Happiness is an extra fine tea infuser from Yoassi

Fits right in your tea cup, into which you add your preferred amount of loose tea. Pour in the water and cap, and three minutes later you lift it out and have your own nice customized cup of afternoon tea.

I just had one with Twinings Jasmine Green, with some fresh squeezed lemon juice. It is said the lemon juice improves antioxidant absorption by up to 80%.

Happiness is about four ounces of mushrooms a day

From the story here:

"[T]he difference between the countries with low rates of neurodegenerative diseases is about 3 milligrams per day [of ergothioneine], which is about five button mushrooms each day."

Happiness is a birthday card "blast from the past": OOGA OOGA OOGA SHAKA!

The ever popular opening lines from Blue Swede's version of "Hooked on a Feeling" from 1974 here, the year I graduated from high school. Am I really that old?

The card spells it "Shaka" instead of "Chaka", perhaps for copyright reasons, but the audio in the card has the latter from the original.

On the inside, it says the words translate from "witch doctor" to "Happy Birthday". And he does a little dance! So politically incorrect, so amusing.

Happiness is blanched and sautéed Broccoli Rabe with tonight's pasta and sausage

Otherwise called rapini, the whole business is eaten so there is no waste, just the ends of the stems which are cut off before washing and soaking in cold water to freshen and then blanching in salted boiling water. About 4-5 minutes does the trick, in about three batches.

Plunge the cooked rapini into an ice bath in the sink to stop the cooking, then drain on a rack and use immediately, or refrigerate overnight for the meal the next day. They are sauteed in olive oil with garlic and hot red pepper flakes, but with a hot Italian sausage and fresh garlic already in the pasta, I like the greens just in oil. They are loaded with good things. The nutrient balance score is 93 out of 100 and the protein quality score is 98 out of 100 at nutrition data.self.com .

I paid $2.69 for the bunch at Meijer.

Happiness is perceiving what opposites have in common

Come what come may,

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

-- William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3

Happiness is a low-sodium cinnamon roll at coffee break, without the roll

1/ toast one slice of Koepplinger's 100% whole wheat bread
2/ slather with Really Raw Honey from Baltimore, Maryland
3/ on a large plate sprinkle the toast liberally with ground cinnamon
4/ chop one ounce of pecan halves fine and top the toast

120 mg sodium, 2 g saturated fat, 7 g protein

Happiness is a butter cutter, to help one ration the consumption of this delicious saturated fat into teaspoon-sized patties

The butter sliced into teaspoon-sized patties can be laid out on a sheet of wax paper and folded and stored in the butter locker in the fridge.

One teaspoon of salted butter contains about 32 mg sodium and 2.33 g saturated fat.

Patients with cardiac disease typically limit daily saturated fat consumption to 15 g or less.

Happiness is Starbucks Christmas Blend varieties in festive holiday colors

Happiness is a low-sodium, low-fat supper with rainbow trout fillet from Canada

About 40 mg natural sodium, 1.1 g saturated fat.

Oil the fillet on both the skin side and the flesh side in extra virgin olive. Season the flesh with salt-free lemon pepper. Bake at 450 F in a heavy pan for about 10 minutes. Serve with sautéed brussel sprouts and some basmati rice.

The whole dinner turned out to be just 78 mg sodium and 3.35 g saturated fat, mostly from the added butter and the canola oil used to saute the sprouts.