If you have wondered how many bubbles are in a bottle of champaign, stop your wondering now! Clairol Herbal Essences recently designed their shampoo and conditioner bottles to include nifty little trivia questions, including this gem: 

Question: How many bubbles are in a bottle of champange?

Think about it for a moment…the answer is below.

This is the question on the bottle of “Hello Hydration!” conditioner. The answer is located on the corresponding “Hello Hydration!” shampoo (there is another trivia question on the shampoo bottle whose answer is on the conditioner, but that was not nearly as interesting to me). Unfortunately, if you do not buy the same type of shampoo and conditioner, you are stuck with mis-matched triva questions and answers.  

But the trivia question begs another question: is there an official champange bubble counter out there? And if so, what qualifications does one need to count champagne bubbles?

Drag your mouse over the blank space to see the answer:

Answer: 58 Million

My guess was embarassingly low (500,000), hopefully you did better. It’s a little more silly than Sweet, but there is nothing wrong with a bit of trivia to start the day!

Have you ever read the ingredients on a tube of lip balm? If you haven’t, you may be intrigued to discover the words “Petroleum” or “Petrolatum” listed as one of the primary ingredients. And yes, this is derived from the same “petrol” you put in your car!

This was actually brought to my attention some time ago, causing me to promptly ditch my extensive lip balm collection and replace it with eco-friendly varieties that use beeswax, coconut oil, sunflower oil, lanolin, and even pomegranate oil to keep my pucker happy.

The folks over at Ideal Bite have issued a warning that “researchers have linked impurities in petrolatum (a common ingredient in many lip balms) to breast cancer.” Petrolatum is already listed as a probable human carcinogen, but it’s found in one out of 14 body-care products in the United States. Petrolatum can also be found in moisturizers, body waxes, and (of course) the household staple petroleum jelly.

The switch is fairly easy and painless. Non-petrol products have increased in popularity and are available at most local pharmacies and health & beauty care aisles. Burt’s Bees is one of my personal favorites, it is a little pricier than the average tube of lip balm, but peace of mind is worth a couple extra dollars (and no, unfortunately, I am not being paid to endorse their fine products…though I would not be philosophically opposed to doing so).

Petrol in your personal care products? That isn’t just Bitter, it’s downright dangerous!

For James’ birthday, I created this motherboard-inspired birthday confection topped with wafers, rolos, m&m candies, bubble gum, and other goodies. I will admit it was a boxed cake mix, but it was red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting. Delicious!

Pretty Sweet cake, huh?

Even though the election and politics have been hot topics for the past year, I have tried to keep political posts out of the site. It isn’t that I don’t have political views, but I see those views the same way people see eggplant: you either agree with me or you don’t, and not much is going to sway you either way.

Sure, I write about serious topics like the economic crisis, the environment, and mental health issues, but I also write about not-so-serious topics like wine, the Chinese New Year and mix tapes. Sometimes I spin some common themes like Organics Week or SweetHearts Week, but for the most part the Bitter/Sweet blog is pretty random. It is meant as an outlet for all the things that annoy or amuse me throughout the day.

Now, if you are paying attention, you probably know how I lean politically. I work in the education field, write about sustainability, and rally against advertising (c’mon, it’s not a big leap). Does that mean I only want a certain type of person reading this site? No, not at all. Food should be a way to bring people together, not pull them apart because of the way they voted.

I grow annoyed with websites and blogs that use the anonymous nature of the Internet to spew political hate (or any other kind of hate, for that matter), especially when that is not the topic of the site. Cooking should not be an elitist activity or reserved for people of certain beliefs or backgrounds, cooking is for everyone to partake and enjoy.

I have no patience for Bitter sites or people who want to turn the Internet into a political mine-field of backlash, rumors, and insults. Believe what you want to believe, your food is still going to taste the same. Cooking is not reserved for the few, it is intended for the masses. And that is as political as I am going to get. In the meantime, love what you cook and cook what you love!

Translation: Red Wine from Spain.

Spanish wine is intoxicating, for more than one reason. The red wine from this region echoes the passion and sensuality associated with Spanish culture. It is common to associate wine with food and music in Spain, as drinking wine during meals is a tradition.

Here are a few notes about Spanish red wine:

Granacha: More commonly known by the French spelling Grenche, is probably the most widely planted red wine grape in the world. It is generally soft bodied, with flavors of berries and spice.

Tempranillo: This is actually considered a black grape, used to make full-bodied wine. It is the primary grape used to make Rioja and is usually blended with Granacha. Look for flavors of berry, plum, vanilla, and herb with oak undertones.

Rioja:This can refer to a red, white, or rose wine from Spain. Red varieties are usually a blend of Tempranillo and Granacha. Red Rioja is close to Pinot Noir, a softer red with rich berry notes.

Sherry: a fortified wine that can range from light and delicate to rich and heavy, sometimes dessert-like sweet. Remember The Cask of Amontillado  from Edgar Allen Poe? That was sherry. Sherry is actually made from a white wine grape, but appears light amber to dark ruby in color.

Want to try for yourself? Look for Red Guitar, a Spanish winery that makes a delicious Tempranillo-Granacha blend as well as a rose Rioja. Look for other blends, such as Cabernet Sauvigon-Tempranillo from Spanish Quarter, a Spanish winery that also produces a white wine blend of Chardonnay and Albarino (you can also play virtual futbol on their website). Serve these red wine blends at a temperature similar to other reds, about 61-65F.

Spanish red wine is not exactly Sweet (unless you are drinking sherry), but it is not at all Bitter. Look for affordable wines at $10-15 per bottle.

*Please drink responsibly – drinking and driving is not Sweet at all*