My mission in life is to try and get to a point where my insides world is not affected by the outside world.

If you have a busy natural foods store in your community, give their bulk cornmeal a try: high turnover means the product will most likely be fresh. And if the cornmeal is organic, all the better.

When in doubt, throw it out.

That said, there are certainly still cooks out there who make fantastic historical cornbreads, though the old recipes have often been changed to include modern techniques and ingredients.

I have spent far too many years trying to make everybody like me. It's not possible. People can say or think what they want.

The apparent physical stability of reefs belies an underlying natural turmoil of growth, death and destruction of calcareous organisms. Much like a modern city, reefs are constantly being rebuilt and torn down at the same time. Corals are the bricks, broken pieces of plant and animal skeletons the sand, and algal crusts and chemical cements the mortar. Reef growth is determined by the production, accumulation, and cementation of all this calcareous stuff into solid limestone.

Sometimes you win by losing.