I got an email with a body of the image below. It seems that The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf will be giving free coffee.

As mentioned at the lower left portion of the image, the redemption begins June 20 and to claim your drink you must register at http://www.spreadthefroth.com.

I am not sure if this is true but why not give it a try. Nothing’s lost anyway when you register and share this to your friends.

This year, 2011, Starbucks is changing their logo or brand.  Please see below how it looks like:

This is just a part of the evolution that we will see from the largest coffeehouse in the world starting this Spring as they celebrate their 40th anniversary.  And according to Howard S., Starbucks’ chairman, president and CEO, “…there will be much more to come…We think you’ll like what you see.”  Then, let’s wait and see.

Starbucks enlisted the branding firm of Lippincott to help with the refinement of the logo.

However, this move has garnered a number of negative comments from people who apparently hate the change.

The image below shows the evolution of Starbucks’ logo.

I read this afternoon, while I was in faculty room, from Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 22, 2010 issue, that caffeine is a diuretic that speeds up dehydration-causing fluid loss, which puts more pressure on our kidneys.  According to Wikipidea, diuretic is any drugs (or substance) that elevates the rate of urination and thus provides a mean of forced diuresis.  This may be the reason why I frequent the toilet to pee.  I am coffee-lover and drink 3-4 cups of coffee, it’s free though in our office.  It is suggested to try sticking to decaffeinated green tea for a change.  I still have to research if decaffeinated coffee can serve as replacement to regular coffee.

According to the article, there are only two simple things that we need to do to care for our kidneys: eat a balanced diet and drink enough of water.

Aside from coffee, smoking and alcohol are also bad for kidneys.  Smoking increases the risk of kidney disease while alcohol intake strains kidneys to work doubly hard to eliminate toxins from the blood.

This cheesecake was first offered to me by one of my office colleagues when I was about to take dinner in our pantry last week.  She said that it’s a “cheesecake”.  Out of curiosity, I took a small part to taste it.  Hola!  It tastes good! And I loved it.   Sorry but I can’t explain how it tastes like.  I was also amazed when this colleague of mine told me that it was made of cream cheese.  She also told me to use Philadelphia Cream Cheese which I am not familiar with.  I told her that I will ask my sis to prepare this cheesecake this Christmas or New Year for our Noche Buena or Media Noche.  So I made a research and found the recipe from Philiadelphia cream cheese website.  I learned from here that there are two types of cheesecake: the baked and non-baked.  This cheesecake on the picture at the right which I tasted last week is an example of non-baked one.  Below is the recipe of the Oreo Cheesecake:

Ingredients

• 1 cup cream, lightly whipped
• 1 cup crushed OREO Original Cookies
• 100g OREO Chocolate Crème Cookies, crushed
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 3 teaspoons gelatine, dissolved in 1/4 cup boiling water
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 500g block PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
• 50g butter, melted
• 50g OREO Chocolate Crème Cookies, extra, roughly chopped

Instructions

• Combine the crumbs and butter and press into a lined 20cm springform pan. Chill.
• Beat the PHILADELPHIA and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Fold in the gelatine mixture, lemon juice, cream and OREO Chocolate Creme Cookie crumbs.
• Pour the filling into the prepared crust, refrigerate for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with extra OREOs and refrigerate for another for 2 hours or until set.

If you wish to try different variant of cheesecake, you can visit Philadelphia Cream Cheese’s website by clicking here.