Genesee Sun

4-H Teen Council in support of anti-tobacco campaign

Dear Editor,

    We at the Livingston County 4-H Teen Council would like to express our support for the campaign against tobacco marketing in Livingston County. We are disgusted with the fact that so much of the tobacco marketing is aimed towards the youth. Statistics show that the more kids are exposed to tobacco marketing, the more likely they are to use the tobacco products. Billions of dollars are spent each year on the advertisement and marketing of tobacco products; tobacco companies spend 1.1 million dollars in New York State each and every day targeting kids to try their deadly products. This money could be used instead for promoting safer and healthier choices for youth. When communities reduce the amount of youth exposure, they will be improving the health of many young adults today.  

Sincerely,
Livingston County 4-H Teen Council

Sweet Arts Bakery in Avon: Angry Bird Cake Pops

I don't like cupcakes.  Maybe it's because of all the sickly sweet, dried balls of crumb I've had over the years.  Maybe it's because they're trendy, and I don't do trendy.  I mean, we named our son Aidan 15 years ago when no one had heard of it, before every Tom, Dick and Harry was named Aidan.  Besides, what's the big deal about cupcakes?

To be honest, in our "marketing research" trips to bakeries, I have found some great, creative cupcakes, and maybe someday I'll get all a twitter about them, but for now, my love is...cake pops!

Cake pops are crumbled up cake, mixed with frosting, dipped in chocolate.  (not to be confused with tiny cakes that come out of an, "As Seen On TV" machine.)  What's not to love?  Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting dipped in white chocolate.  Devil's food cake with fudge frosting and mini chocolate chips coated with more dark chocolate...mmmmm!  Even better is all the cool shapes you can make.  Snowmen for the bus driver on a cold winter morning, flamingos for your favorite band teacher (who does not like flamingos).   I'm even getting into trendy and making Angry Bird cake pops.  It's for my favorite customer.  So if you see my son, Brian, wish him a happy 8th birthday, and maybe he'll share a red Angry Bird cake pop with you!
(I try to have cake pops in the bakery, but if you want to make sure I'll have them, please call or Facebook me  "Specials" may need advance notice.)

Feel free to stop in at Sweet Arts Bakery at 57 Genesee St. in Avon.

Direction for making Cake Pops:
This is the basic directions.  Once you get that down, there are a million different things you can do!  Send me your pictures and ideas and I'll feature them on my Facebok page.

You'll need:
A cake-the equivalent of 1 box mix.  Any cake will do: homemade or from scratch; any flavor.  

Frosting-approximately 1/2 cup frosting.  This is the ONLY time I use canned frosting at the bakery, because the consistency is perfect.  Experiment with different flavors and brands,  or use homemade, but do not use the "whipped" type.

Chocolate coating- I prefer the chocolate wafers that you get in he grocery bulk section, or at a craft store.  They come in any color you can I imagine.

Lollipop sticks-the white ones that you can get at a craft store.

Directions:
Bake the cake.  Let cake cool and preferably rest overnight.

Here's the fun part:  tear the cake up and crumble it in fine crumbs.  This is great for kids to do.

Mix crumbs with frosting.  Mix really well.  I use my stand mixer, but a teenage boy does a good job, too.  It should be the consistency of Playdoh.  Add more frosting if needed

Scoop into 1.5 inch balls. I use a medium cookie scoop for this. Roll it ball in your hands until smooth.  At this point you can shape the dough into anything you can imagine (snowmen, flamingos, hearts), but I would suggest perfecting the ball first.

 Cover and put in fridge at least 1hour, up to 2 days.

Melt chocolate coating:  If you use a microwave, stir it often and do not over cook!  A double boiler works well.  If you're going to turn his into a hobby, I'd suggest a chocolate melter that you can get at a craft store.

This is important, and the main reason it falls off the stick!  Dip one end of the stick about 3/4 inch into chocolate and put into cake/frosting ball.  Put back into fridge 15 minutes.

Take pops out 2 or 3 at a time and dip into chocolate.  This is tricky, and takes practice.  Google it for ideas on how to perfect this.  The best part is, if you mess up, just eat it!

You can either set the dipped pop on a wax paper covered plate with the stick in the air, or you can put in in a piece of styrofoam  with the stick down.

When the chocolate is still wet you can add sprinkles, or wait until it dries to drizzle with another color chocolate.

1 cake mix makes approximately 30 medium cake pops.

For pics and more information go to:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Arts-Bakery/186071304782134

Livingston County Tobacco Action Partnership Responds to Surgeon General's Report

Almost everyone has a friend or family member who has been touched by tobacco and it’s deadly reach. In the Surgeon General’s Report released on March 8, 2012 entitled Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults, evidence has shown tobacco marketing in stores is a primary influence of youth trying tobacco products. The tobacco marketing messages entice youth by making tobacco use look ‘Cool’ or ‘Glamorous’ and it is effective; most tobacco users started before the age of 18. Please read one man’s tale of how tobacco use changed his life forever.

Here's Mike's story.
Mike was raised in a small town in western New York and when he was 14 years old, started chewing tobacco. He graduated from High School, got a good job and eventually married his high school sweetheart. Mike and his wife bought a home and soon after had a little girl and then a son.

When Mike turned 40, he was in the prime of his life and was diagnosed with throat cancer. The next three years were a blur of doctor appointments, surgeries one to remove his tongue, another to remove part of his jaw and then chemotherapy to try and stop the spread of the cancer. Mike tried to attend his son's baseball games when he was feeling all right. He had to communicate with his family by pen and
paper because without his tongue, he could no longer speak. He longed for the taste of his wife's home cooking but he could at least enjoy the smells from the kitchen. When Mike turned 43 he asked his visiting nurse to take his picture in hopes that his story would save a life of some young person thinking smokeless tobacco was safer that cigarettes. He stressed to his nurse, "Tell them I never smoke a cigarette, ever, in my whole life". Mike died soon after and left a loving wife, son and daughter.

Tobacco companies try to entice youth to use their products by marketing them as glamorous, when this is the true story of what tobacco can do to you. This is just one of the stories from the thousands of people who lose their life due to tobacco use each year.

Protect our children from In Store Tobacco Marketing. Visit TobaccofreeNYS.org to see how you can help.
For help quitting call the New York State Smokers’ Quitline
@ 1-866-697-8487 (1-866-NY-QUITS) or www.nysmokefree.com

WILL THE REAL “DEADBEAT” PLEASE STAND UP?

Wake Up Call

This past Monday (1/9/2012) the leader of “the most transparent administration in history” announced the appointment of a new Chief of Staff: David Lew, who once upon a time, for a brief moment in 2010, headed the Office of Management and Budget.  This resume bullet will no doubt be the one that our so-called “liberal media” mentions, if and when the story gets any coverage at all.  Here’s what you’re not being told:
 
In 2008:  According to a Huffington Post report last year, when the financial crisis that sapped our treasury of better than $5 trillion exploded and cost 8 million American jobs, Lew was up to his eyeballs running CitiGroup’s $54 billion hedgefund and private equity business –  for one thing placing huge bets that the subprime mortgage and housing market was about to collapse.  Citi lost billions that year, though, as many of their bets turned sour.  Citi then got a $45 billion taxpayer bailout and $64 billion in taxpayer-backed debt. 
 
Nice work, if you can get it.  My ex-wife should be so lucky.  She’s an extremely responsible person in her 50s who lost her job and hasn’t found a new one yet.  Her house is in foreclosure, and a possible HUD assistance program she applied for has pretty much stopped answering the phones.  And hers wasn’t even a sub-prime mortgage.  Don’t we love to blame the crisis on deadbeats – er, people – like her.  And somehow, incredibly, we forget about people like Lew, and “persons” like CitiGroup, who walked away with truly enormous mountains of taxpayer bailout money.
 
It’s tempting to try and blame the catastrophe on George W. Bush, from  whom Obama inherited the mess … except he’s packed his own  administration with the same suit-and-tie thieves that got us into the mess, like Lew, from CitiGroup, and about a hundred executives from Goldman Sachs.
 
Except Lew didn’t stay in the OMB position long.  Oh no.  The media probably won’t mention that he left after a few months and took a high-level, multi-million dollar position in – wait for it – CitiGroup. 
 
Except now he’s back in the news, this time moving into the extremely powerful post of White House Chief of Staff.   The revolving door might as well not even be there.  The distinction between Government and corporations, in this case the financial industry, is fiction.
 
The media probably won't mention any of this.  They, and the rest of the powers that be, will be too busy frothing about gay marriage, and "socialized medicine," and the idiocy of the current Republican horse race. They'll be keeping your attention on that, so you don't notice what they're doing with the real money.
 
And there’s no end to this crap.  According to a column in Salon.com by Glenn Greenwald, the Chief of Staff that Lew is replacing is “Midwest Chairman of JP Morgan and Boeing Director William Daley, who was also an opponent of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a critic of Obama’s health care bill as too leftist.”  Let’s do that again.  The previous Chief of Staff was a high-level exec at JP Morgan (another huge bailout beneficiary).
 
And where is Daley going?  To manage Obama’s re-election campaign.
 
How much do you want to bet Daley’s career in “government,” or in the financial industry for that matter,  doesn’t end there?  And I bet Lew’s won’t end at Chief of Staff, either.   Except I don’t have any money to bet.  Maybe the government will loan me some.  After all, they loaned it to Citigroup.

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