TL;DR: The Fire HD 8 Kids tablet features an 8-inch HD display, 2GB of RAM,

When you chow down on a banana, you might often see a black bit at the end and it looks a bit gross. But what is it? Some people think it is the seed, but these are found down the middle, if at all, as the Cavendish variety of bananas, which is commonly sold typically doesn’t produce any seeds. It is actually something completely different. Bananas are technically berries and the black bit is the nub of the flower from which the giant banana berry grew. Bananas grow on trees in bunches, and the end is actually the top of the fruit while the hard stalk is the bottom. But given most people eat bananas by snapping off the stalk first, the residual flower nub is left at the end. This black bit is entirely edible but people often throw it away because it has a tough texture and a bitter taste. So now you know, there is nothing stopping you from getting one of your five a day. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Pumpkins and squash are great in tarts, and it’s the mixture of sweet and salty in savoury pumpkin tarts that really gets me,” says food writer Diana Henry. Pumpkin tarts with spinach and gorgonzola Serves: 6 Ingredients: For the pastry: 225g plain flour, plus more to dust 175g butter, chilled and chopped Sea salt flakes For the filling: 450g pumpkin or squash Olive oil 450g spinach, coarse stalks removed 2 large eggs, plus 1 egg yolk 275ml double cream 50g parmesan cheese, finely grated Freshly grated nutmeg 200g gorgonzola cheese Freshly ground black pepper Method: 1. For the pastry, put the flour, butter and a good pinch of salt into a food processor and pulse-blend the mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add just enough very cold water to make the pastry come together. Wrap it in foil or clingfilm and refrigerate for about half an hour. 2. Preheat the oven to 180C fan (375F), Gas 5. 3. Cut the pumpkin or squash from top to bottom into broad slices, remove the inner stringy bits and seeds, then peel. Brush lightly with olive oil and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until just tender. Turn off the oven. Put the spinach into a large saucepan, cover and wilt in the water left clinging to it (about four minutes over a medium heat). Drain well and leave to cool. 4. Make the custard by mixing together the eggs, egg yolk, cream and parmesan. Season well. Roll out the rested pastry on a lightly floured surface and use it to line six individual tart tins. Chill for another 30 minutes (or just stick them in the freezer for about 15 minutes). 5. Preheat the oven again to 180C fan, Gas 5. Prick the bottom of the tarts with a fork, line them with baking parchment and put baking beans or ordinary dried beans on top. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and cook the pastry cases for another five minutes. 6. Cut the pumpkin into small slices, about 10 centimetres long and one centimetre thick. Squeeze every last bit of water from the spinach and chop it up. Season both of these and add some freshly grated nutmeg to the spinach. Spread the spinach over the bottom of the tart cases, then add the slices of pumpkin and dot with nuggets of gorgonzola. 7. Pour the custard mix over the tarts and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and the custard feels only just set when you put your forefinger in the centre of a tart. Leave for 10 minutes to let the custard finish cooking and set a little once you have taken it out of the oven. Beef pie with wild mushrooms and red wine With wild mushrooms and red wine, this beef pie is perfect as the days get shorter and colder. Serves: 6 Ingredients: 1kg braising beef, cut into large chunks 30g dried wild mushrooms Groundnut oil 350g baby onions, or small round shallots, peeled but left whole 50g butter 1 celery stick, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, crushed 30g plain flour 300ml red wine Leaves from 3 thyme sprigs 3 bay leaves 300g fresh mushrooms, sliced 3 tbsp finely chopped flat leaf parsley leaves 320g puff pastry for 1 big pie, 600g for 6 small pies 1 egg, lightly beaten Sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper Method: 1. Dry the meat well with kitchen paper (if it’s wet it won’t brown properly). Put the dried mushrooms in a heatproof bowl and pour enough boiling water over to just cover. Leave to soak for 30 minutes. 2. Heat two tablespoons of oil in a heavy-based casserole and brown the beef in batches: it is very important to cook it in batches otherwise the meat will not colour well. Remove each batch as it’s done. Add the baby onions or shallots to the pan and lightly brown them, adding a little more oil if you need it. Reduce the heat, add 20 grams of the butter and all the celery and garlic, and sweat for 10 minutes. Return the meat, with any juices, to the casserole. Season well and, over a low heat, add the flour. Stir everything round until it is well coated. Cut up the mushrooms and add to the pot with their soaking liquid (strain the liquid through muslin, as it can be gritty). Add the red wine, thyme and bay leaves and bring to the boil. Immediately reduce the heat, cover and cook over a very gentle heat for one-and-a-half hours, stirring every so often. Take the lid off for the last 15-20 minutes to reduce the liquid. You need thick juices for a pie, so, if they’re too thin, remove the meat and mushrooms and boil to reduce the sauce. 3. Melt half a tablespoon of oil and the remaining butter in a saute pan and cook the fresh mushrooms briskly over a high heat so that they get well coloured. Season and let the mushrooms cook until they exude their liquid and it evaporates. Stir the parsley and the cooked fresh mushrooms into the meat and check the seasoning. Leave to cool completely. 4. Put the meat in one large or six small pie dishes and roll out the pastry to fit the dish(es). Cut a strip or strips large enough to go around the edge or edges. Brush the edge(s) with water and press the strip on. Dampen this with water and cover the pie or pies with their lids, pressing the pastry down. Trim off the excess, knock up the edges and crimp them, if you like, or just press with a fork. Use the remaining pastry to decorate, making little holes in the top for steam to escape. Brush with the beaten egg and chill for half an hour. Preheat the oven to 190C fan, Gas 6. 5. Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes for one large pie, or 25-30 minutes for smaller pies. Serve immediately. Pecan and pear upside-down cake “The cranberries look beautifully jewel-like on this cake, which can be eaten warm as a pudding as well as with tea or coffee,” says Henry. “The fruit combination also works well in a Tarte Tatin. The ginger here is optional, but it mutes the sweetness a little.” Serves: 10 Ingredients: For the fruit and nuts: 75g unsalted butter 115g caster sugar 350g firm pears (about 2) 140g cranberries 75g pecans For the cake: 120g unsalted butter, softened 200g caster sugar 2 large eggs, separated Drop of vanilla extract 210g self-raising flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp ground ginger (optional) 175ml full-fat milk Method: 1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan (375F), Gas 5. 2. Melt the butter and sugar for the fruit and nuts in a heavy-based ovenproof saute pan, 25cms in diameter, over a low heat. Peel and core the pears and cut them into slices, about 1cm thick, then place them on top of the butter and sugar. Cook these over a gentle heat until just tender, then whack the heat up and cook them until lightly caramelised. Scatter the cranberries and pecans on top and gently mix all the fruit around. Turn the heat off, but don’t let the pan get cold. 3. For the cake, cream the butter and sugar and add the egg yolks and vanilla. Mix in half the flour along with all the baking powder and ginger, if using. Add the milk and then the other half of the flour. Mix until smooth. 4. Whisk the egg whites until they form medium peaks. Add one tablespoon of the beaten whites to the batter to loosen it, then, working quickly, fold in the rest with a large spoon. 5. Spread the batter over the fruit and nuts in the pan and bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the sponge comes out clean. 6. Leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes before turning it out, but no longer, or the caramelised fruit will stick to the pan. If this does happen, carefully lever the pears off the pan and lay them on to the cake with their dark, caramelised sides facing upwards. ‘Roast Figs, Sugar Snow’ by Diana Henry (Aster, £22). Read More Is there such a thing as British pizza? Five easy recipes to cook with your kids The dish that defines me: Rosie Grant’s grave recipes Courgette season is nearly over – here’s three ways to make the most of them How to cook to keep your gut healthy Leave Rick Stein alone – it’s totally reasonable to charge £2 for mayo and ketchup

By Clare Jim HONG KONG Hong Kong's move to raise the maximum mortgages available to some homebuyers, its

A professional cuddler who makes a living giving clients hugs has said people travel from all over the globe to receive the cuddle therapy she offers which is “far less intimate than a massage” and helps people from “all walks of life”. Natasha Wicks, 44, from Coventry, West Midlands, says that despite criticism, cuddling is scientifically proven to release happy hormones like dopamine and that a lot of her clients are “the big spoon in life” and go to her for emotional support that they do not have at home. As such, many of her clients are caregivers and most of them join Natasha for two-hour hugging sessions, costing £70 an hour. The sessions vary depending on what the client wants, some having “emotional hugs”, others talking more and some wanting to “sit at opposite ends of the sofa with our legs and feet entwined”. Natasha became a cuddle therapist in 2015 and, while she has had comments online from people criticising the practice, she said that her family and friends were unsurprised when she first started giving professional cuddles. She said: “They all said to me that I give the best cuddles so it’s not surprising that I’d start doing it as a job. “It’s very much what I do, I help people and want to make people feel better. It’s a natural thing when someone is going through a tough time to want to give them a hug. “Cuddle therapy might not be as widely accepted in society but it’s far less intimate than other things like massages which are seen as normal.” Prior to becoming a cuddler, Natasha originally trained as a CBT therapist and counsellor. She said: “There’d be situations where I would be talking to someone and they’d really need a hug, but obviously, you’d have professional boundaries in place and it wouldn’t have been appropriate. “It was just a really natural thing. One client had finished her final session and we had agreed that she wasn’t my patient anymore so we hugged goodbye. She said to me that she’d wanted to do that for a long time and I thought ‘me too’.” Looking into cuddle therapy, which she said was increasing in popularity in 2014, Natasha took a training course. By 2015, she was a qualified cuddler and started taking on new patients for cuddle sessions. Natasha provides a minimum session of one hour but said most people go for at least two hours, sometimes longer if they are receiving more than one type of therapy. She said: “I always give people a hug on the doorstep when they arrive and then they’ll come in and relax, and we’ll have an initial chat about what brings them here. After that, I’ll put on some ambient music and we’ll have a cuddle on my cuddle sofa. “It can be daunting coming into a stranger’s house and I can tell the difference in them from arriving to leaving. The first hug they might be angled away from me but when we’re hugging goodbye, I can get my head in between their neck and shoulders and you can almost feel that a weight has been lifted from them.” There is not one type of person that visits Natasha for cuddles, but she says that a lot of her clients are caregivers. She said: “There’s all sorts of people who come for a cuddle, from people who have moved away from home for the first time and just want a mum hug all the way to people in their 80s. “I’m inclusive of all genders and all ages. I get a lot of clients who are the carers of their family and they are so busy looking after other people, and probably giving the hugs and support to other people, that they don’t have that for themselves. “A lot of people that come to see me are generally people are the big spoon in the life – they take care of others and don’t want to show a vulnerable side to people because they don’t want people to worry that they can’t cope. “I get a lot of carers, a lot of NHS staff, a lot of mums, a lot of people that are in a world where they have to be the strong one in the situation and they just want to be able to come here and let their guard down.” Natasha’s priority is to make people feel at ease when they arrive as she said it can be “nerve wracking” turning up at someone’s house for a hug. Setting out clear boundaries prior to meeting, the therapist has said that the patients she has welcomed into her home have all been respectful. She added: “I always say to people that when your body relaxes, your tummy might crumble and mine might too, but that people don’t need to worry about it. Sometimes people fall asleep and they might snore or fart, it’s just natural things that happen. It’s happened twice where someone has got an erection and that’s fine, I have boundaries and we’ll just change position. “I want people to feel reassured that, as soon as they get in, they feel comfortable.” Despite the unconventional therapy, when Natasha first took on cuddle clients, she said her family were completely “unsurprised” and the step from CBT therapy to cuddle therapy was a “natural evolution”. While Natasha focuses her time on a holistic approach for treating people, she noted that there is also neuroscience behind cuddles. According to the 44-year-old, physical touch activates the brain’s orbitofrontal cortex and cuddling releases oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. Now, Natasha also does EMDR therapy and is a mental health swim host, and has clients travel from all over the globe to receive her hugs. She said: “Working from Coventry is brilliant because I’m only nine minutes on the train from Birmingham Airport and people come to visit me from all over. I get a client from Belgium, someone from Ireland and people from all over the UK who come to see me. “I wanted to find a sofa bed that just looked like a big comfy sofa for cuddle sessions. I’d started off with a big L shaped sofa but after about five years, it was sagging a bit, there’d been a lot of healing done on that sofa and it was time for a new one. “Now I have a sofa bed in my living room that I use as my cuddle sofa. It’s in the living room and it’s used for everyday life, watching TV with my partner, having people round and also for my work.” Breaking down the taboo around cuddle therapy, Natasha hopes more people will embrace the alternative treatment. She added: “As it’s become more popular, more people are becoming qualified as cuddlers and I think that’s great. “I’ve had comments online before of people thinking it’s weird or not understanding but there are other things we accept in society that are much more intimate than cuddles, like massages. “It’s not weird, it’s actually a really lovely thing to be able to make another soul feel better for a while.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live What is ‘beer tanning’ and why are experts warning against it? Christian Cowan: Designing is like dreaming Deborah James’s daughter launches anniversary clothing line for Bowelbabe Fund

If you’re someone who deals with stress and anxiety, the unwanted mental and physical effects can creep up during the most inopportune times. Perhaps you’re just hanging out, catching up on the latest episode of your favorite TV show and suddenly you begin to worry about everything in your life. Maybe you’re worrying about nothing in particular, but feel panicky nonetheless. Symptoms of anxiety include ruminating in your own thoughts, focusing on past regrets, a racing heart, sweaty palms, and a general feeling of impending doom. It’s a sneaky not-so-little feeling that can happen at any moment. And one of the worst moments it can strike is when you’re having sex and trying to orgasm.

This week, temperatures soared past 100 degrees in many parts of the country. But if you work in an office, chances are the temperatures indoors felt the exact opposite.

Snapchat users can rest easy with the knowledge that the erratic behavior they may have

Roughly two months after Bud Light endured a self-induced injury that torpedoed sales, the brand continues to lose ground to its competition. But there are signs the worst might be over.

As the weather starts to (slowly) warm up, it’s time to rethink your beauty routine. When temperatures change and the sun shines a bit more consistently, the same products you used in winter won’t be quite as effective. Your hair and skin will have different needs – and these are the changes you should make to accommodate this… 1. Wear broad-spectrum SPF You should be doing this all year round, but slapping on the SPF becomes even more crucial as the weather warms up and we see what Dr Carlos Charles, 4.5.6 Skin chief medical officer and co-founder, describes as “increased daily ambient outdoor ultraviolet light”. He recommends adding sun protection into your routine as early as spring – even if it doesn’t feel that warm. “In my patients with a more fair complexion I’ll start to see mild sunburns and an uptick in sun spots known as solar lentigines in the early spring months,” Charles says. “In patients with darker melanin-rich skin tones I’ll begin to see exacerbations of the pigmentary disorder known as melasma, as well as more intense examples of various types of hyperpigmentation.” Charles – who has spent most of his career treating melanin-rich skin – adds: “The best way to mitigate the hyperpigmentation is through the strict daily use of a broad spectrum sunscreen that is at least SPF 30.” Skin Proud Serious Shade SPF 50+ Sunscreen, £16.95 2. Combat increased oil production “In the warmer weather when temperatures and humidity rise, our sebaceous glands tend to overproduce sebum to keep skin hydrated,” explains Charles. “Even those who have normal skin may find their complexion becomes more oily or greasy. This is true across skin tones, but particularly for those with darker skin.” However, oilier skin doesn’t mean you should start triple-cleansing. “One of the most common mistakes I see patients make when their skin gets oily is over-cleansing to remove the excess oil. Unfortunately, this creates the opposite effect, as it can send the sebaceous glands into overdrive, producing more sebum,” says Charles. Instead, he recommends using “gentle and non-stripping” cleansers and adopting ingredients that will combat the increased oil production, such as salicylic acid. 4.5.6 Skin Green Bae Clearing Gel Cleanser, £28 3. Boost the moisture in your skin Charles continues: “Another mistake I see patients make when their skin gets oily is skipping their moisturiser – or worse SPF – for fear of looking shinier. “It’s always important to keep skin well-nourished and hydrated so that sebaceous glands don’t overcompensate.” Equally, Dr Preema Vig at Dr Preema London recommends using products with ingredients that will boost your skin’s moisture, including hyaluronic acid, ceramides, glycerin and squalane. Croma Skincare Hyaluronic Acid Face Mask, £48 4. Give your scalp some love Skincare doesn’t stop at your face. “In the summer months, our scalp can often be neglected and suffer – whether that be from sun exposure and sweating to tying the hair in restrictive, high-stress ponytails due to the heat,” says Munir Somji at DrMedispa. “These hairstyles, alongside heat damage from the sun, can cause hair to lose volume and break easily.” That’s why it’s important to give your scalp some love during the warmer months – by wearing looser ponytails, using targeted treatments or even giving yourself a scalp massage. 5. Don’t forget your eye area“Skin can become red and inflamed during the summer months, caused by blockage and inflammation of your sweat ducts,” says aesthetic oculoplastic surgeon Sabrina Shah-Desai. “Don’t forget to treat your eye area. When it comes to the delicate eye area, think about investing in some slightly larger sunglasses for extra protection, alongside a product to treat any pigmentation and protect.” Caudalie Vinoperfect Brightening Eye Cream, £30, Look Fantastic 6. Protect your hair, too It’s not just your skin that needs SPF – your hair could benefit from it too when the sun starts shining. “Warmer weather can cause your hair to become dry, frizzy and more prone to breakage due to increased exposure to UV rays, humidity and sweat,” says GHD UK ambassador and celebrity hair stylist Samantha Cusick. “The sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation can damage the proteins in your hair, which can lead to dryness, brittleness, and breakage. Additionally, sun exposure can also cause your hair colour to fade and lose its vibrancy.” The key to protecting your hair from the sun’s rays? Cusick recommends “wearing a hat or using a hair product that contains SPF”. Coola Scalp & Hair Mist Sunscreen SPF 30, £29, Feel Unique 7. Battle the frizz “Humidity can cause hair to absorb moisture from the air, which can lead to swelling and frizz. This is because hair is made up of keratin proteins, which can change shape when exposed to water. Additionally, the moisture can disrupt the hydrogen bonds in hair, leading to frizz,” Cusick explains. To beat the frizz, opt for anti-frizz products and always use heat protectant – and Cusick recommends using a tool such as the GHD styler that goes up to 185 degrees: “The optimum temperature to style hair,” she says. Kerasilk Liquid Cuticle Filler, £24, available in selected salons GHD Platinum+ Hair Straightener in Sun-Kissed Taupe, £239 Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Paparazzo says Harry and Meghan car chase was ‘catastrophic experience’ Miley Cyrus: As an adult I now realise how harshly I was judged as a child Common foot problems faced by runners – and how to solve them

Widgets provide easy access to your favorite apps and important information so there’s no need

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 21, 2023--