The Holidays are full of surprises— especially after Mr. Divabetic gets a new job as the pastry chef at the St. Nicholas Nursing Home nestled in a cozy Christmas Village. But adjusting to life in a Christmas Village is not all sugarplums and candy canes. Especially when a cantankerous resident, a real-life Ebenezer Scrooge, named Mr. Pincher almost dies——shortly after eating one of Max’s peanut butter swirl brownies.
Despite all of the ingredients for danger, Mr. Divabetic and our team of amateur sleuths and his overly protective mother — set out to find the real culprit in the hopes that his name isn’t on a lethal naughty list.
Our story was inspired by Kevin Houdeshell’s tragic true-life story. Thanks to the Houdeshell family for their advocacy efforts on behalf of the Emergency Insulin Act of 2019 and the emergency prescription refill legislation. Known as Kevin’s or Howdy’s Law, it allows pharmacists to dispense an emergency supply of chronic maintenance medication if the doctor cannot be reached – a common-sense act that could save a life.
Starring Max ‘Mr. Divabetic’ Szadek, USA Best Selling Author Tonya Kappes, Mama Rose Marie, Patricia Addie Gentle, Terri Seidman, MaryAnn Nicolay, Trisha Artman, Catherine Schuller, Chef Robert Lewis, Seveda Williams, and Wendy Radford. Special thanks to the Houdeshell family and Pharmacist Mandy Reece. Original music by Ivan Hampden Jr., Celine Dion’s vocals courtesy of SONY Music. Produced by Leisa Chester Weir.
In the spirit of Scrooge’s awakening at the end of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, we encourage you to honor Christmas in your heart by living in the Past, The Present, and the Future. Try to embrace the Spirits of all Three and the lessons they teach.
The tradition of drinking champagne to mark celebrations originated in the royal courts of Europe before 1789, where the expensive drink was viewed as a status symbol.
A 5-ounce serving of champagne has 3 to 4 grams of carbohydrates and 1.5 grams of sugar. Champagne tastes less dry than wine because the acidity level is very high.
However, remember that these grams of carbs and sugar will add up with every glass of champagne you drink.
Unlike Champagne and some sparkling wines, Prosecco is made using a less expensive method than champagne.
For a long time, Prosecco was regarded as something of a ‘poor man’s Champagne,’ but its popularity has soared since 2000, and in 2013 it outsold Champagne for the first time worldwide.
A glass of Prosecco contains 1.5g of sugar per glass (80 calories).
A six-ounce glass of other well-known Proseccos is around 100 calories, and for Champagne, around 140 calories. It should be noted that Champagne is always going to be higher in calories because it contains more alcohol compared to Prosecco.
Skinny prosecco contains half the sugar and just 67 calories a glass.
Pink champagne is a victory lap in a glass. The pale color, the effervescent bubbles, and the unique shape of the glass lend themselves to marking milestones. The elegant way you sip it and how it sparkles on your tongue make moments real or imagined better. For these reasons and more, I chose pink champagne over other cocktails to be featured in my song, Pink Champagne.
Divabetic’s holiday-themed Mystery podcast, A Christmas Peril, is free on demand.
The Holidays are full of surprises— especially after Mr. Divabetic gets a new job as the pastry chef at the St. Nicholas Nursing Home nestled in a cozy Christmas Village. But adjusting to life in a Christmas Village is not all sugarplums and candy canes. Especially when a cantankerous resident, a real-life Ebenezer Scrooge, named Mr. Pincher, almost dies——shortly after eating one of Max’s peanut butter swirl brownies.
A Christmas Peril
Despite all of the ingredients for danger, Mr. Divabetic, our team of amateur sleuths, and his overly protective mother set out to find the real culprit in the hopes that his name isn’t on a lethal naughty list.
Our story was inspired by Kevin Houdeshell’s tragic true-life story. Thanks to the Houdeshell family for their advocacy efforts on behalf of the Emergency Insulin Act of 2019 and the emergency prescription refill legislation. Known as Kevin’s or Howdy’s Law, it allows pharmacists to dispense an emergency supply of chronic maintenance medication if the doctor cannot be reached – a common-sense act that could save a life.
Starring Max ‘Mr. Divabetic’ Szadek, USA Best Selling Author Tonya Kappes, Mama Rose Marie, Patricia Addie Gentle, Terri Seidman, MaryAnn Nicolay, Trisha Artman, Catherine Schuller, Chef Robert Lewis, Seveda Williams, and Wendy Radford. Special thanks to the Houdeshell family and Pharmacist Mandy Reece. Original music by Ivan Hampden Jr., Celine Dion’s vocals courtesy of SONY Music. Produced by Leisa Chester Weir.
In the spirit of Scrooge’s awakening at the end of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, we encourage you to honor Christmas in your heart by living in the Past, The Present, and the Future. Try to embrace the Spirits of all Three and the lessons they teach.
Divabetic’s Carb Kitty Games make carbohydrate counting fun! Carbohydrate counting or “carb counting” can help you manage your blood glucose levels.
Most adults with diabetes aim for 45-60 grams of carbs per meal and 15-20 grams per snack. That number may go up or down, depending on how active you are and the medicines you take, so check with your healthcare collaborator.
Foods that contain carbohydrates raise your blood glucose values. By monitoring the number of carbohydrates, you eat can help to better understand your blood glucose levels. Carbohydrates (“carbs”) can be counted in 2 ways: by grams or by carb choices.
Remember, 1 carb choice or one serving of carbohydrates = 15 grams of carbohydrate. For example, one slice of bread, a small piece of fruit, or an ear of corn each have around 15 grams of carbs. Each of these equals one carb serving.
Most food items have nutrition labels on their packaging, showing the total carbohydrate count per serving. Be sure to look at the serving size, too. Certain packaged foods may contain more servings than you think. If you are eating out, call the restaurant, check out their website, or ask for their menu nutrition facts when you arrive.
Put together a food journal for many foods and meals you normally eat and their carb count per your typical serving. This can be something you keep on your smartphone or tablet. Start by writing down the foods and beverages you eat at each meal. If you don’t know the portion size you usually eat, measure the food and take note of the portion size. Next, combine the individual foods into meals, and add the total carbohydrate count for each meal.
Over time, you’ll know how many carbs are in certain foods you eat and how they affect your blood glucose levels.
Who knew our desire for real ingredients versus artificial ingredients is partially responsible for fueling violence and murder in Madagascar?
Almost two-thirds of consumers choose foods made from clean ingredients, defined as “not artificial, synthetic organic fresh, and natural.”
Unfortunately, this ever-increasing global demand for real vanilla used in everything from ice cream to alcohol to cosmetics, coupled with the dwindling supply of vanilla, and more stringent labeling laws, have created such fierce competition on the open market that violence has ensued.
Armed farmers in Madagascar now guard their crops to protect them against thieves who sell their vanilla beans for profits on the open market. Thieves will attack and kill farmers for their vanilla pods.
Madagascar vanilla has higher concentrations of vanillin than beans from other countries, which is why Madagascar vanilla beans are so richly flavored. But vanilla isn’t easy to grow, either. Vanilla plants must be nurtured for three to four years before bearing pods. The flowers bloom once a year for 24 hours and must be immediately pollinated.
The rising demand from global markets is forcing farmers to clear forests to make new fields for vanilla bean crops.
Stringent labeling laws must state “vanilla-flavored,” not “vanilla,” if real vanilla is not used in a product.
Cyclones in back-to-back years battered Madagascar, wrecking vines and diminishing supplies causing prices to skyrocket.
Vanilla’s high price, rampant poverty, and corruption have made the crop a favorite target of violent criminal networks.
Authorities have not disclosed the number of deaths due to vanilla.
This year’s World Diabetes Day theme is to increase access to diabetes education.
More than 95% of the time, people living with diabetes are looking after themselves. They need greater access to ongoing education to stay mentally, physically, and spiritually healthy and avoid health-related complications.
One in 10 adults worldwide currently lives with diabetes, an estimated 537 million people. Almost half do not know they have it. This is putting added strain on healthcare systems.
Healthcare professionals must know how to detect and diagnose diabetes early and make the most of their limited time to provide the best possible advice and care for people with diabetes.
World Diabetes Day (WDD) was created in 1991 by IDF and the World Health Organization in response to growing concerns about the escalating health threat posed by diabetes. World Diabetes Day became an official United Nations Day in 2006 with the passage of United Nations Resolution 61/225. It is marked every year on 14 November, the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, who co-discovered insulin along with Charles Best in 1922.
The campaign is represented by a blue circle logo adopted in 2007 after the passage of the UN Resolution on diabetes. The blue circle is the global symbol of diabetes awareness. It signifies the unity of the global diabetes community in response to the diabetes epidemic.
We’re celebrating people’s ability to thrive living with diabetes with inspiration from the great Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.
Giacomo Puccini was born in 1858 and later diagnosed with diabetes in 1908. Numerous reports mention that he struggled to manage his diagnosis for much of his life.
As we discuss Puccini’s artistry and life, we will be interspersing highlights of the history of diabetes, self-care treatments, and innovations for the past hundred years.
Puccini’s artistic triumphs include La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. Unfortunately, his last opera, based on the fable of Turandot, would remain unfinished due to his death from throat cancer in Brussels in 1924.
Guests include Toby Smithson, MS, RDN, LD, CDCES, FAND Patricia Addie-Gentle RN, CDCES. Hosted by Mr. Divabetic.
Throughout this podcast, we will feature music from Puccini: Great Opera Arias courtesy of SONY Music.
Hummus is packed full of diabetes-friendly complex carbs, protein, heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, and vitamins and minerals. It has a low glycemic index because your body digests them slowly. That means they aren’t absorbed as quickly as other carbs and won’t spike your blood sugar. The chickpeas in hummus give it lots of fiber and protein to fill you up too.
It’s hard to believe something as healthy as hummus could cause a riff between two nations. But that’s what a few handfuls of ground chickpeas did back in 2009. “The Hummus Wars” began when Lebanon’s minister of tourism, Fadi Abboud, wanted to break the world record for making the largest tub of hummus in the world. Lebanon’s goal was to claim hummus as their national dish and stop other nations, especially Israel, from encroaching on their proprietary rights of hummus.
“I thought the best way to tell the world that the hummus is Lebanese is to break the Guinness Book of Records,” said Fadi Abboud in an interview.
At the ceremony, Guinness awarded Lebanon’s 4,532-pound plate of hummus the prize. A gleeful Abboud announced, “We want the whole world to know that hummus and tabouli are Lebanese, and by breaking [into] the Guinness Book of World Records, the world should know our cuisine, our culture.”
Of course, the ceremony’s results became big news all over the Mideast region, along with Lebanon’s fervent boasts claiming that hummus solely belonged to them. Unfortunately, Lebanon’s claim did not sit well with everyone.
So in 2010, the people of Abu Gosh set out to break Lebanon’s claim to the Guinness Book of World Records. When they did that, the news was broadcast worldwide. “In the town of Abu Gosh this morning, Israel retook the title for the world’s largest hummus dish, weighing 4 tons and served in what a broadcaster described as something resembling a ‘satellite dish.’
The Lebanese heard the news and quickly counter-attacked. They created an even bigger entry by producing a vat of 23,042 pounds of hummus. They were also trying unsuccessfully to simultaneously register the word “hummus” with the European Union (EU), thus banning any country other than Lebanon from calling their product hummus.
The EU previously had awarded a similar protective designation of origins to other countries. France had successfully registered Champagne, Italy registered Parmigiano Reggiano, and Greece laid claim to feta cheese. Unfortunately, the EU believed that hummus was the food of an entire region, not a country. Therefore they did not allow Lebanon to register hummus as its own.
And so hummus became a symbol of all the tension in the Middle East. But even as the Hummus Wars continue, nobody gets hurt with this war.
The happy healthcare host, Mr. Divabetic, lands his to-die-for job as a caterer for the nation’s hottest health guru, Wendy Wattage’s Wellness Retreat on the Jersey Shore. Everything seems low pressure and low calorie until the body of the nasty food critic, Marilyn Macaroni, is found stabbed to death with one of Max’s new chef knives. Now he’s the prime suspect in a big, fat murder investigation!
Can he and his team of friends, diabetes educators, and his nosey Italian mother, Mama Rose Marie, find the killer before the police arrive? Or will he be trading his fruit suit for coveralls with stripes?
Weight loss murder never tasted so good.
Starring Mr. Divabetic, Best-Selling Author Tonya Kappes, Mama Rose Marie, Patricia Addie-Gentle RN, CDCES, Maryann Horst Nicolay MEd, NTDR, Kathie Dolgin aka ‘High Voltage,’ Seveda Williams, Catherine Schuller and Lorraine Brooks. Produced by Leisa Chester Weir. Special thanks to our colleague, the multi-talented Wendy Radford.
Music from The Pink Panther and The Return of The Pink Panther soundtracks by Henry Mancini courtesy of SONY Music.
Last night, 24-year-old jazz singer Samara Joy wowed the crowd at the Blue Note in New York with a voice as smooth as velvet. Her album, Linger Awhile, is out now.
After winning the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, Samara Joy’s star seems to rise with each performance.
“I was suddenly on the jazz radar. It’s still bizarre to think of how fast things have progressed.”
Her rich and velvety yet precociously refined voice has already earned fans like Anita Baker and Regina King, appearances on the TODAY Show, and millions of likes on TikTok — cementing her status as perhaps the first Gen Z jazz singing star. On Linger Awhile, Samara will introduce that massive audience to a slew of classic standards several times older than she is through her timeless, irresistible sound.
Samara Joy’s gentle rendition of Guess Who I Saw Today, originally popularized by Nancy Wilson, showcases the young singer’s exceptional control, range, and refined, distinctive style.
Her album’s release is just one more step for the ascendant vocalist, who will spend the rest of the year touring increasingly large stages — still shocked to be performing in front of thousands who hang on every word. “I’m still very much a student, even though I’ve graduated,” Samara says. “So this is only the beginning… there is much, much more to come.”
One can only hope that one day Samara Joy will record one of my songs like the new Holiday classic, Pink Champagne, by Ivan Hampden Jr. and Paulette McWilliams.
Please help me toast the holidays by listening to my new Christmas song, Pink Champagne, by Ivan Hampden Jr. and Paulette McWilliams.
The song is a passionate story of self-love and a woman’s journey from victim to victor at Christmastime. A mindset that I hope anyone who feels brokenhearted can find comfort in.
Breakups are hard. But the holidays seem to magnify the loneliness of heartaches: parties with everyone coupled up, romantic Christmas music and movies, and those annual Christmas letters brimming with friends’ burgeoning families. The airwaves are filled with upbeat holiday classics leaving little room for sadness and contemplation.
Take it from me, you can’t experience the joy of the holidays unless you let go of the painful emotions instead of holding them in. Hopefully, Pink Champagne can help bring joy and help those of us experiencing the same to move on during the holidays.
If you like my new release, Pink Champagne. please ‘like’ and share
My office is on New York City’s Halloween street. We’re expecting 3,000 – 5,000 trick-or-treaters. Everyone decorates their brownstones and flower beds. This year, I made 3 displays with my friend, Lauren.
Display #1: Ghost of Lily, the Central Park Zoo Polar Bear (1987- 2004)
“Lily was the beloved companion of Gus, a 700-pound polar bear that mesmerized tourists. He swam lap after lap in figure-eight patterns, pawing his way through the water with powerful backstrokes. He did this for as many as 12 hours a day. Every day. Every week. Every month. Lily would grin and bear it.
Materials: I used office shreddings, a dollar store mask, masking tape, plastic Chinese Restaurant soup containers, bubble wrap, a plastic serving bowl (belly), a Dollar Store child’s tutu, and newspaper to make her!).
Inspiration: I had no plans to make this bear until I received a package that arrived with pink bubble wrap. I couldn’t stop wondering if I could make a tutu using it!
Display #2: The Amy Wine “Haunted” House Twins:
“Rockstar Amy Winehouse died too soon
She misused hard drugs
drank too much booze
Maybe a lesson for October
is to remember you can make great art even when you’re sober”
Materials: I used Diet Coke bottles (shoes), hangers, newspaper, Dollar Store masks, pipe cleaners, Target (dress), water bottles, 1-gallon water jugs (heads), styrofoam balls, takeaway food serving utensils (hands), yarn, shower loofa (flower), yarn (hair), masking tape, and office shredding to make these beauties).
Inspiration: I adored my friend Catherine Schuller’s beautiful fascinator made out of water bottles that she wore for Halloween a few years back, so I challenged myself to build something out of my recycling pile.
Display #3: Real-Life Van der Voort Sister Ghosts. These beauties will make their debut later today! When I googled ‘Central Park Ghosts,’ I found a few articles about the two Victorian sisters, Janet and Rosetta Van der Voort, who haunt the ice rink in Central Park. Their story has such Gothic overtones that I got carried away. I produced a short audio story (with the help of Lorraine Brooks, Wendy Radford, Verna Henry, and Lauren Ricks), designed an art installation, and recruited my boyfriend, Joe, a found art sculptor, to create an additional display. I can’t wait to share it with you! Happy Halloween!
