Merry Christmas from Ana

This is the picture that's in the little contest. Ana took it when I left the camera on the piano after an exchange student party. I found it when I uploaded pictures to my computer and had a nice laugh. hahaha.
The exchange students made some super yummy foods and most of them were very natural. We've gotten into some great foreign cooking and I'm going to be updating my blog with some of their fun recipes. We'll also have a South Korean exchange student here in a few weeks, maybe she'll help me learn some of the delicious foods.

Thanks so much guys! Ana's picture won the contest and she got a whole box of "Liken the Scriptures" DVDs for Christmas! YAY!

Artificial coloring in olive oil?

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/12/143154180/losing-virginity-olive-oils-scandalous-industry?sc=fb&cc=fp
Ahhh, the joys of labeling laws.

"Extra-virgin olive oil is a ubiquitous ingredient in Italian recipes, religious rituals and beauty products. But many of the bottles labeled "extra-virgin olive oil" on supermarket shelves have been adulterated and shouldn't be classified as extra-virgin, says New Yorker contributor Tom Mueller.

Mueller's new book, Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, chronicles how resellers have added lower-priced, lower-grade oils and artificial coloring to extra-virgin olive oil, before passing the new adulterated substance along the supply chain. (One olive oil producer told Mueller that 50 percent of the olive oil sold in the United States is, in some ways, adulterated.)

The term "extra-virgin olive oil" means the olive oil has been made from crushed olives and is not refined in any way by chemical solvents or high heat.

"The legal definition simply says it has to pass certain chemical tests, and in a sensory way it has to taste and smell vaguely of fresh olives, because it's a fruit, and have no faults," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "But many of the extra-virgin olive oils on our shelves today in America don't clear [the legal definition]."