The key to food safety is cleanliness. Food and everything that touches it should be kept clean. Even with governmental regulations and inspections of food processing and packing plants, food is not always clean. Consumers (that is us) have a responsibility to ensure that food is handled safely after it is purchased.

The lawn care business in the United States is a multi-billion dollar industry and Tooele County residents do their share to promote it. They want their own lawns to be attractive without having numerous pest problems. Unfortunately, there is no magic formula for producing a good lawn, but this 12-step program will help you avoid or at least reduce most common pest problems in our area.

If you haven't already, you will soon be seeing or hearing from Mowgli and Balloo, characters from Disney's "Jungle Book." In a cooperative effort between the U.S. Ag Council, USDA and Disney, these "Jungle Book" characters are to tout the importance of proper eating. It all starts with the right balance of being active and eating well. The ads admonish everyone to eat a little from every food group every day and to start with small steps. This is not recommending a crash diet. What they are looking for is a more active lifestyle. They hope to help people make gradual positive improvements to their eating habits.

Venez mon petit chou-fleur," is an endearing French phrase meaning "Come, my little cauliflower." What a sweet way to speak to your beloved!

The birth of granola

Chocoholics rejoice. With Valentine’s — the “chocolate holiday” — coming it is good to know that science is finding chocolate just might be good for you.

She explains her techniques are no secret and that it is all about the bread dough. She learned to make bread when she was young and developed the skills to make the cinnamon rolls as a teenager in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Over the years, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has researched nutrition and published dietary guidelines to help the public eat better. They tried to organize their findings into an understandable, easy-to-follow format. Their findings started with the seven basic food groups, which evolved to the four basic food groups, and then to the food guide pyramid.

It is cold outside. Chestnuts may not be roasting on an open fire, but all the trimmings of Christmas are in place tonight. It is time to take a break even if only for a few minutes to sit back, relax and maybe enjoy sipping a special drink -- either hot or cold. You may like it so much you'll decide to leave one for Santa.

The Christmas holiday is a season of traditions. The holiday itself is a time for Christians to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, it also has a separate and distinctive feeling tied up in memories and traditions. Each family has their own with many similarities. The traditions that have become American originated in the varied countries of our ancestries.

E-mail your recipes and any thoughts about them to diane@tooeletranscript.com or call Diane Sagers at 882-6797.

Christmas time is treat time and what can be better than easy treats? When it comes to simplicity, popcorn is stellar. It is also adaptable. It can be as simple as popping up a bag of microwave popcorn, open and serve, but it can be dressed up to make delightful, quick and inexpensive treats for the holiday season.

What would a Thanksgiving dinner be without cranberries? That lively reddish-maroon color, and tangy-sweet flavor are touted as the best possible accompaniment for roast turkey. Whether or not you agree with that analysis, cranberries are a necessary part of a finely laid out Thanksgiving feast.

As November rolls around, shoppers begin to notice the displays of sweet potatoes in the grocery store. They are particularly prominent because a traditional Thanksgiving dinner just demands their presence on the table.

Halloween is here tomorrow, although from all appearances -- especially in the stores -- it has been for several weeks. Halloween is now the second largest retail holiday of the year, behind Christmas. The pocketbook speaks volumes about what the public likes.

The buttermilk glaze is what sets the Hall of Fame Carrot Cake apart from the crowd. If you don't like walnuts, just leave them out. Almond extract imparts a different flavor than the walnut flavor but is a good substitute.

Teach yourself and your family to rinse out the shower stall or tub after each use. That hair doesn't need to be in the bottom of the shower, and bathtub ring does not weld itself instantly to the side of the bathtub.

Take it a bit further and you can find wonderful ways to use apples. Apples are adaptable to many different recipes. Of course, what would fall be without caramel apples and apple pies? However, don't overlook their many uses from main course dishes to salads, snacks and desserts.

Washing dishes is an everyday chore that only gets worse if it is left undone. I do believe that dishes left in a sink begin to have babies, because if you set a couple of cups and plates in it the sink is soon full and they spread all over the counter. Even if there is a dishwashing machine -- as opposed to a human dishwasher -- you will find putting the dishes in the sink on the way to the dishwasher carries the same result. Dishes placed in a sink soon get out of control. Cleaning them is simply a job that has to be done after every meal or at least daily, depending on the number of people helping dirty them.

It is harvest season and gardeners have worked all summer to enjoy the bounties of late summer and early fall. Most of us have favorite recipes that appear year after year during this season, but sometimes the harvest is so bounteous that we run out of fun ways to use the crops.