In this exercise, you'll transform an existing text into a poem created by you! You will select words, or phrases that will make up your poem while blacking out the rest.
There’s an Easy Trick to Not Crying When Chopping Onions — Just Use This Allium
Food & Wine
Just a few weeks ago I started slicing several onions in my small Brooklyn kitchen, preparing to caramelize them for a simple pasta dish. It was date night, and I was moderately dressed up, complete with the mascara I don a maximum of once a week. Three yellow onions later, my carefully applied eye makeup was streaming down my face as I reached for a hand towel to dab my eyes.
This wasn’t an uncommon experience for me; whether or not I’m wearing mascara, I always find the tears incited by onions to be incredibly frustrating. I’ve tried various “hacks” such as lighting a match, blowing it out, and then holding it in my mouth while I chop, or placing a damp paper towel next to my cutting board in an attempt to stave off the crying, but they never seem to work. Consequently, I was thrilled to find a permanent solution just two weeks ago.
I recently discovered the joy of cooking with Smileys, a variety of onion that — as its name suggests — doesn’t make you cry. With their flaky yellow skin, crisp white interior, and medium size, Smileys look just like any other sweet yellow onion you’d find in the grocery store. Although I was skeptical before testing them myself and learning more about how this allium was developed, I can confirm that these tear-free onions should be on every home cook’s radar.
Do these onions actually keep you from crying?
The short answer is yes. I’ve tested Smileys on multiple occasions over the course of two weeks. While chopping onions I still smelled the pungent and slightly sulfuric aroma usually associated with tears, but I never cried, and I didn’t ever feel a burning sensation in my eyes. (As a point of reference, one evening I diced four Smileys in a row to see if they would make me cry over a longer duration. They didn't.) Several other staff members tested the onions too, and photo editor Doan Nguyen said, “They did work! I was literally cutting up onions and holding them up to my nose and eyes to see if anything would happen.”
Why do Smiley’s not make you cry?
There is a surprisingly complex set of chemical reactions behind the tears that raw onions cause. Once you break the skin of an onion, the sulfoxides (organic compounds that have both oxygen and sulfur) and enzymes inside of it are released and together produce sulfenic acid.
How and why Pantone picked 'Viva Magenta' as its 2023 color of the year
December 2, 2022
By Rachel Treisman
It's official: 2023 is the year of magenta. That's according to the Pantone Color Institute, the authoritative consultancy that's christened an "it color" every year for more than two decades.
Its latest pick is none other than Viva Magenta 18-750, which it describes as "a shade rooted in nature descending from the red family and expressive of a new signal of strength. Other words the company uses to characterize the color — and, by extension, the current cultural moment — include powerful, empowering, electrifying, boundaryless, audacious and inclusive.
"Viva Magenta is brave and fearless, and a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes a joyous and optimistic celebration, writing a new narrative," it says. Some skeptics would point out that magenta doesn't technically exist, since there's no wavelength of light that corresponds to that color. But Pantone — which literally wrote the book on color-matching in the 1960s — defines it as a "nuanced crimson red tone that presents a balance between warm and cool."
Magenta is a hybrid in many senses, the color authority says, as it straddles the physical and the virtual, the organic and the innovative."It is assertive, but not aggressive, a carmine red that does not boldly dominate but instead takes a 'fist in a velvet glove' approach," it says. "Exuding dynamism, PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta is a transformative red tone capable of driving design to create a more positive future."
"An unconventional shade for an unconventional time"
The Pantone Color Institute was founded two decades after the color company and has been championing colors of the year since cerulean blue in 2000 (cue the iconic Devil Wears Prada monologue).
The program aims to highlight the relationship between color and culture, and colors of the year are chosen because they reflect the global culture at a specific moment in time, according to Laurie Pressman, the institute's vice president.
Its selection process involves looking at everything from the entertainment and travel industries to technologies, cultural events and socioeconomic conditions, to analyze and forecast trends. Pantone invented a completely new shade for 2022's color of the year: Very Peri, a light purple representing courage and creativity.
Why reading is a form of therapy
Analysis by Kara Alaimo, CNN
Updated 4:02 PM EDT, Mon March 24, 2025
Like most parents, I’m exhausted from juggling the needs of my family and work in the 21st century. But after the kids fall asleep, I’ve been escaping to southern India in the early 20th century. It’s warm there, I’m surrounded by water and the air smells like jasmine.
I’ve been pulling this off with Abraham Verghese’s gorgeous book “The Covenant of Water.” It’s been just the opportunity to relax that I’ve badly needed. During a particularly rough spell in which my kids and I were constantly ill this winter, I read Glynnis MacNicol’s “I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman’s Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris” and vicariously traipsed through Paris as a single person.
So-called bibliotherapy can be a powerful wellness practice, according to Emely Rumble, a Springfield, Massachusetts-based licensed clinical social worker who has been prescribing it to her clients for 15 years. For most of us, “there’s not really too many opportunities to slow down and turn inward,” said Rumble, who teaches a course on bibliotherapy at Queens College in New York City. She is also author of “Bibliotherapy in the Bronx,” a book to be published in April. Reading offers a break from work and caring for other people, she said, and it can also be a way to gain personal insights.
What stories teach us about ourselves
Books often have powerful effects on people, making readers cry or causing them to get angry. “If an emotion comes up for you while you’re reading, there’s some information there for you,” Rumble said. If readers stop and think about what’s making them have the reactions they’re experiencing, they can gain valuable knowledge about themselves.
Similarly, she said, if readers find themselves connecting emotionally with certain characters, they should consider what’s making them attach to those individuals. Rumble recommended readers keep journals on hand to write down what they learn about themselves. Reading about and reflecting on a topic also can provide an opportunity to see things from other people’s points of view and even to reconsider your beliefs, Rumble said.
“We can realize that, OK, maybe I am thinking about something in black-and-white terms. Or maybe I am catastrophizing a little bit too much,” she said. “Sometimes we read something (to help) reframe our perspective.”
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Excerpt from article: "Why reading is a form of therapy" written by Kara Alaimo.
Updated 4:02 PM EDT, Mon March 24, 2025
Like most parents, I’m exhausted from juggling the needs of my family and work in the 21st century. But after the kids fall asleep, I’ve been escaping to southern India in the early 20th century. It’s warm there, I’m surrounded by water and the air smells like jasmine.
I’ve been pulling this off with Abraham Verghese’s gorgeous book “The Covenant of Water.” It’s been just the opportunity to relax that I’ve badly needed. During a particularly rough spell in which my kids and I were constantly ill this winter, I read Glynnis MacNicol’s “I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman’s Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris” and vicariously traipsed through Paris as a single person.
So-called bibliotherapy can be a powerful wellness practice, according to Emely Rumble, a Springfield, Massachusetts-based licensed clinical social worker who has been prescribing it to her clients for 15 years. For most of us, “there’s not really too many opportunities to slow down and turn inward,” said Rumble, who teaches a course on bibliotherapy at Queens College in New York City. She is also author of “Bibliotherapy in the Bronx,” a book to be published in April. Reading offers a break from work and caring for other people, she said, and it can also be a way to gain personal insights.
Citation
Alaimo, K. (2025,March 24). Why reading is a form of therapy. CNN Health. https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/health/bibliotherapy-reading-therapy-wellness/index.html
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