Gourmet Safaris are off-the-beaten-path culinary tours that explore Sydney’s diverse cultures through its unique and authentic restaurants, cafes and shops — particularly those that are fairly unknown to the general public.
On the United Flavours of the World tour, I was chauffeured with a bus of about 25 food lovers, led by Maeve herself, to Sydney suburbs I had never heard of on a quest to find the best South American butchers and pastry shops, Portuguese delis, Vietnamese restaurants and desserts of Lebanese, American and English origin.
The eight-hour tour included visiting various establishments, tasting their goods and hearing their stories. We met Jose and Maria Pereira ofSunshine Meats in Milperra, who worked for years to make their wholesale small goods meat business the success it is today, and tasted one of their bestselling products — a chorizo that Jose perfected as a young man living in Portugal. Another shop owner, Margarita Garcia, talked about running her husband’s Chilean butchery after he passed away, now called Margarita’s Cecinas (205 Hamilton Road, Fairfield West; 029-726-0673).
United Flavours of the World is one of 10 bus tours around Sydney, all focusing on specific food cultures and the neighbourhoods in which they are found. For example, Italian Classics takes you to the inner-city suburb of Leichhardt, where Italian immigrants settled, or explore The Exotic Flavours of Lebanon in Punchbowl in southwest Sydney. A local from each neighbourhood accompanies each tour, as well as a specialist guide – or if you are really lucky, Maeve herself.
Seven Sydney walking tours, covering similar themes to the bus tours, are also available for those that prefer to burn a few of the calories acquired during the day’s eating activities.
source: bbc.com
It seemed an almighty task before the start against a country with two top-100 players but Evans’ two victories against significantly higher ranked players in February’s win over Slovakia had made the unlikely seem possible.
At 344 in the world Evans is ranked almost 300 places behind the No59 Rochus but the 21-year-old from Birmingham pushed his experienced opponent all the way and may well have won had he taken the closest of tie-breaks in the third set.
Josh Goodall’s 6-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 defeat by Steve Darcis earlier had set the stage for Evans again to be the hero but Rochus was a step up from either Lukas Lacko or Martin Klizan, his conquests in the Slovakia match.
Evans picked up where he left off, though, coming back from 40-0 to break Rochus in the opening game and then repeating the feat to win the first set with a stunning forehand down the line.
As if to emphasise the quality of Rochus, the 31-year-old has been in the top 100 for the majority of the last 12 years and has won three of his five meetings with the world No1, Novak Djokovic.
The Belgian showed his quality at the start of the second, reeling off four games in a row after Evans missed a chance to break, and, although the home favourite pulled one back straight away, he could not retrieve the second.
Evans was starting to show his frustration, smacking the net when he missed a volley that would have given him a point for 4-4, but he continued to match his opponent in the third set.
A crunch backhand volley saved a rare break point in the fifth game and, when he was finally broken at the fourth attempt to leave Rochus serving for a two sets to one lead, he broke straight back to love.
In truth that was more to do with some tight play from the Belgian but he eventually prevailed in the most tense of tie-breaks.
There was never more than a point between them but Evans could not take advantage of two set points and Rochus took his first after a linesman seemed to change his mind in calling an Evans forehand wide.
It was desperately close but Evans put the disappointment behind him by breaking in the opening game of the fourth set.
Both players looked very weary and sought to shorten the points but that policy cost Evans as a poor volley and netted drop shot gave Rochus the break back for 4-4, two games after he had hit two aces to deny the Belgian.
Evans was now on the brink. He quickly found himself facing two match points at 4-5 and a cramping Rochus took the first when his opponent missed a forehand.
Ross Hutchins and Colin Fleming must now win the doubles rubber to give Britain hope of coming back to win the tie, something they have done only once before from 2-0. That was in 1930 against Germany.
source: guardian.co.uk
They got a huge one regardless after 14 minutes here when handed a penalty by Lee Mason, the referee, and his assistant Ceri Richards. Everything is coming off for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side.
Wayne Rooney threaded a ball into the QPR area where Ashley Young, feeling a hand placed on him by Shaun Derry, went down precipitately. Perhaps Derry should not have touched Young, who will reject any suggestion of a dive, and maybe Mason was correct to point to the spot and show Derry the red card, the seventh of QPR’s relegation-haunted season. Yet the captain’s sending off made it a triple whammy of suspect officiating as Richards, perfectly in place, had failed to spot that Young was a few feet offside; had he flagged for that, QPR would have been punting the free-kick away instead of restarting 1-0 and a man down after Rooney had slotted his 29th goal of the season.
The penalty killed off both United’s nerves and any hopes Manchester City might have had of a result that would place the destiny of the title back in their hands before they kicked off at Arsenal.
“You should have confidence that the referees will get the key decisions right,” QPR’s manager, Mark Hughes, said. “Just lately a lot of managers have lost faith in them.” The club is expected to appeal against Derry’s dismissal.
Ferguson agreed the officials got the incident wrong and of his side’s title hopes he said: “It is important us winning today whatever happens at the Emirates. We will just have to wait. But we have done our job.”
Rio Ferdinand, who had to deal with few scares in the United defence, concurred with his manager’s assessment of the penalty. Regarding their ascendancy over City, whom they previously trailed for most of the season, he said: “We didn’t think about getting back into this position [but] we never doubted we could put a run of games together.
“You need to get momentum at this stage of the season, that is the most important thing, making sure you get a run of games together. We have picked another one off and hopefully we can keep that going.”
United dominated, each half a game of attack versus defence that featured Paul Scholes spraying passes to colleagues at will, although Ferguson had a point when he said Derry’s marching orders blunted United as an attacking force.
“I’m happy we’ve won, it’s the name of the game at the moment,” the manager said. “But to be honest the sending-off gave us too much of a comfort zone. I don’t think we had a shot at goal in the first half. At least in the second half we improved on that part and had lots of shots on goal and a few chances.”
The visitors had their moments, though these were rare. In the first half David de Gea made his sole save of the contest when Adel Taarabt’s deflected shot looped under his crossbar, and the story of United’s dominance is found in the passing statistics: 664 completed from 734 attempts against the 210 managed from 269 made by their visitors.
Nevertheless, before Scholes added the second goal there was still the niggling possibility of QPR scoring an equaliser, as Ferguson acknowledged. “Absolutely. It only takes a second to lose a goal or score one. We kept missing at vital moments – Danny Welbeck was through, we hit the post and the bar,” he said of chances for Michael Carrick and Rafael da Silva, respectively.
“The second goal from Paul Scholes calmed everyone down. He’s capable of that and should perhaps have been having more shots. But we just didn’t shoot enough from outside the box today.”
Regarding a result that makes it eight straight league wins, Ferguson added: “I am pleased with that. There is good consistency in terms of the defending, although today we did not have a lot to do in terms of defending. The other good thing is there is also a game less. There are only six left now, three at home and three away.”
Scholes’s decisive strike arrived on 68 minutes. A failure to control the ball by Taarabt allowed Rafael to feed the maestro and his 25-yard bullet beat Paddy Kenny to his right. As Ferguson mentioned, Carrick crashed a late effort off the post but the abiding memory will be of Young being booed by the visiting supporters every time he touched the ball.
While they had a case, it is now even more emphatically United’s title to lose as they travel to Wigan Athletic on Wednesday.
source: guardian.co.uk
Balotelli was dismissed after receiving a second card yellow in stoppage time to incur a three-match suspension, having previously been sanctioned this season for a red card at Liverpool and a stamp on Tottenham Hotspur’s Scott Parker that prompted a retrospective ban. Yet City are resigned to losing the 21-year-old for at least three further matches after a lunge high into Alex Song’s shin apparently went unnoticed by the referee, Martin Atkinson.
The Football Association will await the referee’s report to see whether mention is made of that first-half incident – no foul was awarded – though, with six games still to play, Mancini will not call again upon a player who has increasingly become a liability. “Mario should have been sent off after 20 minutes,” said the City manager. “I’ve finished my words for him. I’ve finished. I love him as a guy, as a player. I know him. He’s not a bad guy and is a fantastic player. But, at this moment, I’m very sorry for him because he continues to lose his talent, his quality.
“I hope, for him, he can understand that he’s in a bad way for his future. And he can change his behaviour in the future. But I’m finished. We have six games left and he will not play. It’s not sure he’ll [be available] because he could get a three- or four-game ban. Now, I need to be sure that I have always 11 players on the pitch. With Mario, it’s always a big risk. Every time we risk one [man] being sent off, even if he can also score in the last minute.”
Mancini admitted that José Mourinho’s assessment of the striker as “unmanageable” may prove prophetic, with team-mates visibly frustrated as Balotelli’s second foul on Bacary Sagna prompted the late red. City were quick to distance themselves from suggestions that there had been a physical confrontation between players in the dressing room after the game, but when asked whether he would now seek to sell a player who has scored 17 times this season, Mancini said: “Probably.” He was reportedly more explicit on Italian television, saying: “We will sell him.”
“I am disappointed in him,” added Mancini. “He is young and he continues to make a lot of mistakes. I have punished him during the season – it’s totally false that I have different behaviour with Mario than the other players – and he still needs to change his behaviour if he wants to improve. I’ve seen players with huge talent finish in two or three years because they do not change. I hope, for him, he will.”
City’s title challenge effectively fizzled out in defeat in front of the chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, with Mancini’s side having now mustered only one win in six away games. Yet the Italian insisted he remains the man to bring the title back to the club. “When I arrived, City were eighth,” he said. “After six months, we were fighting for a Champions League place. Last year we were close to second and won the FA Cup and, today, we have 15 points more than this time last year.
“When you start a project it’s important you improve, and we have. But we need more experience and to change something. We’ve only worked here for two years. Now the title is more difficult, but we have 18 points to play for and a derby at home. United have had an incredible run in the last two months. But, in football, it can change. Ten days ago we were one point behind. Today it’s eight points. United have more experience than us, so probably it’s difficult, but until it’s impossible, we keep going.”
Arsène Wenger, whose side have returned to third place, conceded that Manchester United are now likely to retain their title. “In France we say that when a horse smells its stable it’s difficult to stop him,” said the Arsenal manager. “It’s not completely over but, eight points behind with six games to go, they can smell that stable.”
source: guardian.co.uk
Too far left; it crosses the front of the hole and continues on, leaving him with a six-foot tester coming back. Over to Bubba. On 16, Mickelson’s tee shot lands at the back of the green, staying on the upper tier. He’ll not make birdie from there, unless something stupendously stupid occurs. On 18, Harrington ends with a double bogey, missing a short putt, the final indignity. He ends the day on -4. So many chances, so many chances. On 17, Oosthuizen’s ball has come back out onto the fairway, but he doesn’t take advantage of the lucky break, finding the bunker front right of the green with his second. Bubba is in the trees, but in a clearance, and decides to go for the green with a wedge. And he finds it! Miles from the pin, but after that drive, he’d have taken that every time!
A birdie for Hanson on 15, but surely it’s too little, too late: he’s -7. Mickelson follows him in, to move to -8. Still fighting, but only just. Mind you, on 17, Bubba slices a wayward drive miles left – and then Oosthuizen hits a similarly hopeless slice to the right! Not sure where either ball has landed yet, but both are in the trees it would seem. Here comes pressure! This Masters just gets better and better!
Harrington’s approach to 18 ends in a bunker at the front of the green. Symbolic of his day; he’s come up just short, time and time again. On 16, Oosthuizen hits a solid birdie effort from 15 feet, but it’s always missing left on the low side. Bubba makes no mistake, however, and crashes in his birdie putt. He hares after it before it drops, high on life. He’s now carded four birdies on the spin, and is joint leader with Oosthuizen at -10. This is intense, and as good as golf gets.
Bubba hits his tee shot at 16 to eight feet. It’s a wonderful shot under the most intense pressure. He’s been the most consistent player of the week. Is he just timing his run perfectly? Oosthuizen puts his tee shot into the centre of the green, consolidating his one-shot lead; the ball topples down the ridge, some way behind Bubba’s ball, but with a half-chance for a long birdie putt that would be a real kick in his rival’s teeth.
Westwood is now the clubhouse leader at -8. There are now only two people ahead of him: Oosthuizen and Bubba. That’s because on 16, Kuchar dinks a delicate, nay pretty, chip down the green from his awkward position to the right. He slowly guides it to the top of a ridge, where it breaks sharp left and speeds up. He leaves himself with a 12 footer for par, the best he could do. It’s an amazing shot. But not enough to save his par, as he can’t knock in the snaky, gossamer putt. He’s back to -8.
Bubba prods his uphill eagle putt on 15 in a very ginger fashion. He’ll need to make the tricky birdie putt he’s left himself, because Oosthuizen makes his, regaining the sole leadership at -10. Watson does birdie, though: it’s his third on the bounce, and he’s -9. This is awesome golf. Speaking of which, up on 18, Westwood ends with a birdie, clipping his approach to eight feet past the pin, and rolling it straight in. He punches the air, knowing he’s probably not quite done enough – but then again, he’s far enough up the leaderboard to retain a reasonable chance!
Oosthuizen pushes his approach to 15 wide of the bunker to the right of the green. That’s not great. Bubba, however, sends an 8-iron to the centre of the green, 20 feet from the pin for eagle. On 16, the super-hot Kuchar is spooked by the water, and sends his tee shot miles wide right, just off the green. That will be quite a test, with the hole near the water, near the kink of the green. Back on 15, Oosthuizen manages to manufacture a bump just onto the green. Not ideal, but not a disaster, and about the best he could have done from there. He’s left with a 12-foot tester. On 18, Poulter three putts, ending the day on -5. Typical Masters drama, right here, right now.
Kuchar taps in his eagle putt, and joins Oosthuizen in the lead. On 18, Poulter’s approach reaches the back left of the green. The pin’s in it’s usual Sunday position: think Sandy Lyle. On 15, Bubba cracks a ludicrously long drive straight down the middle. And so does Oosthuizen.
A poor chip and two putts for Peter Hanson, whose challenge is all over, I’d suggest, given the defeated angle of his shoulders. Bye! On 15, Kuchar is surely certain of a birdie, as he nearly creams his second into the cup for a second albatross of the day! It was inches away. That would have been truly preposterous, Gene Sarazen cubed. The ball’s not far from the pin, that’s an almost certain eagle.
source: guardian.co.uk
Several others were seriously injured in the attack and have been taken to hospital. The death toll could be higher, with one official, Abubakar Zakari Adamu, telling the AP news agency 38 had died. A bomb later exploded in the central city of Jos, injuring several people. The blasts in Kaduna, which caused extensive damage, happened near restaurants, a hotel and two churches.
Religious conflict The area has been the scene of a religious conflict in recent years that has claimed hundreds of lives. There had been warnings of attacks in the region over Easter. Many of the dead are thought to be motorcycle taxi drivers and beggars.
Witnesses say debris was thrown dozens of metres from the centre of the blast. Kaduna can be found on the dividing line between Nigeria’s largely Christian south and Muslim north. ‘Horrific act’ No one has yet admitted carrying out the bombing, but the BBC’s correspondent in Nigeria, Mark Lobel, says the radical Islamist group Boko Haram recently said it would carry out attacks in the area over the Easter holiday.
Local Christian groups have speculated that the bombers were targeting a nearby church, but that heavy security meant they detonated their explosives in a nearby area instead. Britain’s Africa Minister Henry Bellingham called the attack a “horrific act”. Meanwhile, security forces are on the scene of the bomb blast in Jos. National emergency management agency spokesman Yushau Shuaib said: “Security personnel have moved to the scene as injured are being evacuated.”
source: www.bbc.co.uk
International mediator Djibril Bassole, Burkina Faso’s foreign minister, confirmed a letter of resignation had been submitted. The resignation paves the way for the coup leaders to step aside and the parliamentary speaker to take over. Mali has been grappling with a separatist uprising in the north.
It intensified after the coup by army officers on 22 March. Sanctions lifted Mr Bassole, who represents the West African regional bloc Ecowas, met Mr Toure in the Malian capital, Bamako. “We have just received the formal letter of resignation from President Amadou Toumani Toure,” he told reporters.
“We will now contact the competent authorities so that the vacancy of the presidency would be established and so that they take the appropriate measures.”
What happens next?
Under the agreement, the Malian parliamentary speaker, Dioncounda Traore, will take over as interim president and govern with a transitional administration until elections are held. Once he has been sworn in, Mr Traore has 40 days to organise this poll, the deal stipulates. Mr Traore, who has been in Burkina Faso since the coup was launched, said as he left for Bamako: “I am leaving for Mali with my heart full of hope.
“My country has known enormous difficulties, but I am leaving with the hope the people of Mali will come together to face this adversity head-on.” Ecowas has lifted sanctions it imposed after the coup and an amnesty has been agreed for the coup leaders. The coup, led by Capt Amadou Sanogo, took place amid accusations from the army that the government had not done enough to supress the insurrection in the north.
Since the coup, key towns in northern Mali have fallen to Tuareg separatist rebels and their Islamist allies. The Tuaregs have called for their newly-named territory of Azawad to be recognised as independent, although this has been rejected by the international community. There are two main groups behind the rebellion: the secular National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar Dine, an Islamist group.
The MNLA is made up partly of Tuaregs who had fought in Libya on the side of Col Muammar Gaddafi and returned to Mali after he was killed. The latter has started to impose Sharia law in some towns. Among the towns to have fallen to the Tuaregs is Timbuktu, the 1,000-year-old desert city which is now a Unesco World Heritage site. Unesco warned that the fighting could damage Timbuktu’s historic structures.
Human rights group Amnesty International has warned of a major humanitarian disaster in the wake of the rebellion. Meanwhile, Ecowas is preparing a force of up to 3,000 soldiers which could be deployed to stop the rebel advance. The Tuaregs, who inhabit the Sahara Desert in the north of Mali, as well as several neighbouring countries, have fought several rebellions over the years. They complain they have been ignored by the authorities in Bamako.
source: bbc.co.uk
Wearing their trademark white ribbons or carrying white flowers, a number of demonstrators walked around under the Kremlin walls. Some handed out leaflets as part of their campaign against alleged ballot-rigging at recent elections.
Police only intervened to stop three people trying to set up the tent. One of them, environmental activist Yevgenia Chirikova, was detained and then released, reportedly with a court summons. Two persons detained with her were also expected to be freed after being charged with “petty hooliganism”, Russian police told Interfax news agency.
“The tent outside the Kremlin is a symbol of resistance to an illegitimate government,” Ms Chirikova said later in a message on Twitter. ‘Another planet’ Protesters were not allowed to demonstrate on Red Square during the elections in December and March. The square was sealed off last weekend when activists attempted to gather there for a silent protest, and arrests were made.
But on Sunday, the atmosphere on the square was relaxed, correspondents say. According to Reuters news agency, “hundreds” of demonstrators turned out. “I feel like I’ve come to another planet, I do not understand what is happening, this is the Kremlin,” activist Vitaly Zalomov told Reuters. “Where are the police?” Huge protest rallies were held in Moscow after the parliamentary election in December and before the presidential election last month, when Vladimir Putin was returned to office.
Currently serving as prime minister to President Dmitry Medvedev, he is due to be inaugurated as president on 7 May, after which he will formally return to the Kremlin.
source: bbc.co.uk
Official figures are masking a growing crisis in the labour market, with only half the vacancies advertised in UK jobcentres guaranteeing enough hours to allow jobseekers to qualify for the government’s new in-work
benefits regime, a Guardian investigation has found.
The analysis of 112,000 Jobcentre Plus vacancies shows that only 52% of the positions guarantee enough hours to meet the new government definition of “work” for a typical family. It means that some working families are likely to be far harder hit by the controversial changes to working tax credits than previously feared by being caught in a new working-hours trap, and raises concerns about the quality of jobs being created in the economy.
The news came as the Institute for Public Policy Research warned that an extra 100,000 people will be jobless by the end of the summer. Its analysis of Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts of risingunemployment shows that new jobs being created in the private sector fall far short of providing sufficient employment for an expanding labour market. The OBR does not expect unemployment – which stood at 2.67m in March – to fall significantly until at least September 2013.
New in-work benefits rules were introduced by the government last Friday requiring couples to work an extra eight hours a week to keep their benefits. But competition to find such work is much stiffer than official figures acknowledge, suggesting that thousands of low-income families will see their income plummet. Out of 112,179 vacancies advertised on 22 February – the full Jobcentre Plus database at the time the Guardian’s freedom of information request was granted – only 58,534, or 52%, could be verified as long-term vacancies offering enough hours to meet the new government definition of “work” for a typical family.
The data reveals that at least 24,000 job positions did not offer enough guaranteed hours for families to qualify for working tax credit, which tops up the income of a family earning £17,000 by around £3,700 a year. Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said the findings showed the government needed to take more action to boost jobs to avoid “devastating” consequences of its welfare changes.
“These figures suggest that unemployed people looking for full-time, permanent work are going to have a real battle on their hands trying to find a job that will pay them enough to support their families,” he said. “The consequences for these families will be devastating. Ministers have got to stop pretending that 400,000 vacancies are anywhere near enough, and look seriously about how to get our stagnating economy growing so it creates the proper jobs paying decent wages which will solve our unemployment crisis.”
A further quarter of vacancies offered applicants no guaranteed income, were for short periods of time, or were classed as self-employed, meaning benefit claimants could face serious delays to receiving benefits, or they may simply not have worked long enough to qualify at all.
More than 2,000 jobs on offer were for “zero hour” or “as and when” contracts – jobs which offer no regular or guaranteed hours, but which regularly require people to be available at short notice any day of the week, and at virtually any time.
These jobs, which are often in the nursery or care home sectors, offer no guaranteed income and rule out other part-time work due to their irregular hours.
In the areas hardest hit by the economic downturn, official figures show there are up to 22 jobseekers for every vacancy. But with many apparent vacancies being difficult or even unsuitable for those looking to raise a family, the true picture is likely to be substantially worse.
Previously, anyone with a child needed to work at least 16 hours a week to be eligible for tax credits – and around 13,000 vacancies did not meet this criterion. But new rules which took effect last Friday upped this limit for couples to 24 hours, meaning that if only one partner was in work, more hours must be worked. This affected a further 10,000 vacancies.
An additional 8,800 jobs did not offer enough detail to establish whether they offered enough hours to meet the government rules, while 5,400 of the remainder were classed as “self-employed” and so were potentially also ineligible, especially as many offered no guaranteed income or little to no guaranteed contracted hours. Of the remaining roles, more than 15,000 were classed as short-term on the jobcentre system, meaning they offered employment for at most six months, and often substantially less. One Citizens’ Advice Bureau adviser, who asked not to be identified, said welfare changes were “doubly punishing” families unable to get enough work to earn a survivable income:
“[Clients] say ‘well, if I could get an extra 10 hours a week of work I wouldn’t need the tax credits because there’d be more money coming in’. So there’s a bit of unfairness of the situation: they’re feeling doubly punished. One, they can’t get enough work and two, they’re losing the income they’ve got.”
“And if you’re working on minimum wage, 16 hours a week and you’re getting tax credits, you haven’t got any spare income. So it means cutting back on food, or cutting back on paying debt, or cutting back on putting money in the meter for your gas and electricity.”
Student Katy Carter’s partner works 20 hours a week and is unable to get an additional four hours’ work. Despite looking for work since Christmas, Carter says she has been unable to find a job which fits around her childcare commitments for her five-year-old daughter. “We lose just over £71 a week which for us is a substantial amount of money. We were just breaking even on bills and expenses such as food and transport and after looking through my budget, we now have a deficit every week. I understand the government has to save money somewhere but it seems ridiculous to take it from the people who need it the most.”
The Treasury said changes to tax credits were necessary to reduce the deficit, and said more people gained than lost from the changes.
Economic secretary to the Treasury, Chloe Smith, said: “The government’s actions mean that from the beginning of the new tax year on Friday, 24 million households will be £6.50 a week better off.
“We’re taking millions out of tax altogether by raising the personal allowance, which will put up to £126 cash back in people’s pockets. The basic state pension is also going up by its largest ever cash sum and there are increases in most other benefits.”
source: guardian.co.uk
At first glance, hard-boiled eggs seem easy to make — just throw them in water and boil. While that sounds good in theory, chances are you won’t get that perfectly cooked egg and easy-to-peel shell. We’ve nailed down the steps you need to take to have egg-cellent hard boiled eggs in no time.
1. Use older eggs. Yup, you heard that right. In Harold McGee’s book,”On Food and Cooking,” he says that the shells peel easily after several days of refrigeration due to the pH level of the albumen. If all you have are fresh eggs, McGee suggests adding 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to the cooking water.
2. Start with cold water. Place eggs in a single layer at the bottom of a pan. Starting with cold water keeps the eggs from cracking; make sure that the water is about 1 inch above the eggs. Add a pinch of salt to the water to help make them easier to peel.
3. Bring to a boil for a few seconds, then cover for 12 minutes. Once the water has boiled on medium heat, turn off the heat and cover the eggs. They should be done after 12 minutes. To test the eggs, open one to make sure you have the desired consistency. Another test is to spin the egg on a table. Cooked eggs with spin quickly while uncooked eggs will spin slowly due to their liquid contents.
4. Place the eggs in ice water. Shocking the eggs in ice water stops them from continuing to cook. Once they are cool, remove them from the pan.
5. Peel them under cool running water. This makes the shelling easier if you’re not decorating the eggs.
source: www.abcnews.go.com