By Teri Cayton
The Parsons Advocate
We are slowly destroying the only place we can call home. With pollution slowly choking us to death and global warming soon to drown us with the melting of the Polar Ice Caps, now, I hear on the news that we have another threat to contend with. Chocolate may be in jeopardy, yes believe it or not the cacao plants are contracting Covid. The plant that produces the seed that is eventually made into chocolate has contracted a virus that is slowly killing them.
The trees can be vaccinated, but it is very expensive and the farmers that produce the cacao cannot afford to have this done. I think I have heard of everything now, I did not know a plant could contract a virus. Momma Said, “You learn something new every day.” What will the world be without chocolate? One of life’s little indulgences may be going, going, gone.
I try to think of how simple life used to be without having to worry about all this stuff. You didn’t worry about drowning from rising tides, and the only real pollution around us growing up was the smoke from home fires. We did have a lot of acid runoff from coal mines and I hated to see that, but we didn’t have any big factories around to spew crap into the air.
We also didn’t have so many unknown illnesses. Your muscles hurt from a hard day’s work, but now I have so many unexplained aches and pains that it is hard to keep up with and that is without lifting a finger. The doctors put it off to old age but I know in my soul that this is not normal aging. Too many cases of dementia, heart problems and so many unknowns, that I believe it all boils down to “Big Pharm.” Momma Said, “All they want to do is push another pill down our throat, not try to find out the root of the problem and stuff their own pockets.”
Rhubarb Bread
Ingredients
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups brown sugar, divided
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ cups chopped rhubarb
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon butter, melted
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9×5-inch loaf pans.
- Stir together milk, lemon juice, and vanilla in a small bowl; let stand for 10 minutes.
- Mix together 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, oil, and egg in a large bowl. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda, and stir into sugar mixture alternately with milk mixture just until combined. Fold in rhubarb and walnuts. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans.
- Combine remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Sprinkle this mixture over the unbaked loaves.
- Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of a loaf comes out clean, about 40 minutes.