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Squeee!!

 http://tiltshiftmaker.com

Tiltshift photography is so super-nifty! It, of course, reminds me of so many old Japanese monster movies done with models and incorrect camera lenses. Tiltshiftmaker.com applies a filter to your images to make a nice tiltshift effect. To do the real thing you need to build yourself a tilt-shift camera.

Here is a Tiltshift Flickr group. (warning, some of the images are poorly done, some awsome).  And you have to check these out at  Laughing Squid, especially.

(click the thumbnails!)
My tiny balls

San Francisco 2008 Valentines Day Pillowfight

My Burning Man 2007 Camp

Bread is very simple.

Here is my new favorite bread recipe. I started with the Best Recipe recipe for “Rustic Bread” and simplified it because I’m lazy. It comes out terrific.

It takes less than 5 minutes work. Yes, really.

1. Put 6 cups all purpose flour, 2 tsp salt, 3 tsp yeast  in big bowl
2. Mix
3. Add 2 3/4 c water or so. 2.5 – 3.0 cups is fine
4. Mix with one hand until it’s gloopy, about 2 minutes. No, don’t kneed it
5. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil for 2 hrs in a warm place
6. Flour a baking sheet
7. Grab 1/2 the dough and plop it on the pan
8. Roll it around a tiny bit so it looks more like a loaf
9. Grab the other half of the dough and do the same
10. Turn on the oven to 450
11. When the oven comes up to temperature (10-20 minutes) put the pre-bread in
12. Take out the finished bread 45 minutes later
13. Eat it!

Here is “Bread Making Level 2”. If you want a really nice thick crust do this:

1. Put a heavy, oven safe pan in the oven below the bread.  (cast iron is good)  
2. Just before you put the pre-bread into the oven, pour some boiling water in the pan

The steam will give the bread a thick “meaty” crust.

See my notes about the price of yeast

That recipe comes from Cook’s Illustrated’s “Best Recipe” cookbook. It’s a rustic country bread recipe. I find it interesting that, first, one can distill their full-page recipe down to this, and second, this excellent recipe is so gosh darn simple.

Here are some comments on the recipe:

Yes, I just mix it until it’s goopy, like 3 minutes of stirring with one hand in a bowl. The dough will be very wet and it sticks to everything. There’s no point in getting any utensils all gooped up. And I didn’t “work” the dough at all.

There’s all kinds of yeast treatments, like letting it develop for days on end, sourdough starter and the like. I guess they do a little something but feh, just add yeast. And I’ve seen all kinds of yeast: instant, nearly instant, super instant, wet, slimy, goopy. I’ve never tasted or witnessed much of a difference. I used Fleishmann’s #2139 Instant Dry Yeast in a 1 lb vacuum sealed bag.

2 tickets ordered (15 seconds after sales went live)

Now… am I going?

This is totally random… I woke up a few weeks ago with memory of this random dream floating in my head. Continue reading ‘A Random Dream I Had’ »

I went to Universal Cafe with Charlotte and Rick today. It was wonderful. Keywords: donuts: excellent texture, fresh, cakey, bacon flavored! Brunch, sunshine (just about too hot, phew), bike riding, murals, poached eggs, pretty people and food, good discussion, neighborhood orange trees dropping oranges :-)

Last night we all went to Ray’s Box-warming party. :-)

Dearest Lazyweb,

I have a bunch of mp3 music and podcasts that I download from a variety of sources . And I have a fancy mp3 player known as an iPhone. How do I put my tunes on iTunes without smashing the phone on the ground and jumping on the bits?  

Sincerely,

Frustrated in San Francisco

So I took the Census Taker test today… I aced it. The guy giving the test was impressed, I was the only one who got a perfect score today, said I’d be getting a call soon to be hired.

I really should be doing something more substantive with my life.

I’ve been thinking a lot about user interfaces recently. There are so many horribly designed things that are pushed on us… from the awful oven thermometer I just paid $25 for at Sur-La-Table… If you want to set the food temperature alarm, simply push the “food” button until the display increments up to the temp you want. To set a lower alarm temperature, keep pushing the button until it goes all the way up to 572 degrees and wraps around back down to 80 degrees. I’ll be returning it shortly.

Marah pointed out her horrid process management experience  as a customer at a local deli. They tried to streamline or something in an effort to improve their throughput. Trouble is, they got everything wrong.

I took a trip to the Philipines several years ago. In what looked much like an American diner in Bagio City I had a wonderful treat, a bite of star apple AKA  Kaimito / Caimito. I’ve been telling people for years that this fruit tastes like… well… vanilla ice cream. Of course, no one really believed me.

Look what I just found

STARAPPLE (Chrysophyllum cainito)

This is a close relative of the Abiu. It has a wonderful milkshake flavor. The fruits are purple or green. When sliced open they have a star design in the center. The tree is very beautiful. The leaves have a bronze color on the under side. This tree takes 3 to 5 years to bear. It is large and likes full sun and good drainage. Plant 25 to 30 feet apart.

The seeds to grow it are for sale on their site :-). I happily found their site only because I was looking at an Instructable about how to grow your own Miracle Fruit  plant.

Star Apple needs a very warm climate. How am I going to grow one here in San Francisco?? :-(

Update: January 2016
I found a farm in southern Florida that grows Caimito! Khemara Farms. The fruit is apparently known in other languages: Tek Dahko in Khmer, and U-Soeur in Vietnamese.

It’s been several years and I think my grand plans to bring Star Apple to the peoples of America (or at least my mouth) aren’t being realized.

I had a conversation on the phone with someone at Khemara Farms in 2011. He said it is eaten in February and March. He also said that every 5 years or so, cold weather ruins the crop, and they are in far south Florida, 25 degrees latitude, just 1 town over from Key Largo! I’m going to have a hard time growing Star Apple in Northern California ;-).

My good friend known as PPG on my blog wrote to me in 2011 about Star Apple. I think she was forwarding me a message from a friend of hers named Daryl D. but I’ve lost the reference:

I just recently had a conversation with the maid about this fruit. I was wondering why sometimes when she brought it home it was really fabulous, and other times just awful. She told me that it’s best when fresh from the tree. It took me some time to wrangle out of her that one of our neighbors lets her pick from their trees when they have fruit. She thought I’d be horrified haha. She also told me that she and her friends NEVER eat the ones from the grocery store because they were so sub-par.

So, apparently, it doesn’t ship well, and bruises easily. That said, I know it’s really popular in Puerto Rico and being subtropical, I’d be really surprised if there weren’t some small farmers in Florida raising some. With the popularity of tropical fruits, and with the caimito offering so many health benefits from pretty much every part of the tree, I bet if you poke around some, you could find a producer in Florida that’s willing to ship.

Let’s go out to a Pirate Cat Radio music event Jan 14th in SF! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=56066591437 My fav listening so far is Pomplamoose.

Email me.