Bread Making Tip One: Shower Caps

Man I love using shower caps to cover my dough while I wait for the first rise.

I know there are specific bread rising buckets that people may use. And someday I might buy said buckets.

Before I would either try to cover the bowls loosely with plastic wrap or set a plate on top.

But then I read somewhere about the suggestion of a shower cap and I love it.

I can't wait to stay in a hotel again just so I can steal another one.

Oh Cha Cha You Have to Try Harder

Uh... No I wasn't in Armageddon. And there is no character called Hurley in that movie either.

Dear Mary Alice,

I'd love to come over and build you a 100th episode cake.

Unfortunately this week I'm working on the LOST series finale.

Sincerely,

Jorge

P.S. But in a few weeks my schedule's gonna be WIDE open.

Dining in the Dark

Last week we went to

for their Dining in the Dark event they do every Monday.

We were given blindfolds

and lead into the dining room.

They brought us five courses complete with pairings and we smelled and tasted them all without seeing any of them until the entire meal was over.

The whole experience was a lot of fun and the food was excellent. I decided to be safe and wear my napkin

and it looked like it was a good idea.

Although they give you silverware to use you find yourself using your fingers more and more. Good thing they gave us hot towels at the end.

Hey. The Black Pearl's in Town

I got a good look at it at work the other day.

Looks Like I'm Going To Be A Bobble

Thought I'd get this out there before I start hearing it from everybody. Interesting choice, but I think it should read "Hugo" Reyes if this is the outfit they're going with. I'm just saying.

Quote From Beth

"Make the good old bread... days.

Don't make those nasty wheat breads anymore."

She wants the Lahey bread.

Oops!

I think I just rejected all the comments instead of approving. Sorry if that happened to yours.

BTW Still Baking

Today I baked my first whole wheat bread. It's great. I look forward to toasting it tomorrow. It came out of this book. I wanted to go back to baking with the starter I had created. This white baguette came from the book too.

I ended up buying this book too because I kept hearing about it.

It's a good book but I just wish the recipes included weight measurements as well, I just think weight is more accurate when it comes to flour and salt.

For me Jim Lahey's bread recipe is still my favorite.

When I was a kid...

I used to steal my dad's shoes so that he wouldn't be able to leave for work.

Now every morning when I go to work, I find this:

Mm..Cake

Many of you commented about a video floating around where we're saying "mmm...cake" and wondered what it was from.

Well after much digging on our and ABC's part, we found it was a promo for an ABC affiliate in Wichita, Kansas KAKE. (Get it?)

I was going to link or embed it here but it has since been removed.

Look What Came In My Mail

Thanks Morven.

Unfortunately I lost your return address. I'd like to send you a thank you note.

One Thing I'll Definitely Miss When I Leave This Place

Is the commute.

At Work Getting My Hair Brushed

Ok it's not happening right now. Although depending on when you read this, it just might be...

At one point yesterday I had 61 comments to approve.

60 of which were spam.

A Word About Chile

As you know, Chile was hit with an 8.8 earthquake.

And I know many of you have already given.

Also many of you gave to Haiti as well.

But should any of you be looking for ways to donate to the relief effort there, I just wanted to share the site that I used: http://www.untechoparachile.cl/

You can also help like this:

1. Text the word “CHILE” to 25383 to donate $10 on behalf of the Habitat for Humanity

2. Text the word “CHILE” to 20222 to donate $10 on behalf of World Vision

3. Text the word “CHILE” to 52000 to donate $10 on behalf of the Salvation Army

4. Text the word “CHILE” to 85944 to donate $10 on behalf of International Medical Corp.

Thanks.

These are the three things I can't seem to delete from my computer's desktop.

Yes I saw the "Party in the USA" video

You can stop asking me about it.

* There seems to be some confusion about this post. I don't mind the video. I just don't need so many people sending me the same link. In fact if you see something on the internet (like me as a character from avatar for example) you can pretty much assume I've seen it already.

** Also by the way, I try to keep this blog family friendly so certain comments that I feel go too far in terms of language or content have to be rejected.

Okay enough of that.

Paella

A few weeks ago my cousin and her husband came out to visit.

We made a project on Valentines Day to cook a Paella over an open fire.

Everyone pitched in.

Here we're starting with the shrimp.

Kendra adding fish and tomatoes and seasoning.

A nice boil with the clams opening up.

Too much smoke.

Finally Beth finished it off with the peas.

It was my first paella but I thought it turned out to be a success.

Man. When are my NPR podcasts going to get a new sponsor?

It's hard to hear "Siemens" over and over again.