2 weeks agoBlogsComments Off on You’ve been eating your avocados all wrong – the easy hack to getting them ripe in just 10 minutes
DO you ever get left frustrated when you want to tuck into your avocado but it isn’t quite ripe enough yet?
It turns out there is a handy hack which can get it ready to go in seconds.
instagram/vita_momhackA mum has given her top tips to getting avocados ripe in 10 minutes[/caption]
instagram/vita_momhackShe claims you need to put the avocado in a bowl of boiling water for 10 minutes[/caption]
A mum shared how you simply need some boiling water to do the trick.
Instagram user @vita_momhack wrote: “Kitchen Hack – pour boiling water over an unripe avocado and it will be ripe in 10 minutes.”
In a video, which has racked up over 9,300 likes, she showed how you should put the avocado in a bowl, before adding the hot water.
Then you should wait for the time and voila – your avocado should be less hard and more squishy.
The mum-of-two showed herself cutting into her avocado and it was perfectly ripe for eating.
Many people were impressed with her tip and said they had no idea it worked.
One said: “Wowwy! Thanks for the tip!”
Another added: “This is amazing.”
Meanwhile, one commented: “Hot water to ripen avocado? Super!”
However, one pointed out: “This only softens the avocado but not necessarily ripen it and produce the best flavour it could if you let it naturally ripen.”
And one said: “Nope. It is still hard.”
Other people have said microwaving an avocado can help make it softer.
A food writer from All Recipes said: “Slice the avocado in half, remove the pit, then wrap each half tightly in plastic wrap.
“I microwaved the avocado halves, cut-side down, in 30-second intervals until the fruit felt soft enough to use.”
instagram/vita_momhackWithin a few minutes, the avocados were soft enough to use[/caption]
However, they warned that the results can be “faintly rubbery.”
According to the team at California Avocados: “The microwave or oven may soften the flesh of the fruit a little which may make it ‘seem’ ripe, but it isn’t.
“Ripening avocados is a process best left to Mother Nature’s timeline. Patience is key.”
Another hack is to add an avocado in a brown paper bag with an apple to speed up ripening.
This is because apples emit a gas called ethylene which can help with the process.
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2 weeks agoBlogsComments Off on I was sole survivor of horror plane crash… how I lasted 8 days in jungle while maggots feasted on corpses around me
OPENING her eyes, Annette Herfkens took in the chaotic scene before her.
The cockpit of the plane she had been travelling in minutes earlier had been ripped away, and the rugged terrain of the Vietnamese jungle was visible through the front of the torn fuselage.
Annette HerfkensAnnette Herfkens was the sole survivor of a plane crash in 1992[/caption]
Annette HerfkensThe other 30 people on board the Vietnam Airlines flight 474 perished[/caption]
Annette HerfkensA number of passengers survived the initial impact, only to die a short while later[/caption]
Channel 5The Dutch-born banker credits her mindfulness for keeping her alive in the eight days after the crash where she had to fend for herself in the jungle[/caption]
She had boarded the Vietnam Airlines flight 474 at 7:50am on the morning of November 14, 1992, with her fiancé Willem van der Pas – nicknamed Pasje – who’d planned a romantic getaway to the South China Sea in Vietnam.
The couple, both Dutch investment bankers, had been together 13 years and were giving themselves a well-deserved break after six months of working in different countries, before they got married.
“We were young,” said Annette. “We had our life in front of us. That’s what we thought. But things turned out very different.”
The plane took off from Ho Chi Minh City for the 55-minute trip to the scenic coastal town of Nha Trang, with 25 passengers and six crew members on board.
Feeling claustrophobic, Annette, then 31, didn’t fasten her seatbelt – a decision that may well have saved her life.
Five minutes before they were scheduled to land, she told how the plane suddenly dropped.
“People were screaming. Pasje looked at me, scared,” Annette recalled.
“I reassured him. I said, ‘It makes sense, it’s a small plane, it’s probably just an air pocket.’
“But there was another drop. He reached for my hand, and everything went black.
“It goes so fast. You don’t even have time to see your life in front of you, or to think of anything, frankly.
“You just have a realisation – but realisation doesn’t leave time for thoughts. It’s not a scary moment. You don’t feel much.”
Speaking in the wake of the tragic Air India disaster, whichkilled more than 270 people last week, with one sole survivor, Annette is keen to stress that those who perished on board probably felt a similar way in their final moments, in the hope it gives their mourning relatives comfort.
Annette’s plane, a 16-year-old Soviet-made Yakolev Yak-40, was flying below minimum safe altitude on its approach to Nha Trang Airport during bad weather when it clipped trees and crashed into a mountain ridge.
She said the “bad part” was waking up to what was left of the plane – and its passengers.
“One moment I was flying with the sound of the plane’s engines. Next I wake up to the eerie sounds of the jungle,” she recalled.
“I open my eyes, and see complete chaos. The cockpit had broken off, so I could see the jungle growth through the front of the fuselage.
“There was something heavy on top of me, so I push it off. It turns out to be a dead man.
“I look to my left, and there I see my fiance still strapped in his chair, dead, with a very sweet, beautiful smile on his face.”
Stench of death
Annette HerfkensAfter her flight came down in the Vietnamese jungle, Annette survived on her own for eight days[/caption]
Refer to CaptionAnnette and her fiancé Pasje had planned a romantic getaway to the South China Sea[/caption]
WikipediaThe couple were travelling aboard a small three-engine jet (pictured is the jet’s sister plane)[/caption]
Annette HerfkensAnnette lost her partner of 13 years in the crash[/caption]
Because others were wearing their seat belts, their ribs had been pushed deep into their lungs on impact.
Annette was badly injured – with 12 broken bones in her hip alone, a collapsed lung and a broken jaw – but alive.
The next thing she remembers is lying on the jungle floor, with the fuselage about 10 metres behind her up the mountain.
She wasn’t the only one to survive the initial impact.
“I heard people behind me moaning,” she recalled. “Next to me there was a Vietnamese man talking to me in English.
I had such a big wound on my shin that I could see the bones sticking out, and the flesh, like in a biology textbook. It really, really hurt like hell
Annette Herfkens
“I said, ‘Do you think the rescuers will come?’. He was very comforting. He said, ‘Yes, I’m a very important man. They will come for me.’
“My skirt had fallen off, and he opened his suitcase and he lent me his suit trousers.
“I had such a big wound on my shin that I could see the bones sticking out, and the flesh, like in a biology textbook. It really, really hurt like hell.”
It would be eight long days before Annette was found, and she credits her remarkable survival to her decision to follow her instincts and accept her fate.
“I was just immediately accepting the fact that I was there, telling myself, ‘Hey, you are here in the jungle and you’re not on the beach with your fiance’,” she said.
“We all have that instinct in us to do the right thing, to forget ego, and follow your instinct.
“And then I told myself, ‘Don’t think of Pasje, don’t think of Pasje. That will make you cry. But you cannot cry right now.’
Annette HerfkensShe had 12 broken bones in her hip alone, a collapsed lung, and a broken jaw – but she was alive[/caption]
“So instead of dwelling on where I should have been, I stayed in the now. I focused on what was right in front of me, and that was a beautiful jungle. I really focused on the beautiful leaves.
“I was not a hiker – I was a businesswoman, used to shopping around the world in Hong Kong, New York, London. And now all of a sudden I’m in this nature and I think, ‘Wow, this is nice’.”
Eventually, the moans of others around her turned to silence.
“I’m sitting next to the Vietnamese businessman, when I realised there was this terrible smell,” she said. “There was a maggot coming out of his eye.
“Crawling on my elbows, I pass him, and another dead man, and a dead Vietnamese girl.
“Dragging my body along, I settled on the wing of the plane that had come loose.
I’m sitting next to the Vietnamese businessman, when I realised there was this terrible smell. There was a maggot coming out of his eye
Annette Herfkens
“I must have fainted then, because I was in so much pain. But I realised how important it was that I was alive and kicking, and that I had to stay alive.”
Annette knew she had to make a plan, and gave herself one week to make it back to civilisation, and settled herself under an opening in the trees that would allow rescuers to spot her.
Her priority then became working out how to get water.
“I looked at the wing of the plane and realised that the insulation material was some kind of foam. I grabbed onto it. In all that pain,” she recalled.
“I figured that those balls could work like a sponge when it would rain. So those seven little balls kept me through the day. Just enough water.
“That was the plan – they say it’s good for survivors to divide it into feasible steps, and to congratulate yourself when you reach one of those steps.
“You have to keep a sense of humour, too. I was very much making fun of myself, ‘Look at you, you can’t even sit through a blow dry. And here you are’.”
Annette HerfkensAnnette returned to Vietnam and met up again with Cao Van Hahn, a Vietnamese policeman who’d come to rescue her[/caption]
Annette HerfkensThe Dutchwoman returned again with her daughter Joosje[/caption]
Annette HerfkensAnnette followed her instincts to stay alive[/caption]
As the days went by, with only the small amount of rain water she managed to collect in her insulation balls keeping her alive, Annette grew weaker.
But she willed herself to remain in the present and take it moment by moment.
On day six she recalled having a “beautiful near death experience” which she likened to an “orgasm”.
“The more I focused on the beauty of that jungle, the more I saw how the light hit the leaves. I focused, and zoomed further and further in,” she said.
“I wasn’t eating, I had very little water. But I got into this higher state of mind, and I became part of the jungle.
“I slowly floated to death. It’s a beautiful wavelength. Maybe it feels like tripping, or like an orgasm. It was so beautiful that I didn’t want to get out of it.”
Remarkable stories of sole survivors
IN the face of devastating plane crashes, a select few defy the odds, emerging as the sole survivors. Annette is one - but there are others, including Vishwash Ramesh, the only one to make it out alive from the recent Air India crash.
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh (Air India Flight AI171, 2024): In a recent miracle, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh was the sole survivor of Air India Flight AI171, which crashed moments after takeoff. He astonishingly walked away from the wreckage with minor injuries, recalling, “Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed.”
Cecelia Crocker (Northwest Airlines Flight 225, 1987): At just four years old, Cecelia became “America’s Orphan” after being the only survivor of Northwest Airlines Flight 225, which killed 154 people on board. Now 42, she lives with visible scars and the persistent question, “Why me?”
Bahia Bakari (Yemenia Airways, 2009): Twelve-year-old Bahia was the sole survivor when a Yemenia Airways flight plunged into the Indian Ocean, killing all 152 others. She drifted for hours amidst debris, recalling a sudden “electric shock” before finding herself in the water.
Juliane Koepcke (LANSA Flight 508, 1971): Juliane, 17, miraculously survived a two-mile fall from a lightning-struck plane over the Peruvian rainforest. She then endured a ten-day trek through the Amazon with injuries, demonstrating incredible resilience.
Jim Polehinke (Comair Flight 5191, 2006): As co-pilot, Jim was the only survivor of Comair Flight 5191. He openly shared the immense emotional pain and survivor’s guilt, stating, “I’ve cried harder than any man has ever cried, or any man should be able to cry.”
Then Annette saw someone – a man dressed in orange around ten yards away from her.
She thought she might have been hallucinating. But he was real.
“I really had to fight to focus on him and to get out of my beautiful state of mind,” she said.
“I was really happy to leave Earth in that moment. But he made me realise that my family would have never known that I was alive had I just died there.
“I just wanted to go back, for the love of my family. I needed to come back. I needed to stay alive.”
The man was Cao Van Hahn, a Vietnamese policeman who raised the alarm, and after eight days in the jungle, Annette was rescued.
“They gave me a sip of water, which was like the best champagne,” she said.
Annette HerfkensAnnette’s remarkable story of survival made headlines around the world when she was found[/caption]
Annette told how she went through a near-death experience near the end of her jungle ordealAnnette Herfkens
Annette was transferred to a local hospital in Ho Chi Minh before being moved to a larger one in Singapore.
Family and friends flew in from around the world – but it was now that Annette’s enormous personal loss hit home.
At Pasje’s funeral his friends carried his coffin, while Annette followed behind on a stretcher.
“For me, it was like I was marrying a corpse,” she remembered.
Within three months Annette had returned to her office in Madrid and continued to build her career as a banker, eventually finding love again with a colleague, Jaime, with whom she had two children and moved to New York.
Her experience has made her incredibly resilient. When her son Max was diagnosed with autism aged two, she accepted the circumstances instead of fighting them, just as she’d done in the jungle.
She also drew on her experience to cope with three miscarriages and her divorce from Jaime – who died from cancer in 2021 on the anniversary of Pasje’s death.
Annette has also returned to Vietnam twice – in 2006, and in 2014.
She added: “Every year, on November 14, for the next eight days I count how much I eat and drink. And I’m grateful.
“Your mind makes up stories, soap operas. But you have to silence that voice and listen to the other voice.
“You can call that the voice of God, your instinct, your higher self – but it tells you what to do. And it saved my life.”
Annette HerfkensAnnette’s account of what happened went on to become a bestseller[/caption]
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TRENT ALEXANDER-ARNOLD has revealed how long he was learning Spanish before his move to Real Madrid.
The England defender ended his lifelong love affair with Liverpool at the start of the month with an £8.5million move to the Bernabeu.
GETTYTrent Alexander-Arnold joined Real Madrid from Liverpool earlier this month[/caption]
REUTERSThe defender stunned the world at his unveiling by speaking fluent Spanish[/caption]
REUTERSThe 26-year-old has revealed how long he’s been learning Spanish amid rumours he was doing so for the last year[/caption]
Alexander-Arnold, who was set to become a free agent at the end of the month, was officially unveiled by Los Blancos last week and stunned footie fans by speaking FLUENT Spanish in his press conference.
His flawless Spanish prompted suggestions that he’s been learning the language for several years in preparation for a Madrid move.
But the 26-year-old insists that wasn’t the case, saying after making his debut in Real’s Club World Cup opener: “Not too long.
