The recipes for many foods call for nothing more than: flour, sugar, salt, eggs and cream. Not so good to eat yet is it? That’s because basic ingredients are nothing without the proper amounts and preparation techniques. In reality many of the same ingredients occur over and over in different recipes.

People attending parties of all kinds are preoccupied with the foods which have been prepared for the occasion. When they are duly impressed with a particular sampling they are naturally curious about the recipes. Most people can guess the main ingredients but for special occasions there is invariably a secret ingredient that takes the dish a step above the ho-hum of everyday foods.

Be kind and share the recipes. Some are too shy to ask but they probably want to know how to bake that walnut/chocolate chip pie. It may just be one of the many recipes that can be found in many women’s magazines throughout the holiday season. Still not every guest reads those. Stacking recipes up on cards next to the dishes on a buffet table is one good way to offer them freely.

Recipes for the main dish or a chef’s specialty can be printed up as invitation inserts or just enclosed with the annual Christmas letter. The recipes for old family favorites can even be used for the art on the Christmas letter when printed in script. Recipes found in the cookbooks of departed relatives are especially treasured and should be shared. Maybe an old recipe using birch sugar or something equally unusual would be a nice choice for this purpose.

A collection of these favorite recipes is an inexpensive but memorable gift idea. In the hands of the right recipient it can be a gift that keeps on giving for future generations to enjoy.

Mrs. Party… Gail Leino is the internet’s leading authority on selecting the best possible party supplies (http://partysupplieshut.com), using proper etiquette, and living a healthy life while also teaching organizational skills and fun facts. The Party Supplies Hut has lots of party ideas with hundreds of free coloring sheets, printable games, and free birthday party activities. Over 100 adorable Party Themes (PartyThemeShop.com) to fit your birthday celebration, holiday event, or “just because” parties is at the Party Theme Shop. Party themes include cartoon characters, sports, movie, TV shows, luau, western, holidays, and unique crazy fun theme ideas.

In my opinion, the Las Vegas area is one of the nicest places in the Western US and falling in love with Las Vegas is easy to do. This town is “The Entertainment Capital of the World” the city welcomes 37.5 million people a year. Visitors love to enjoy dazzling shows, five star hotels, first rate nightclubs, unique shopping experiences, world class gaming, and plenty of Las Vegas coupons.

There is a lot to see and do besides gambling: You can rent a car and visit the desert sights, such as Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire. A drive from Vegas to Valley of Fire is about 1 hour and you can return via Hoover Dam. This makes for a nice 1/2 to 1 day trip, depending on how long you want to spend in the Valley or at the Dam. There’s Lake Mead, with boat rentals, picnic areas, etc. They also offer raft trips down the Colorado River. Mt. Charleston offers cooler weather, horseback riding, picnic areas, camping, etc. As far as shopping, there are three discount outlet malls in Vegas plus several shopping malls. The Fashion Place Mall is huge, and is on the strip as well as the shopping at Caesars Palace and the huge shopping at Aladdin’s mall. Las Vegas has excellent restaurants, golf, hot air balloon rides and other outdoor activities. And if you’re into theme parks, some great rides are available right on the Strip. If you want to stay at hotels with limited gambling, try Lake Las Vegas… just 20 minutes from the Strip but worlds apart.

There is also a lot of cheap entertainment. Look in the local newspaper ads for two for one coupons and also go to the promotion desks at the hotels, ask if they are giving any comp tickets. Rio does all the time! Have a great time!

Eric is owner of http://www.whynotvegas.com and several web sites. Eric is a frequent visitor to Las Vegas.

One of the most important poets of the post-war period, Edward James Hughes (1930-1998), was drawn towards the primitive. He was enchanted by the beauty of the natural world, frequently portraying its cruel and savage temperament in his work as a reflection of his own personal suffering and mystical beliefs – convinced that modern man had lost touch with the primordial side of his nature.

Born in Mytholmroyd, a remote mill town in West Yorkshire, Ted (as he was known to his friends and family) was enormously affected by the desolate moorland landscape of his childhood, and also by his father’s vivid recollections of the brutality of trench warfare. Indeed, his father, who was then a carpenter, was one of only seventeen men from his regiment to have survived at Gallipoli during the First World War.

At the age of seven his family moved to Mexborough (also in Yorkshire), where his parents opened a stationery and tobacco shop. Here he attended the local grammar school, where he first began to write poetry – usually bloodcurdling verses about Zulus and cowboys – before doing two years’ national service in the Royal Air Force. He later won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he started reading English Literature but switched to archaeology and anthropology, subjects that were a major influence on the development of his poetic awareness. Here he immersed himself in the works of Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats and read Robert Graves’s “The White Goddess” (1948).

Following his graduation in 1954, he moved to London, where he had a number of interesting jobs, including zoo keeping, gardening and script reading for J. Arthur Rank. He also had several of his poems published in university magazines. In 1956 he and some Cambridge friends started up a literary journal called St. Botolph’s Review. It lasted for only one issue but at the inaugural party Ted met his future wife, the then unknown American poet, Sylvia Plath.

Much has been written about the Hughes/Plath relationship since that first portentous meeting, but few can doubt that these two brilliantly creative people were enormously attracted to one another, almost from the moment they were first introduced. Within just a few short months they were married and living in the USA, where Hughes taught English and creative writing at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. And before the year was out, he had won an American poetry competition, judged by W.H. Auden, Sir Stephen Spender and Marianne Moore. Hughes once said of this contented period:

“We would write poetry every day. It was all we were interested in, all we ever did.” – Ted Hughes

Plath assisted him with the preparation of his first collection, The Hawk in the Rain (1957), a work that was quite extraordinary in its treatment of natural subjects. He continued to live in America for the next few years, being partly supported by a Guggenheim Foundation grant, before returning to England in 1959. He then went on to win the Somerset Maugham award and the Hawthornden prize for his second book, “Luperca”l (1960); confirming his reputation as one of the most important poets of the post-war period.

The next few years of Ted’s life have since become the subject of much biographical speculation. However, the simple facts are that he and Plath had two children and moved to Devon in 1961. Their marriage began to disintegrate shortly thereafter and Hughes started an affair with Assia Wevill. He split from Plath and she committed suicide in her London flat in 1963. In 1969 Wevill also killed herself and their child. He married Carol Orchard in 1970 and spent the rest of his life trying to protect his and Plath’s children from the media. Hughes published only children’s poetry and prose in the years following the death of his first wife.

His next major work was “Wodwo” (1967), which took its title from a character in the medieval romance “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, and highlighted his increasing interest in mythology. He travelled to Iran in 1971, where he wrote the verse/drama “Orghast” in an invented language. Some of his other collections include “Crow” (1970), “Cave Birds” (1975), “Season Songs” (1976), “Gaudete” (a long poem on fertility rites, 1977), “Moortown” (1979), “Remains of Elmet” (1979) and “River” (1983).

Hughes was also one of the originators of the Arvon Foundation and was awarded an OBE in 1977. In 1984 he was appointed Poet Laureate and went on to publish “Rain-Charm for the Duchy and other Laureate Poems” (1992). Then in 1995 he composed a poem about Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, for her 95th birthday, likening her to a six-rooted tree. He also wrote many reviews and essays, some of which were collected in “Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being” (1992), “A Dancer to God: Tribute to T.S. Eliot” (1992) and “Winter Pollen: Occasional Prose” (1994). In addition to all this he also wrote many wonderful plays and books for children, including his remarkable fantasy “The Iron Man”. And when, just months before his death, Hughes released “Birthday Letters”, a collection of poems about his life with Sylvia Plath, it became an immediate bestseller throughout the English speaking world and was widely praised for its searing honesty.

Ted Hughes died of cancer on 28th October 1998, having just been appointed to the Order of Merit. Andrew Motion followed him as Britain’s Poet Laureate.

About The Author

Paula is a freelance writer who has contributed articles, reviews and essays to numerous publications on subjects such as literature, travel, culture, history and humanitarian issues. She lives in North Wales, is a staff writer for Apsaras Review and the editor of two popular online guides. You can read her r