Blog Posts by Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor, Yahoo! Shine

Chris Hanmer's Chocolate Almond Cake.Cooking for a crowd this holiday season? According to world champion pastry chef Chris Hanmer, 2011 winner of "Top Chef: Just Desserts," Chris Hanmer, one of the best ways to reduce the stress levels is to start cooking -- or, at least, baking -- early.

"The great thing about desserts is that you can make a lot of them in advance," he told Yahoo! Shine in an interview.

"You don't have to do all your baking in one day," Hanmer, who is also the founder of the School of Pastry Design in Las Vegas, Nevada, explained. "My mom and other moms throughout the world have a count down clock. But you can actually push that back a couple of days."

Cookie dough freezes wonderfully, and you can make extra batches a few weeks before the holidays and then bake them up the day before company arrives (scoop the dough into balls before freezing).

Some people tend to fall into a baking rut around the holidays, serving up the same old sugar cookies, fruit cakes, and holiday pies. To add interest to a

Read More »from Chris Hanmer: A Top Chef's Tips for Holiday Baking

Author Carol Cooke says that unskilled parents are the problem, not unmotivated kids.In "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," Yale law professor Amy Chua declared her "Chinese mother" parenting skills superior to those of lazy, touchy-feely "Western parents" and seems to say that pushing children to succeed academically is the best way to guarantee their success later in life. Longtime educator Carol Cooke says that she agrees -- up to a point.

Related: The Opposite of a Tiger Mother? Leaving Your Children Behind

"We all want our children to succeed academically because today, more than ever, education is the key to success. Holding high expectations and communicating those expectations to our children on a regular basis is a point on which Amy Chua and I absolutely agree," Cooke told Yahoo! Shine in an interview. "Our points of view diverge on what comes after that, and the differences are clearly cultural."

In her new book, "America's Answer to the Tiger Mother: How to Raise Successful, Happy Children" Cooke points out that unskilled parents are the problem, not

Read More »from Forget Tiger Mothers: Teach People How to Be Good Parents Instead

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting! (Photo: Getty Images)Now that the palace has confirmed that the Duchess formerly known as Kate Middleton is pregnant, questions abound. Does it matter whether the royal couple has a little prince or a little princess? Do members of the British royal family actually breastfeed? What will  the royal birth announcement look like? We've gathered up a few of the frequently asked questions out there right now, and tracked down the answers.

Kate Middleton's Maternity Muse? Lady Di's Pregnant Years Provide Inspiration

Will Kate have a baby shower? Baby showers are an American tradition, not a British one, though no doubt well-wishers will send the parents-to-be plenty of presents. As they did for their wedding, the royal couple may encourage friends to make a donation to charity instead.

PHOTOS: Kate's Maternity Style

Who will be the godparents? Traditionally, the couple's best man and maid of honor are later asked to stand as godparents for the couple's firstborn child, so Prince Harry and Pippa Middleton are

Read More »from Kate Middleton: Royal Pregnancy Mysteries, Solved

This former men's bathroom on the Boston Common has been made into a restaurant. (Photo: David L. Ryan/Boston Globe/Getty Images)The location of Boston's new Earl of Sandwich restaurant can't be beat—it's right in the middle of one of the busiest and most-visible parts of the Boston Common, the oldest public park in America. But the building's history may give some diners pause: The stone kiosk where workers will be prepping sandwiches for the lunchtime crowd used to be a public bathroom.

Related: Dirty Restaurant Secrets the Kitchen Crew Won't Tell You

Known locally as The Pink Palace (the stone blocks used to build it are rose-colored), the 660-square-foot octagonal structure was built in the 1920s and used as a "men's comfort station" for about 50 years. It was closed in the 1970s and has spent four decades locked up tight, filled with old urinals, decrepit toilets, and rusting pipes.

Related: The 10 Weirdest Restaurants in the World

When the Florida-based Earl of Sandwich company announced that it would be opening a restaurant in the former restroom, reactions were mixed.

"This is a great opportunity to

Read More »from New Boston Restaurant Located in Former Public Restroom

Twin toddlers can be a handful by themselves. But when you add in a couple of newborns, the potential for chaos—and happiness—is enormous.

Thirteen-month-old twins Grayson and Garin Martin welcomed identical baby sisters, Hayden and Harley, last week. And their parents, Jaclyn and Chad Martin of Weatherford, Texas, are still reeling from the reality of having two sets of twins in a row. (For now, the tired parents tell which baby is which by looking at their hospital bracelets, which are still around the newborns' tiny wrists.)

Related: In One Family, Two Sets of Twins Born on the Same Day

"More than anything I was shocked to hear twins again," Chad Martin told CBS News. "I didn't believe it at first."

Having consecutive sets of twins without having undergone fertility treatments is very unusual. The odds "might be one in 10,000" says Jaclyn's OB/GYN, Dr. Stephen Stamatis, who delivered both sets of her twins at Weatherford Regional Medical Center. "It's pretty rare. It's the first

Read More »from Family Welcomes Second Set of Twins in a Row

For curious minds, the internet offers near-instant gratification. And, judging by the most-popular "how-to" searches of 2012, Yahoo! users are definitely a curious bunch. You wondered about everything from building a deck (in March!) to buying Facebook stock (before it went public), and plenty of people were looking for tips on tackling common cooking conundrums. Here are a look at the most-searched how-to questions, and the answers you were looking for.

Related: The Most-Searched Recipes of 2012

How to make a diaper cake. This baby shower gift/decoration became trendy after Carrie and Samantha lugged one to Miranda's baby shower on "Sex and the City" back in 2002. But apparently they're still popular, and if you want to make one they don't require any Martha-Stewart level decorating skills. All you need are disposable diapers (lots of diapers), wide ribbon, a baby bottle, and a handful of tiny baby toys. For each tier of the cake, wrap folded diapers around a baby bottle

Read More »from The Top How-To Searches of 2012

Red ribbon for HIV/AIDS awareness. World AIDS Day is Dec. 1, 2012. (Photo: Thinkstock)It has been 31 years since AIDS was first discovered, and organizations the world over are marking World AIDS Day on December 1 by urging people to learn the facts about HIV and show their commitment to raising awareness by wearing a curl of red ribbon.

Related: Los Angeles Mandates Condoms for Porn Actors

"Only 25 percent of the 1/1 million people in the United States infected with HIV have optimal treatment to where their viral load is undetectable," said Dr. Ronald O. Valdiserri, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health and the Director of the Office of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Policy. "We know we have a ways to go."

Related: FDA Approves Truvada, First Drug Aimed at HIV Prevention

According to data from the U.K. National AIDS Trust, more than 90 percent of people contract HIV through vaginal or anal sex without a condom, and the majority of infections are passed on by people who don't even realize that they have the virus that causes AIDS. Approximately a quarter of

Read More »from World AIDS Day: Why Safer Sex is Still Important

Dr. Jill Biden visits wounded Marines and their families at the Warrior Hope and Care Center, at Camp Pendleton, California, January 20, 2012. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann) A loved one's absence is always difficult, but when you're part of a military family, the holidays can bring a special kind of stress.

Related: Obamas Welcome Military Families to the White House

"I know what it was like during the holidays, when I looked down our Christmas table and I saw that my son was not sitting there because he was in Iraq," Dr. Jill Biden told Yahoo! Shine in an interview. Vice President Joe Biden's and her son, Beau, was deployed with the Army National Guard for a year in 2008; their son Hunter joined the Navy Reserves in November.

Dr. Biden's experience as a military mom drives her work with Joining Forces, the national initiative she launched with First Lady Michelle Obama to urge Americans to support servicemen, servicewomen, veterans, and their families. She describes how her own military family coped during the holidays in an essay for This I Believe, a non-profit organization that asks people from all walks of life to share essays about their core

Read More »from Dr. Jill Biden on Being a Military Mom During the Holidays