Lockdown fatigue is fairly well-documented. But since my wife and I are both in several high-risk categories, we're staying put as much as possible. I telecommuted for a quite a few years before retiring, my wife is working from home and has several online conferences every week. We both took an online class Tuesday. But online meetings aren't the same thing as face-to-face contact.
I long ago stopped worrying about remembering people's names. My father-in-law was one of those people who remembered everyone, I'm not.
I've never been a fan of no-knead recipes, either, but there's an article in the latest Bread Lines (BBGA newsletter) that talks about Prof. Calvel's 'improved mix' idea versus the old French practice of "mix a little, ferment a lot". I think no-knead recipes might come close to that old practice in spirit.
I think one of the best set of baguettes I ever made was the time I was testing how many rises I could get out of the yeast, as there was a discussion underway that claimed you couldn't get more than 2 rises out of a lean dough without running out of sugars for the yeast to eat.
I'd let it rise for an hour, punch it down, let it rise another hour, etc. After 6 hours of bulk-rise, it was still rising just fine, and at that point I shaped, proofed and baked them.
Egg changes the texture of the bread a lot, be sure that's a change you want.
I'm making a batch of semolina bread today.
Skeptic, a little vital wheat gluten might help increase the amount of rise you get from the generic whole wheat flour.
There was a story in the WSJ the other day about how Coronavirus is affecting the EU's agricultural/food structure. Right now it is common for pigs to be bred in Holland, sent to Poland for fattening, then shipped to Germany for processing. Produce often goes through similarly complicated channels.
We've got 2 iPhones, an iPad and a Macbook computer in the house (plus numerous PCs running Windows or Linux) and we can't figure out an easy way to get pictures off the iPhones, either, which is why I email them to my gmail account. When you email photos you get to pick from several resolution choices.
When I take pictures with my cell phone, I wind up emailing them to my gmail account so I can download them to my computer using a browser. Then I can edit them and post them here.
I think my Canon T6i takes better pictures most of the time, but standalone digital cameras may be an endangered species, most younger people don't want to have to fiddle with lenses and such.
I think that's true of all the tilt-head models. I assume there's some kind of adjustment mechanism for the bowl-lift models as well.
I assume if you have one of the bowl-scraper beaters (I do not), the dime is likely to move a lot more, so you probably need to set the height using the regular beater.
I measured my rye starter with my pH meter the other day, it came in around 4.7, as I recall, I think 4.0 is the target. I may measure it again the next time I feed it. (The meter works well, but cleaning it afterwards is a bit of work.)
There isn't much pineapple grown in Hawaii any more. The land is too valuable. Sugar cane is also almost non-existent.
In starter terminology, that liquid is called 'hooch' and is is considered a good thing, but it is a sign that your starter needs to be fed. Most people recommend pouring it off before feeding. Hooch has alcohol in it, but I don't know what proof it is, and I'm not aware of anything you can do with it, if your brewing friends used a refractometer, you could try measuring the amount of alcohol in it. (I'm tempted to order one for testing vinegars.)
My new rye starter is doing very well, I feed it in the evening and by morning it has generally doubled. Neither this rye starter nor the previous one ever generated any hooch, though.
Here's a link to a video of the dime test:
I always reheat pizza in the oven, not the microwave.
