DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

    Queen's Day  in Amsterdam is a unique night and day carnival like event on the 30th of April each year and during the night before...so called  Queen's Night .  What is special about the Queen's Day?  How about  having elements of a huge party across the whole city, it is combined with the market in the streets in the whole entire city.    Queen's Day in Amsterdam attracts 700,000 visitors, which makes the city crowded beyond any acceptable norm.  Despite overcrowding, the atmosphere on Queen's Day is traditionally relax and joyful.  The usually mild weather makes the Queen's Day the day to be in Amsterdam. The Tradition of Queen's Day    Queen's Day is celebrated in the whole country of the Netherlands for more than 50 years.  Amsterdam celebrations are the most raucous.  Over the years, the popularity of the event grows bigger and bigger, as crowds of people from...

Hey, GoodLife Etc. readers! I’m taking over the GoodLife Eats section today and filling in for Katie while she continues to unpack and organize in Colorado. It’s scorching hot here in my neck of the woods, so just the thought of turning on my oven makes me break out into heat-induced hives. However, there’s one minor issue – I operate a baking blog. Since I can’t leave my readers hangin’, I’ve been trying to come up with creative ways to satisfy their cravings for sweet indulgences without forcing them – or me – to break a sweat. If you follow  My Baking Addiction , you’ve probably realized that I’ve been on a pretty serious  No Bake  Cheesecake kick. With just a few simple ingredients, you can whip together a quick dessert that your whole family will love. And they’re pretty much foolproof so you can adapt the ingredients to add your own special twist and create a signature sweet treat. When playing around with a mint chocolate version of no-bake c...

   April Fool's Day is rapidly approaching, and April Fool's celebrations will be occurring all around the world.  But not all April Fool's Day celebrations will be the same; April Fool's Day in one country is often quite different than in another. April Fool's Day in the U.S. is usually a day of trickery, pranks and outrageous stunts.  The media becomes involved, running bogus news stories or promoting false products.  The April Fool's Day celebrations can occur any time of the day and can be as simple or complex as the trickster wishes.  The victim of the prank is supposed to maintain good humor about it, and traditionally he or she will attract bad luck by getting upset about he prank. April Fool's Day in France is traditionally call  Poisson d'Avril , which translates to  "April Fish".   The term refers to the fish that are recently hatches and therefore naive and easy to catch.  The traditional April Fish prank in Fra...

   The attractions of snakes seems to be a huge pull factor, and seemingly the whole world's major  ophidiophillaccs  (snake lovers) often accompanied by their snakes, alongside keen photographers, descend on the small medieval town of  Cocullo , in the  Abruzzo Majella Mountains , ready to take part in this festival which has been re-enacted in its current Christian format each year, apart from 2009.    There are three supposed origins to the  Cocullo Snake Festival ....In the 11th century, apparently  Saint Dominic  cleared the local fields which were being overrun by snakes, and as a sign of thanks, since 1392, the locals parade his statue and snakes around the streets.  The second version dates to 700 B.C., locals experienced the same problems in tending to their field and  Apollo  ordered the village to entwine the snakes around his statue so that they would become tame and be able to farm once m...

  The first of April isn't just another ordinary day.  Also known as  April Fool's Day  or  All Fool's Day .  It is celebrated in a number of countries including America, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.    The origin of April Fool's Day is actually any body's guess, but it is known that it came to England from France or Germany in the mid 17th century.  At one time April 1st coincided with the New Year and was celebrated as such until 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII ordered the new Gregorian Calendar to replace the Julian Calendar.  With there being no computers, telephones and other speedy forms of communicating, word did not travel very fast in those days and therefore many people continued to celebrate New Years Day on April 1st, while some rebelled against this change in their old traditions.    With some embracing a new system and others fighting progress it is thought that those following the new system mock...

The Times recipe is adapted from  Jacques Torres  and some people refer to these cookies as ‘The Jacques Torres Recipe’ instead of the New York Times Recipe. Whatever title it’s given, the recipe has been discussed, dissected, and now I’m tossing my thoughts into the ring, too. The recipe is full of nuances and uniquities, making it unlike any other chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve tried. The full recipe yields 18 five-inch diameter cookies that use a whopping 3.5 ounces of raw dough each. That’s two to three times the size of most homemade cookies and puts these squarely into the jumbo-bakery-sized cookie realm. We didn’t need 18 whoppers all at once, fearing they would go stale before we’d eat them all, and so I halved the recipe, yielding nine jumbo cookies and one slightly smaller cookie. You could likely make the full batch of dough and either freeze the pre-baked balls of dough or freeze the finished cookies. I’m sure either freeze similarly well to other doughs ...

40 Years of Guts & Glory     The Angola Rodeo , the longest running prison rodeo in the nation, got its start in 1965.  The first arena was small, built by a handful of dedicated inmates and personnel.  It wasn't much in those days, and the rodeo was stages just for the entertainment of prisoners and employees.  But it was fun.    The 1967 rodeo was opened to the general public on a limited basis.  There were no stands.  Spectators had to sit on apple crates and the hoods of their cars to watch the performance.    The success on the 1967 and 1968 rodeos prompted constructions of a 4,500 seat arena for the 1969 rodeo.  A near disaster occurred when the bleachers collapsed during one of the shows.  Spectators weren't alarmed, most didn't even get up.  They sat on the collapsed structure and continued to watch.  The 1971 rodeo was the wettest in history, but the show went on. ...