THINGS I LOVE COOKING . . .

White Bean and Cheddar Dip ... Toffee-Cranberry-Chocolate Cookies ... cakes ... wilted spinach with garlic and oil ... anything that causes my Empire Red KitchenAid Artisan mixer to whip egg whites and sugar until "stiff peaks form."

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THINGS I LOVE READING . . .

Magazine articles that tell me that merely stretching can "whittle my waist" and that 15 minutes of exercise a day can "make a difference" ... Scott Peterson found guilty of two counts of murder.

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THINGS I HATE READING . . .

Scott Peterson found guilty of murdering an unborn child ... bad grammar and spelling in The New York Times, namely: "The remains of Ms. Peterson and her unborn sun, who the couple had planned to name Conner, washed ashore in April 2003, a few miles from where Mr. Peterson told the police he had gone fishing." I'm not kidding. That's a real sentence from one of today's New York Times cover stories, complete with the lack of "whom" AND the fact that Ms. Peterson was going to give birth to a very very very hot ball of fire.