Perfect Picnics - Frugal Food Safety Tips

Written by Cyndi Roberts


The Fourth of July is just aroundrepparttar corner and for a lot of us that means heading out torepparttar 111055 lake or torepparttar 111056 park for a picnic with friends or family.

Unfortunately, if we're not careful when we plan, transport and serve that picnic, our outing might not end up happily.

Here are some tips to remember when planning an outdoor meal:

1. Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold. Bacteria multiply quickly at temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees. Foods that have been kept at unsafe temperatures are a prime source of foodborne illnesses.

2. Plan ahead and try to take foods that don't spoil so quickly. At any rate, don't eat anything that's been sitting out for more than an hour, especially ifrepparttar 111057 temperature is over 80.

3. Try to take onlyrepparttar 111058 amount of food that will be eaten, so there will be no leftovers.

4. Pack your food with ice or cold packs in an insulated cooler. Place foods that will be eaten last inrepparttar 111059 bottom. You can make your own blocks of ice by freezing water in milk cartons or other plastic containers.

Place ice blocks or cold packs between containers of food, never just place containers of food on top of ice.

5. You might want to bring 2 coolers -- 1 for drinks, because it will be opened more often, and 1 forrepparttar 111060 food, that can be set inrepparttar 111061 shade and kept closed until needed.

The Picture

Written by Staci Stallings


We had a lot of pictures taken at our wedding—a lot of pictures. We had two photographers and two videographers, so there weren’t many pictures that we missed. However, out of all those pictures, there is one perfectly perfect one.

It wasn’t a staged one. It wasn’t one I had on my infamous “list” to have taken. I didn’t know it had been taken. I didn’t even see this one until nearly a month after we’d been married. Yet is it my favorite of all of them. Why? Because in one single image our relationship was captured—frozen forever on Fuji Photo Film.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’ll try not to use quite that many to explain it. Inrepparttar picture I’m doing what I’m always doing—directing traffic. Since it was taken duringrepparttar 111054 photo session following our wedding and since we didn’t see each other beforerepparttar 111055 wedding and since my husband’s immediate family had 26 people in it atrepparttar 111056 time, there was a lot of traffic to direct. There were certain pictures that I wanted, and we had a small window of opportunity to get them taken.

In short, I was occupied.

The picture shows me, looking off-camera, pointing to someone and explaining what I want done. My dress that day didn’t make doing things myself an option, so I had to rely on everyone else. It’s easy to see that I’m intent on getting whomever it is to do whatever it is I want done immediately.

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