Home > Jane Too > Archives > 2006 > July > 05 > Entry
Honeymoon in Vegas?
Q: How can I tell if my fiancé has ever been married in Texas or Las Vegas? How can I find out if he has ever been married or not? Is this a public record?
Your frequent flyer.
L.G.
A: Here is some info from a 2005 column.
Marriage and divorce records are available. Drop by the genealogy collection of the Texas State Library, 1201 Brazos St., to check the indexes.
Also, for Las Vegas marriage records visit the Clark County, Nevada Marriage Inquiry System (online from 1984 to present).
Q: Is there any organization that recycles old trophies? I called B&C Trophies and I was told that they get this question every spring when people, like me, have grown children and a lot of leftover sports participation trophies from a bygone era. I hate to see them end up in a landfill when they can be reused.
S.W.
A: The following groups accept trophies:
— the Lone Oak Bar in Bastrop, (512) 321-0016, for fundraising cook-offs benefiting nonprofit groups and — Georgetown Boys and Girls Club, (512) 868-3700
Also, the Marbridge Foundation, 282-1144, might need them.
Check with each organization. The need for trophies varies.
Q: Is there any way to determine the expiration dates on cans or boxes of food purchased at the grocery store? There is a series of letters or numbers and occasionally you can find an expiration date but not always.
How do we find what the numbers and letters mean?
N.T.
A: Each company has its own code, so it is difficult to determine what is meant. Here is a column on the subject from February, 2005:
The proliferation of label information has some consumers dizzy with dates — sell by, expiration, best by, use by, etc. I am no stranger to the can-I-eat-this-now question. The most memorable one in this genre was the woman with a hard-cooked egg aging in her refrigerator for three years.
Not all expiration date questions are food-related. One reader was concerned that a hotel key card might contained information about a credit card’s expiration date. (Key cards are embedded only with the room number and the arrival and departure dates.) Another wanted the exact time a coupon expires — the day before the printed date or on the printed date. (It expires at midnight on the printed date.)
One reader appears to have finally cracked under the deluge of date data and contacted me with a flood of queries:
What is the deal with expiration dates starting to show up on canned food? Bread from the grocery store is often edible, perhaps not the freshest, but fine, weeks after its use-by date. Isn’t it OK until moldy? Do Claussen pickles really expire in a few months when they have the same additives as other pickles that last for years? Are green olives bad when the water they’re in gets a little fuzzy? Can they be kept and rinsed and eaten or must they be thrown away?
Is bottled water bad for you past its expiration date or just not as fresh? Do things like flour, sugar, etc. go bad? Are spices on the shelf from a decade ago bad?
With the exception of infant formula and some baby foods, the Food Products Association reports that these dates are placed on canned food voluntarily by processors. Unopened, intact canned products usually last two years. A best-by date is a recommendation on the full flavor of the product, not its safety. Consumers should purchase products before the sell-by or use-by date. Do not use a product beyond the use-by date, which is a stronger warning.
Moldy bread? Resist the temptation to toast a slice that is not visibly moldy if the loaf has mold. According to the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, “the latter part of the mold plant is made up of threads that invade the food below the surface.” Hard cheeses, firm fruits etc. are exceptions to this rule and can be eaten if you lop off moldy portions.
Claussen pickles are never cooked, which explains the shorter-than-other-brands expiration date. Beyond that date the pickles lose that crisp crunch.
The olives? Musco Family Olive Company says consumers should toss olives in cloudy liquid. The fuzziness indicates that oxygen has been mixed with the brine and bacteria is beginning to form.
The bottled water? After its expiration date, the water might begin to smell because the plastic container is gas-permeable. Bottled water absorbs odors from its environment and therefore might taste more like the leeks in the fridge than spring water. Beyond the best-by date, the water is still potable but not as tasty.
The shelf life of flour? White flour can be stored for 12 months at room temperature in an airtight container or indefinitely in the freezer, says the baking flour giant King Arthur Flour. A couple of bay leaves inside the container discourages pests. Whole wheat flour, on the other hand, lasts only three months at room temperature, six months in the refrigerator and 12 months in the freezer before the oil in the wheat germ can become rancid.
The sugar? In a closed container stored in a dry climate, white granulated sugar lasts indefinitely. Its shelf life is largely determined by its hardness. Brown sugar, however, has a shelf life of about two years before it takes on a bricklike texture.
And those decade-old spices? You should have tossed them eight years ago. They are not necessarily spoiled, but Spice Island, purveyor of herbs and spices, recommends “for optimum flavor that ground spices be used within two years of packaging.”
Fridge clean-out, anyone?
File under “It’s your party” …
Q: My family (approximately 15 to 20 people) asked me to have Christmas dinner at my new home. I am tired of the traditional turkey or ham with all the side dishes. Are there other main dishes I can make like casseroles, etc. — using turkey or ham in a casserole would be OK. Any other suggestions would be welcomed.
Thank you.
M.W.
Comments
By JK
July 7, 2006 03:54 PM | Link to this
My husband and I have always celebrated Thanksgiving with our “traditional Thanksgiving Lasagne”. On the few occasions we had to dine elsewhere, we really missed our lasagne! Make a new tradition!
By RB
July 5, 2006 02:10 PM | Link to this
Pizza’s a winner. Or you could BBQ steak, chicken, you name it.
The first time I visited what was then my fiancee’s parent’s for the holidays, her father grilled me up a steak because they knew I didn’t care for turkey & fixins. We still talk about it nearly 15 years later.