Juice

Virginia Howard from Santa Rosa , Calif., was looking for a recipe for Bishops bread or cake. Several readers sent in their recipes for Bishops bread. There seemed to be two basic but different versions, one a rather simple and plain tea bread with a crumb topping, the other more involved and chock-full of fruit and nuts, almost like a fruit cake. I decided to test a recipe sent in by Holly Welch of Rohnert Park, Calif. I thought it was interesting because it used biscuit mix as the base and had lots of yummy-sounding ingredients.

Question: : Chocolate works for hiccups. My father was recovering in the hospital for several weeks last summer, and many, many times he had lengthy bouts of severe hiccups. As he was recovering from abdominal surgery, these were extremely painful. His doctors tried anti-spasmodic drugs to end them, and the drugs did not help. I read about this remedy in your book, bought him a bag of chocolate chips, and voila, it worked. He is in his 70s and a skeptic. When he mentions this cure to his doctors, they think he is making it up. Anyway, he was thrilled.

I think I'm pretty safe in saying that sangria is the hottest cool drink of summer 2009. You can't exactly call this fruity wine punch trendy - it's been around too long - but it goes perfectly with the foods that are trendy right now. That means every Latino restaurant and tapas bar in the area is offering its variation on the red wine and fruit juice theme. (Not to mention non-Latino cafes and wine bars.) No other mixed drink that I can think of can be made so many different ways. These days you can use red, white or sparkling wine.

The Baltimore police officer arrested in a traffic altercation in Bel Air last week is accused of throwing a cup of tobacco juice at two motorists and flashing a Glock handgun at them, according to new details from arrest documents. Robert G. Cirello, a decorated seven-year veteran of the city Police Department and a member of its SWAT team, was off duty when he turned right into a northbound lane of Emmorton Road about 12:30 p.m. May 8. The driver of second car, who felt he cut them off, honked at Cirello, according to police documents.

It is the height of grapefruit season, a time to feast on fruit shipped in to us from warmer climes. The tastiest grapefruit in America come either from Florida or Texas, depending on whom you speak to. After listening to folks on both sides of this fruit fight, I concluded that the rivalry between these two grapefruit-growing regions resembled one surrounding a college football game. This was, in other words, another citrus bowl where almost every facet of a rival grapefruit's appeal was contested.

My daughter had several warts on her hands and was able to kill them quickly with lemon juice. She dabbed the warts with a sliver of lemon three or four times a day, and all of the warts fell off within four days. Four years ago, we heard from another mother whose daughter also had warts: "Years ago, my daughter had eight plantar warts on the bottoms of her feet. She could hardly walk, and I tried everything to no avail. "A friend of mine suggested squeezing fresh lemon juice on them three or four times a day. We had nothing to lose so we tried it. Those warts turned black and fell off so fast she was completely healed within four weeks.

Is this the changing of the guard, or is this just an aberration? Only time will tell. But the signs are pointing toward either the Ravens or the Pittsburgh Steelers - or both - being the teams to beat in the NFL in the foreseeable future. In other words, tomorrow won't be the last time these two teams play for the AFC championship, or are the ones others have to go through to get there. Kind of how the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts have been. At this rate, based on what has happened this month, those two - the league's marquee teams and the ones in the spotlight at the beginning of nearly every postseason this decade - are becoming the pursuers instead of the pursued.

Credit markets for housing are loosening up a bit. Will automobile lending be next? Car dealers certainly hope so. Thanks partly to the decline in consumer spending power and partly to the evaporation of credit, 2008 was the worst year for auto sales in a very long time. Maryland dealers sold 16,842 new cars in November, down 38 percent from November 2007 and the worst result for any month in more than a decade. But dealers hope that federal bailouts will do for car loans what they're starting to do for home loans.

My father and uncle both have diabetes. I would like to reduce my risk of developing this disease, and I've heard that drinking coffee can help. Is there any evidence behind this claim? There are several epidemiological studies that have demonstrated an association between regular coffee consumption and a reduced risk of developing Type 2 diabetes (Diabetes Care, February 2006). Do not count on coffee alone to protect you, however. Regular exercise and weight control are far more likely to be helpful in preventing Type 2 diabetes.

Is there any way to get rid of warts other than duct tape? I have more than 20 of these ugly things on my hands, and I can't imagine trying to get on with daily life with that much duct tape on. I have had these warts frozen off, burnt off and surgically removed, but they still grow back. I am desperate, but I must say the duct tape really does not appeal to me. There are many home remedies for warts besides duct tape. We will skip some of the stranger ones. That still leaves taping a piece of banana peel to the wart, with the inside of the peel against the skin.