Tag Archives: Charles P. Rogers

Things We Like: Warm Feet For Better Sleep

Post by Kyle St. Romain.

Do you ever get cold feet when falling asleep? Apparently, cold feet may actually inhibit your ability to fall asleep quickly. A group of Swiss researches conducted a study a while back that found a correlation between the distal-proximal temperature gradient — a fancy term used to measure the blood flow in your hands and feed — and your body’s ability to fall asleep quickly. In other words, the warmer your hands and feet are in the late evening, the faster you’re able to fall asleep.

The researchers learned some other interesting connections between body temperature and sleep: your body temperature predictably increases on its own as it readies for sleep. This change in temperature can be triggered by a number of factors such as whether you’re lying down (which pushes blood and heat out to your fingers and toes), where your body is along its circadian clock (your natural clock starts warming you up for bedtime on its own), and whether it’s dark outside (darkness is a long-time trigger for sleep). And for those of you who like to sleep with the air conditioning on cold, it may actually be due to the fact that a cooler ambient temperature increases the transfer of heat at your extremities.

Some people have suggested that wearing socks can help you fall asleep faster, but many have expressed a general discomfort for wearing extra clothing to bed. Fortunately, if you’re one of those people who doesn’t like wearing socks to bed, you can stimulate a similar effect by placing a warm bottle of water at the foot of the bed. In earlier times, many households used metal pans filled with hot coals to warm the bed. Today, plastic has made it much easier (and safer) to achieve the same effect.

If you’d like to read more about the study’s findings, you can find a nice summary of the research here (and it’s free). The text begins at the top right column, and continues down to the second page.

Do you find that you sleep better with warm feet (or socks on)? Do you have any other tips and tricks that help you doze off quicker? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

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Breakfast in Bed: Buckwheat Blini

Post by Alison Hein.

Blini are a type of traditional Russian pancake made with yeasted batter. In ancient times, blini were prepared at the end of winter to honor the rebirth of the sun. This tradition still holds today when Russians celebrate Maslenitsa to welcome the spring.

Blini can be made with various flours, but buckwheat blini have an earthy richness that subtly enhance and bend to the myriad of topping alternatives. Serve them hot or cold, sweet or savory. Try them with butter and jam, chopped egg and mushroom, smoked trout and parsley, and most definitely try them warm and buttered with frosty sturgeon caviar and crème fraîche atop.

Freeze the extra. They thaw quickly and impress for last minute brunches, unplanned get-togethers or spontaneous breakfasts in bed.

Buckwheat Blini
3 cups milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon salt
1 packet yeast
2 cups buckwheat flour
4 eggs
Additional butter for cooking

Preparation
Add milk to small, heavy saucepan and place on stove over medium heat. Allow to heat, without stirring, until tiny ripples begin to form across the surface of the milk (scalded milk). Remove milk from heat and add butter, honey and salt. Pour milk mixture into large bowl. Allow to cool until tepid, then sprinkle yeast lightly and evenly across surface.

Let yeast rest about 10 minutes, until it begins to activate and resembles wet sand. Stir in buckwheat flour, cover with a light tea towel, and allow to rise in a warm, dry place until doubled (at least 2 hours).

Separate eggs into two separate bowls – one for whites and one for yolks. Whisk the yolks until smooth and light, then whisk into batter until evenly mixed. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold egg whites into blini batter.

Place pan or griddle on burner over medium heat. Melt a small amount of butter in the pan for the first blini. Use a tablespoon to spoon batter into pan and cook until small bubbles appear across surface. Flip once with thin spatula and continue cooking less than one minute until lightly browned and cooked through. Serve warm or cool with a variety of toppings.

Makes approximately 100 2-inch diameter blini.

Buckwheat Blinis with Smoked Trout and Crème Fraîche
10 buckwheat blini
2 tablespoons crème fraîche (or substitute sour cream)
2 to 4 ounces smoked trout
1 tablespoon Italian parsley leaves

Place a dab of crème fraîche on the surface of each blini. Break off a small piece of smoked trout and place on top of crème fraîche. Place another dab of crème fraîche on top of the trout and add a parsley leaf for color. Can be made several hours in advance and served lightly chilled.

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Bedroom Design: A Better Way to Wake Up

Post by Stephanie Noble.

On weekdays, I wake to a squawking beep that is impossible to ignore. That is by design, because it is not easy to get up at 5:00a.m. when my body is saying, “Just another hour or two would be so much better .”

We may not raise corn or cows, but our commute has us keeping farmer’s hours.

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” My first grade teacher had us memorize this advice from Benjamin Franklin and for most of my life I have followed it, although never quite as early to rise as I currently manage.

On the weekends and holidays, the squawking is turned off. It is replaced by a much more palatable, “Dad? Mamma? DAD? MAMA? DAD?? MAMA??” refrain of our son letting us he’s ready for us to rescue him from his crib and start our day’s adventures.

Sometimes, if Alarm Number Two is really tired and sleeps past 6:30, I wake up to the avian songs of our neighbors who have built a nest next to our window.

Basically, five days of my week I am rushed out of deep sleep in a way that is extra harsh when compared to my weekend wakeup calls.

Thus my quest for a gentler alarm clock, one that breaks through the cozy comfy dream world to get my butt out of bed, but maybe with a little more kindness than the squawking beep that puts me in a bad mood.

The Zen Alarm Clock Company in Boulder, CO has created Zen Clock’s ‘E tone’ chime has been hand-tuned to produce the same tone as the tuning forks used by musical therapists. The 10 minute chime progression sequence follows the “golden ratio progression” to gently move one from sleep to an awake state with music.


I’ve also been looking at Soleil Sun Alarm SA-3 Sunrise and Sunset FM Radio Alarm Clock. It gradually lightens the room to  Set the alarm for your desired time to wake in the morning, choose the Sunrise time (i.e., set sunrise for 15 minutes and for 15 minutes prior to alarm time the light will gradually get brighter and brighter until the intensity awakens you.  Just like natural sunlight. It can also be set to nature sounds like chirping birds, crickets, flowing water or an ocean.

Much better than the rude squawker!

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Bedtime Stories: June 29, 1999 by David Wiesner

Post by Mark T. Locker.

Holly Evans amazes her classmates with the most ambitious science project imaginable. She planted vegetable seeds and then floated them on giant weather balloons out into space, as an experiment to see what the effects of space would be on them.

Several weeks later, enormous vegetable begin to fall from the sky. Giant red peppers the size of hot air balloons, green beans fifty feet long! Holly is beside herself. Who would have guessed that her vegetables would grow to such a gargantuan size? Over the next weeks, more and more vegetables descend. Asparagus, radishes, lettuce. But…those weren’t vegetables she had sent into space! If these didn’t come from her, where did they come from?

For a short picture book, David Wiesner manages to tell a very exciting and mysterious story. His illustrations are, as always, beautiful and detailed. Even if there isn’t a literate soul in sight, the story is easily told through the images.

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Movies–er– T.V. in Bed: Grimm

Post by Mark T. Locker.

I’m going to be honest with you: I am a sucker for anything fairy tale-related. Especially things which highlight the inherent darkness present in so many of their tales. (And really most folklore.) Mind you, I’m not going to consume something based only on that one criterion. That show “Once”, for example, simply irritates me. Too many pretty people, perhaps, I don’t know.

“Grimm” is not without its flaws: holes in the plot; unbearable characters; loosening interpretation of Grimm as the show progresses. But for some reason, it is the only show on television that I find myself keeping current on. It’s also fun that it is shot right here in Portland. Basically every summer the city is filled with equipment and actors as “Grimm” and “Portlandia” shoot their seasons.

Nevertheless, I enjoy tuning in to this good-but-not-great show (especially since Burn Notice is on cable) on the rare nights of the week that I don’t fall asleep at the same time as my kid. If you like to watch people turn into weird monsters, like fly-headed people or beaver-faced folk, or if you like watching people open trunks of ancient weapons like morning stars and crossbows (thank you, David Greenwalt for bringing a bit of Buffy to the show!) then this is definitely for you. Enjoy!

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