Free Republic

Beijing, CNN (CNN)Spike Wang, a 29-year-old financial professional based in Shanghai, is struggling to live the Chinese dream. Wang is one of millions of Chinese middle-class men and women who grew up in a roaring economy. Now, amid soaring rents and a plunging stock market, they are finding daily life increasingly difficult. The past year has been especially tough. Like many middle-class investors, Wang dumped most of his shares in Chinese stocks after his portfolio suffered a 40% loss in just two years. Unable to afford a 37% rent increase, he left his old apartment in Beijing this year and...

Which Do You Prefer: Melons and Leeks, or the Bread of Heaven? Msgr. Charles Pope • August 7, 2017 • The first reading for daily Mass on Monday (18th week of the year) was taken from the Book of Numbers. It features the Israelites grumbling about the manna in the wilderness:Would that we had meat for food! We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt, and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now we are famished; we see nothing before us but this manna (Numbers 11:4-5).While it is easy...

Onions are eaten and grown in more countries than any other vegetable but rarely seem to receive much acclaim. It's time to stop taking the tangy, tear-inducing bulb for granted and give it a round of applause, writes the BBC's Marek Pruszewicz. Deep in the archives of Yale University's Babylonian Collection lie three small clay tablets with a particular claim to fame - they are the oldest known cookery books. Covered in minute cuneiform writing, they did not give-up their secrets until 1985, nearly 4,000 years after they were written. The French Assyriologist and gourmet cook Jean Bottero - a...