[Mike Nolan]

The left eye is next week, on the 29th, the right eye is two weeks later. The left eye is getting a lens that has variable focal ranges and corrects astigmatism, the right eye is getting a single (distance) focal point.

This may enable me to go without glasses at least some of the time.

Everybody I know who has had cataract surgery (a fairly large number, probably not so surprising since I''m 71) says they were pleased with the results. Right now I can't see well enough to drive, have trouble focusing on things up close, like cooking, and reading is something I can do a few minutes at a time. So I spend a lot of the day listening to the TV with my eyes closed.

[Mike Nolan]

I want to make laminated dough so I can try making cinnamon cruffins and fill them with cream cheese frosting. But it probably won't happen for a month or so, right now I just can't see well enough.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't seen that commercial yet, I wonder if it is one of the Super Bowl ads, or a lead-in to one? The WSJ says this year's Super Bowl ads are going for funny over 'relevant'.

M&M ads have been pretty good over the years.

Burger King ads tend to be the bottom of the barrel these days, which is ironic considering that their 'Hold the pickle' ad is still cited as one of the best ever. Their 'Herb' campaign was one of the worst ever, sales went down! 'New Coke', which was initially cited by marketing experts as one of the worst ad campaigns ever, may have been successful in the long run.

[Mike Nolan]

We had reubens.

[Mike Nolan]

Considering that a pound of caraway seeds is about 4 cups and can be bought online for under $15, including shipping, the Spice House flat pack is kind of expensive.

[Mike Nolan]

There's a guy in Philly who is giving away pizzas that he bakes and then lowers down from his apartment to the ground for delivery. He's done over 500 of them.

See Pizza Delivery?

FWIW, he uses two baking steels in his home oven to bake them. My older son has been using a baking steel and really likes it, that might be on my wish list at some point.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't think it is a new phenomenon, but I do think the explosion of interest in breadmaking and sourdough has muddied the waters a lot in the past year.

Yeast-risen breads fall into three categories:

wild yeast starters, ie, sourdough (This also includes 'old dough' recipes.) Historically, all yeasted breads were once sourdoughs.

commercial yeast This is a relatively new trend in baking, because bread has been around for thousands of years but commercial yeasts for much less than that, they were developed as an ofshoot of the brewing industry in the 18th or 19th century. Brewing yeasts and baking yeasts have evolved into products designed for specific usage. If you visit a homebrew shop you'll find many types of yeast, I'm told none of them will work well in baking.

hybrid doughs that use both wild yeast starter and commercial yeasts. This is done both for time considerations and to de-emphasize the sourness, though there are other ways to do that as well, such as Chad Robertson's 'young or immature starter' method.

I exclude those that use chemical souring methods to try to mimic the acidity of a bread with with sourdough starter in it as unworthy of inclusion.

Historically, many rye breads were pure sourdough but that's not necessary, the rye bread I make the most, Reinhart's marbled rye from BBA, is a commercial yeast bread.

Of the 78 bread in Ginbserg's The Rye Baker, a dozen or so use only commercial yeast.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been known to use Romano as well, I think it adds a lot of flavor and aroma when sprinkled on top and allowed to brown. I keep the brick of havarti in the freezer because it molds quickly. I take it out and grate some with a microplane, then put it back in the freezer. I'm not sure if it would work to grate it before freezing it, when I freeze grated mozzarella it clumps together in the freezer.

The lavash pizza we make is modeled after one we often get at a local restaurant/brewpub, they use havarti and mozzarella (and little or no tomato sauce.)

[Mike Nolan]

Tonight's pizza was pretty good, I topped it with artichokes, mushrooms, some tomatoes from our garden that have been in the garage since the fall, mozzarella cheese and some grated havarti, and fresh basil.

I think the crust could be better, it was crisp at the edges but still pretty soft in the center. Maybe putting it on pre-heated tiles that are a little smaller than the sheet pan I baked it in would help? I baked it at 500 at the top of the oven.

I'm thinking we may start havinv 'pizza night' at least once a month and I'll keep experimenting with pizza crust recipes, Lord knows there's enough of them available!

I thought the sauce needed more seasoning, perhaps more salt, definitely more spices. I thought there were too many mushrooms and artichokes, but my wife thought there weren't enough mushrooms. That may be a first for us!

I put about a half dozen leaves (chiffonaded) of fresh basil on it, next time I'll use even more, it was pretty good.

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[Mike Nolan]

Ease yourself back into things, don't put too much strain on your repaired wrist. Glad to hear things are going well so far.

[Mike Nolan]

I buy caraway in 16 ounce containers online or at a place like GFS, if there's a shortage of caraway I haven't had occasion to buy it lately.

I did just buy a pound of sesame seeds and some nutritional yeast flakes that I'm going to use for experimenting with hand-pulled Chinese noodles.

I know my older son, who has been working on recipes from the 'artisan beads in 5 minutes a day' book but hasn't gone the full bore 'sourdough' route yet, has been making rye bread more frequently lately. In some ways rye breads are more forgiving (or we are about them) because they're generally expected to be a bit on the dense side, and they're often more flavorful, too.

I plan to make some pizza dough later today, using Reinhart's 'Roman' recipe but adding in a little triticale flour. I'll make pizza tomorrow. I wish I could still get the Oscar Meyer pepperoni, the Hormel one that seems to be the most prevalent one in the stores here has garlic in it and all the other ones I've looked at either have garlic or are not very mild.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't done a lot of work with proofing baskets, in large part because I like free form loaves where most of the slices are the same size, but I've found inverting the loaf (so what was the bottom in the basket becomes the top in the oven) a bit challenging, too. If it doesn't rise much above the rim of the basket, you could cover it with a peel or that large offset spatula and flip it over

I think it is a motion that would require some practice. But baking has a lot of those.

[Mike Nolan]

If you get a large wide offset spatula, you can use that to safely lower a boule into a hot Dutch oven. KAF used to sell a 'cookie spatula' that works well for this, but, like so many great products, they don't have it any more.

[Mike Nolan]

A starter that is left in the fridge will develop into one that is dominated by cold-liking bacteria, which changes the type of acidity you get to one that is a sharper 'bite'. If you like that kind of sourdough, it works. (I can never remember if it is acetic-acid bacteria or lactic-acid bacteria that like the cold.)

If you bake bread more than about 3 times a week, you can adjust your feeding schedule so that you feed first, then pull out what you need to bake with a few hours later. (That's what commercial bakers do, they don't throw away good flour!)

My rye starter went bad a few months ago and I haven't built a new one yet, but I'm holding off on much new recipe testing until after my cataract surgery, the first of which is later this month. I've been building preferments for some of the breads I bake, letting it sit anywhere from an hour or two to overnight. Overnight is long enough to start to develop some sourdough tang.

[Mike Nolan]

I saw something that said netflix was starting a cooking competition show that involved leftovers (just what we need, another non-reality cooking competition show!), I didn't see anything about the food network doing it. But the food network is almost never about cooking anymore!

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