bean stew with paprika

Ingredients

Celeriac Gratin

Finely slice celeriac, carrots and potatoes in food processor and place in large, buttered Pyrex oven dish. Heat the cream and vegetable stock to almost boiling, add finely chopped garlic, and pour over the gratin. Grate a couple of handfuls of Parmesan cheese over the top. Cover the dish and bake in oven 180C for 1.5 hours.

Banana bread

Marketing Betty Crocker - 'just add an egg'

Betty Crocker cake mix was launched by General Mills in 1952 as a quick and easy product that still retained a home-made quality. When it didn’t sell the company called on business psychologists to help market it. The problem, they said, was eggs. They believed that powdered eggs, often used in cake mixes, should be left out, so women could add a few fresh eggs into the batter, giving them a sense of creative contribution. The requirement to add eggs at home was marketed as a benefit, conferring the quality of 'home-made' authenticity upon the box cake mix. Whether using fresh eggs instead of powdered eggs actually enhanced taste was beside the point. See also: "Betty Crocker - 'just add an egg'" http://cube1986.blogspot.com/2007/04/betty-crocker-just-add-egg.html

wedding vows

Now you feel no rain, for each of you is shelter for the other, 

Now you feel no cold, for each of you is warmth to the other,

Now there is no more loneliness,

Now you are two persons with one life together,

Go now to your dwelling, to continue your life together,

And may your days be good and long upon the earth.

- Native American wedding vow

Prayers and chants

God, a Celtic Christian meditation 

I am the wind that breathes upon the sea,

I am the wave on the ocean,

I am the murmur of leaves rustling,

I am the rays of the sun,

I am the beam of the moon and stars,

I am the power of trees growing,

I am the bud breaking into blossom,

I am the movement of the salmon swimming,

I am the courage of the wild boar fighting,

I am the speed of the stag running,

I am the strength of the ox pulling the plough,

I am the size of the mighty oak tree,

And I am the thoughts of all people

Who praise my beauty and grace.

The cause of the 2008 financial crisis

Adair Turner, chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority, set out the fundamental cause of the financial crisis in a speech on Nov 2012:
“The financial crisis of 2007/08 occurred because we failed to constrain the private financial system’s creation of private credit and money.”

In Oct 2008, as reported in The Australian for example Alan Greenspan, the former US central banker from 1987 to 2006, famously said, 'I made a mistake'. Appearing before the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he said he had found a flaw in the "critical functioning structure that defines how the world works. ... I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms." In other words, he conceded that the free market philosophy he championed for 40 years has fundamental flaws and he said they must be addressed by a new era of regulation.