Wednesday, 13 March 2013

Baker



A baker is someone who makes bakes and sells breads, rolls, biscuits or cookies, and/or crackers using an oven or other concentrated heat source. Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades. The place where a baker works is called a bakery.  The first groups of people to bake bread were ancient Egyptians, around 8000 BC. During the middle Ages it was common for each landlord to have a bakery, which was actually a public oven; Housewives would bring dough that they had prepared to the baker,

who would tend the oven and bake them into bread. As time went on, bakers would also sell their own goods, and in that some bakers acted dishonestly, tricks emerged: for example, a baker might have trap door in the oven or other obscured areas, that would allow a hidden small boy or other apprentice to take off some of the dough brought in for baking. Then the dishonest baker would sell bread made with the stolen dough as their own. This practice and others eventually lead to the famous regulation known as Assize of Bread and Ale, which prescribed harsh penalties for bakers that were found cheating their clients or customers.

Thursday, 3 May 2012

Trout


Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera Oncorhynchus, Salmo and Salvelinus, all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word trout is also used as part of the name of some non-salmonid fish such as Cynoscion nebulosus, the spotted seatrout or speckled trout.
Trout are closely related to salmon and char: species termed salmon and char occur in the same genera as do trout (Oncorhynchus - Pacific salmon and trout, Salmo - Atlantic salmon and various trout, Salvelinus - char and trout).

Most trout such as Lake trout live in freshwater lakes and/or rivers exclusively, while there are others such as the Rainbow trout which spend two or three years at sea before returning to freshwater to spawn, a habit more typical of salmon.

Trout are an important food source for humans and wildlife including brown bears, birds of prey such as eagles, and other animals. They are classified as an oily fish.

Thursday, 8 December 2011

Black-chinned Sparrow

This passerine bird is generally found in chaparral, sagebrush, arid scrublands, and brushy hillsides, breeding in the Southwestern United States (western Texas to southern California), and migrating in winter to north-central Mexico and Baja California Sur. There is also a non-migratory population in central Mexico.