrel before extruding, cutting across them then stacking together in various ways.

.......You can find loads of info about those kinds of clay gun technique on the Clay Guns page of my site:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/claygun.htm (look under Uses and also More Uses)

...(There's also simple "marbling" of clay colors which can result in some areas of color being gradient-blended.  But for marbling, 2 or more colors of clay are just rolled and mixed around by hand till the extent of marbling and the look desired is achieved.)

For anything else about using polymer clay and making things with it, check out the rest of my polymer clay site from the Table of Contents page so you can see all that's covered there (then click on any page of interest from the alphabetical navigation bar).  http://glassattic.com/polymer/contents.htm

(Sorry about the non-clickable links below if that's still happening at YA...you'll have to copy and paste them into your browser instead of just clicking unless YA changes their policies.)

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** conditioning: http://glassattic.com/polymer/Conditioning.htm
*** http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/187/8/e/unicorn_felicity_by_angeniac-d6c7dfc.jpg
http://dragonsandbeasties.deviantart.com/art/Rainbow-Oriental-Dragon-Auction-365344473
http://carmens-handmade.blogspot.com/2010/09/tutorial-filigree-mokume-gane.html (step # 5)
Balinese Filigree: https://www.google.com/images?q=Balinese+Filigree+polymer+clay

(my polymer clay encyclopedia site: http://glassattic.com/polymer/contents.htm )

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