Scripturient

Corn and other breads

2014-02-03 2014-02-03 Books & Reviews / Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

The last loaf of January, 2014 was a machine-made corn bread, made using a recipe from Washburn’s & Butt’s 300 Best Canadian Bread Machine Recipes book that I’ve mentioned previously. It’s a good book for bread machine users. Unlike my previous efforts to tinker with bread recipes, I used the basic, printed 1.5-lb. recipe without any alterations this time (not even in the salt). Medium crust setting, basic (white) bread menu selection. The results were good, if not spectacular. The recipe calls for 1/3rd cup of cornmeal. I used a commonly-available, supermarket brand, the sort I often use for dusting ……… click below for more ↓

Debunking the Adam Bridge

2014-02-01 2014-02-01 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Pseudoscience & Quackery6 Comments

A story popped up on the internet in late 2013, recycled in early 2014, claiming “NASA Images Find 1.7 Million Year Old Man-Made Bridge.” Claptrap. It’s not a bridge. It’s simply a natural tombolo: “a deposition landform in which an island is attached to the mainland by a narrow piece of land such as a spit or bar.” The conspiracy theorists and some religious fundamentalists disagree. It’s been called the Adam bridge, the Rama, Sethu (also Rama Setu – setu is Sanskrit for bridge), Ramar and the Hanuman bridge, and Setubandhanam. According to the legends in the Ramayana, ……… click below for more ↓

Running for re-election in 2014

2014-01-29 2014-01-29 Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Earlier this month, I filed my nomination papers for municipal council. I am running for a fourth term as Collingwood councillor. I will post a new election website with updated information and campaign content later this winter. I would appreciate your support, your trust and your vote. I believe I have earned them during my time on council, and will continue to do my best to serve the residents of Collingwood, and meet the needs of our growing community, when re-elected. Until the new website is available, I want to let any eligible Collingwood voters who wish to contact me ……… click below for more ↓

Reading Thucydides at last

2014-01-29 2014-01-29 Books & Reviews / History & Biography / Personal Reminiscences / Politics / War & Military / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

Somewhere on one of my bookshelves, is an old Penguin paperback copy of History of The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. It’s a bit worn, pages lightly yellowed, glue a little brittle. It’s been sitting on the shelf, stacked with many other paperbacks, piled two deep, floor to ceiling, for the past two decades and more. It’s never been read, not completely. I read the introduction, maybe some small sections, back in my wargaming days, 30 or 35 years ago. Like many of its companions on that shelf, it’s a book I put aside for the days when I expected to have ……… click below for more ↓

The Mac celebrates 30 years

2014-01-26 2014-01-26 Computers & Programming / History & Biography / Media Issues / My Writing / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

A recent article on Gizmodo shows off some previously unseen (or perhaps just forgotten) footage of a young Steve Jobs unveiling the Macintosh computer, back on January 30, 1984. Thirty years ago, this week. Seems like forever ago. But I remember it, and reasonably well. I remember where I was living then, what I was working on, and who I was with (I’m still with her…) The video clip also includes the famous Orwellian “1984” TV ad Apple used to launch the Mac. That’s worth watching for itself. It was a really cheeky ad, and generated a lot of chatter ……… click below for more ↓

Water, water, everywhere

2014-01-23 2014-01-23 Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Hydration matters. Not just to athletes and long distance runners. It matters to bakers. How much water is in your dough is crucial to how the crumb develops. It’s amazing how a few grams more or less of water can make a real difference in the resulting loaf of bread. This week I did a little experiment that got me thinking about hydration. I made a loaf of bread in the machine using the “French” recipe and settings, (see my previous post about making French bread in the machine) but this time substituting the same volume of K2 organic bread ……… click below for more ↓

For want of a nail…

2014-01-21 2014-01-21 Books & Reviews / History & Biography / Literary pretensions / My Writing / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Bought a book at Loblaws (of all places) this week, one by Harry Turtledove: The Big Switch. It’s one of his many alternative history novels, about what might have happened if things had happened a certain way – a different way from what actually transpired – in the opening years of World War Two. He’s written several in this vein and they’ve all been generally well received. I’ve liked what I’ve read of him in the past. Many authors have taken up this sort of speculative fiction, although none as frequently as Turtledove. What would have happened if Hitler had ……… click below for more ↓

The Short and the Tall of It

2014-01-20 2014-01-20 Books & Reviews / Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

This past week saw several new experiments in my bread laboratory. Okay, it’s a kitchen, but sometimes it feels like a lab, what with all the tinkering and testing I do. I just can’t seem to stop trying new things in bread. It would fee even more science-like if Susan would let me buy the implements and tools I want. First, however, the good news: my levain remains thriving and healthy. I have two batches now: one on the counter, the other in the fridge. The counter batch is used as a poolish right now; the fridge is the long-term ……… click below for more ↓

The 2013 Great Gatsby

2014-01-19 2014-01-19 Arts / Books & Reviews / Film & Reviews / Music & ReviewsLeave a comment

Watched the 2013 film of The Great Gatsby last night. The first half was spectacular, grandiose and captivating, if somewhat over the top. Like Busby Berkeley meets The Fifth Element. Extravaganza, spectacle and excess. The film doesn’t feel like it’s set in New York of the Jazz Age. It’s too shiny, too polished, too mechanical, and not gritty enough. That’s actually okay, and had director Baz Luhrmann chosen to make Gatsby into a scifi film set not the roaring twenties, but rather some futuristic world where the fashion craze is for 20s’ costume, it could have worked better. It would ……… click below for more ↓

Saving Fubsy from Lexicographical Caliginosity

2014-01-16 2014-01-16 Arts / Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / My WritingLeave a comment

Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were awfully holy, weren’t you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the wet street. O si, certo! Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags pinned round a squaw. More tell me, more still!! On the top of the Howth tram alone crying to the rain: Naked women! naked women! What about that, eh? A fubsy window? A short ……… click below for more ↓

The Wild Women of Wongo

2014-01-14 2014-01-14 Arts / Film & Reviews / Music & Reviews / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Who can resist a film with a title like that? Or Zontar, the Thing From Venus? Robot Monster? Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet? The Atomic Brain? Clearly, I can’t. I love this stuff. B-films, especially scifi B-films. But I am a tad disappointed with this Mill Creek package.* I recently received the set of SciFi Classics Collection: 50 Movie Pack, a 12-DVD collection, cover shown on the left. It turned out to be the same set I already had, just with a different cover, and a substitution of four films from the original lineup. Damn, that was $10 wasted. Okay, ……… click below for more ↓

Brands, Buzz & Going Viral

2014-01-14 2014-01-14 Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Literary pretensions / Municipal Politics / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

My third book for Municipal World, Brands, Buzz & Going Viral, has just been published as part of the Municipal Information Series. I received my author’s copies yesterday. I am very proud of this book; it took a lot of work to research and write. I enjoyed writing it. I hope my municipal readers find it both informative and interesting. I am also delighted to be able to share my knowledge and experience with others in the municipal governance realm across Canada. It’s a humbling experience to be among the respected authors and experts in MW’s stable – authors whose books ……… click below for more ↓

The Music of the Templars

2014-01-12 2024-08-06 Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / History & Biography3 Comments

For the past 25 years, I have had a mysterious page in Latin, held in a cheap picture frame, and stored in a closet for many years. It’s a two-sided page from a book, printed in black and red letters. I bought it at a used-book store in Toronto back when I lived there and frequented such stores. I rediscovered it last week when cleaning out my workroom to create a ukulele space. The page is roughly 21 x 14 inches (53 x 35 cm) and in very good condition, for its age. It’s also quite beautiful, especially to anyone ……… click below for more ↓

Two more loaves, new lessons learned

2014-01-12 2014-01-12 Bread & Baking / Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

Following up on my desire to make homemade raisin-cinnamon bread for Susan, I spent several hours collecting recipes online and entering their ingredients into a spreadsheet so i could compare them. Quite a range in the amounts of some (like cinnamon and sugar). Then an Amazon order arrived, which included a 2012 book called 300 Best Canadian Bread Machine Recipes, by Donna Washburn and Heather Butt. Good book, lots of great stuff in it and many ideas to try. And it’s by far the best bread machine book I’ve encountered. If you get it, be sure to read the introduction – ……… click below for more ↓