Monday, October 24, 2011

Baking with Parthenia

Good morning everyone!
I've decided to share some of my favorite recipes that are made from scratch; yes I was taught by the best my Grandmothers and Mother. Today I am sharing the recipe for my Mother's 7-up cake that I cook around this time of year. Hope you enjoy and if you decided to make it please send us a picture of it.
Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 1hr 15 minutes
Total: 1hr 30 minutes
Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients:
Amount ingredient preparation
1 1/2 cup butter softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups flour, all -purpose
2 tablespoons lemon extract
3/4 cups 7up
Powered sugar

Directions: Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour, lemon extract, and 7up, mix together well. Pour into greased bundt or angel pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until done. Sprinkle with confectionery's sugar.

****We don't use exact measurements when baking from scratch but here is the basic recipe once you get the hang of it you can add or subtract as necessary. Enjoy!!!

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Second Annual Black-tie Benefit Gala

Our founder, Parthenia Warford would like to thank each and every person that was involved in making our Second Annual Project Impact Scholars Black-tie Benefit Gala last Saturday, October 15, 2011. It was a really nice evening that included a sit down dinner inside the gorgeous Regency Room at The Club at Andrews.

Our Mistress of Ceremony for the evening was Miss Carrie Lambert, Vice President, Special Events, The Warford Foundation, and Actress with Wilhelmina PA (oh and Parthenia youngest daughter pictured below together).

Miss Ashley Moore (pictured below) a current third year nursing student enrolled at Bowie University BSN Program she was awarded $200 Founders Award for Outstanding Nursing Student separate from Project Impact Scholars award this award is given annually paid for by the Founder.

Mrs. Cheryl Dover, Chair (pictured below), as our guest speaker Nursing Department, Prince George's Community College she discussed the importance about our partnership, the two-year nursing program then introduced three of the ten applicants for our Project Impact Scholars Program Out of the 440 nursing students enrolled in PGCC Nursing Program over 75 of them are interested in applying before the deadline for application is November 15, 2011.


(Deesha Edwards; Angela Freeman, Luwen Bent pictured below)


The evening ended with recording artist Ihsan Bilal (pictured below) words can not explain her voice you must experience it live to purchase her CD on iTunes.

Music provided by DJDnitty DJ / Host * M.Director 4 Lyme Lyte Ent. L.L.C. * WorldClass DJ's* Coast2CoastDJ's* Starlite Studios* NyChi Production he always supports us at every event. (pictured below)




We took a group photo with all participants that attended (see below).

We would like to thank all our sponsors, Glittarazzi; W.O.W Radio; Military Moulage; Spy Museum; Honesty Jewelry; Newseum; and Fort Belvoir Golf Club really couldn't have done this without you.

Save the date Saturday, October 13, 2012, 6pm to 10pm.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Being depressed disconnects the brain’s "hate circuit"


http://marcwhitehead.visibli.com/share/5VaTCs

Depression is the most common mental illness, but there's still a lot we don't know about how the condition affects the brain. But now, a new MRI study reveals that depression deactivates vital pieces of brain circuitry... including, surprisingly, the region that controls hatred.

Researchers at the UK's University of Warwick performed MRI scans on 39 depressed people and 37 control subjects who didn't have the condition. They were able to pinpoint several key differences in the brain circuitry between the two groups. Most of these centered on the uncoupling of connections between various parts of the brain. Normally, these connections form circuits that allow the different areas to work together to produce more complex mental processes. With the circuits uncoupled, the brain should have a harder time performing the related mental tasks.

That's why it's so strange that the so-called "hate circuit" - a circuit connecting the superior frontal gyrus, insula, and putamen that was shown in 2008 to be strongly associated with feelings of hatred - was often uncoupled in the depressed subjects. The researchers discovered this by showing the subjects pictures of people they hated. While the non-depressed people showed clear activity in this hate circuit, most of the depressed people showed no such response. In fact, the hate circuit was 92% more likely to be decoupled in the depressed subjects.

There were similarly high odds of deactivation for the risk and action circuit (92%) and the emotion and reward circuit (82%), but neither of those is really surprising in terms of the general behavior patterns of people dealing with depression, which is often associated with an unwillingness to take risks and difficulty feeling positive emotions. But since depression is known to be associated with self-loathing - which is very much a form of hatred - then how could that fit with the hate circuit being deactivated?

Researcher Jianfeng Feng has a theory:

"The results are clear but at first sight are puzzling as we know that depression is often characterized by intense self loathing and there is no obvious indication that depressives are less prone to hate others. One possibility is that the uncoupling of this hate circuit could be associated with impaired ability to control and learn from social or other situations which provoke feelings of hate towards self or others. This in turn could lead to an inability to deal appropriately with feelings of hate and an increased likelihood of both uncontrolled self-loathing and withdrawal from social interactions. It may be that this is a neurological indication that is more normal to have occasion to hate others rather than hate ourselves."

Via Molecular Psychiatry. Image by Viktoriya/Shutterstock.