[Mike Nolan]

I need to start using Facebook, but I think someone already has a FB page entitled 'My Nebraska Kitchen'.

I think the heat wave may have broken here, we've had several days in the past week where it was in the 70's, which after several weeks of mid-90's feels wonderful.

But between the weather, work issues (many issues to resolve before I retire) and my wife's 20 carb a day diet, I haven't done much baking at all and not much interesting cooking.

But I've started doing some research on ways to jazz up low-carb meals, there's a limit on how many times we can eat fish poached in butter and lemon or steak and mushrooms. If I could convince her to like Hollandaise and related sauces, that would be a lot easier. Time to open my copy of James Peterson's 'Sauces' book and get creative.

[Mike Nolan]

Aside from a few times when the host site appeared to be down (including when the site moved to a new ISP), I've never had any problems getting on Zen's site.

As to how to help promote this site, probably the most obvious suggestion is find interesting things involving food, cooking and baking to write about!

To that end, I'm going to take as many notes and photos as I can when I go to Chocolate Boot Camp this fall and I hope to turn those into a series of blog posts.

If you want to help promote the site in other ways, posting a link to it on other cooking/baking sites (as permitted by that site) is good, too.

And here's another possibility. I've had some business cards printed up, if you'd like a handful of them, send me your address. (My email address is nolan at tssi dot com.) It looks like I can get about 15 in an envelope and still keep it under an ounce.

I've been handing them to anyone who asks me what I plan to do after I retire later this year. My wife has been giving them away at her office, and when she loaned someone a book this week, I told her to put a business card in it as a bookmark. 🙂

[Mike Nolan]

Traffic here isn't exactly breaking speed records, either. I need to spend more time generating content that draws new people to the site, but I may not have a lot of time for that until after I retire late this calendar year. Our search engine visibility could probably be better, too, though I've tried searching for some stuff and it appears we are in the engines, just not at the top. There are two ways to get towards the top, be a popular site with lots of searches, or buy your way up the list.

I did have someone tell me that the site was easy to find by searching for my name and 'cooking'.

I just hope we haven't lost the core of the old KAFBC for good, regardless of whether that's on Zen's site or mine.

[Mike Nolan]

I think she checks in as her health and time permits. Hopefully today she's too busy enjoying her birthday to check here.

Happy Birthday anyway, Cindy!

I haven't seen Sarah Wirth online lately, either, but I think she was dealing with computer issues. I thought about Sarah recently as I was driving back from Indianapolis, but that's a bit more of a detour than I had time for.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

I made Vienna bread.

[Mike Nolan]

I was introduced to tea at an early age by a British family who took their tea very seriously. How you brew it does make a difference, though I'm not quite the fanatic some people are.

I never did develop their taste for watercress sandwiches, though.

[Mike Nolan]

Most pound cakes taste a bit dry to me, but then so does an Angel food cake.

[Mike Nolan]

It is worth noting that King Arthur Flour no longer sells the salt-rising starter, because their supplier retired.

There are instructions for how to make the salt-rising starter in several places, notably in James Beard's book Beard on Bread.

Notice: The active ingredient in a salt-rising starter is a bacteria called Clostridium Perfringens. This bacteria is considered one of the leading causes of food poisoning in the kitchen. With proper handling to avoid cross-contamination and adequate cooking, making and using the salt-rising starter should be safe.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

That's a very interesting site, one I'll have to peruse at length. I'm not sure it answers the question of why boiling sugar water in the microwave would produce something different than boiling sugar water on the stove, though. (Maybe my original post wasn't completely clear on that, though.)

[Mike Nolan]

We could use a tool to list recipes by uploader, I'll have to look around for one.

[Mike Nolan]

Yes, great work. I'm seeing some slight uptick in the daily page views and user counts, which may mean my efforts to get us in the search engines are slowly working, but we need more people making posts about food/baking or uploading new recipes. (I've been remiss in writing blog posts lately, myself.)

[Mike Nolan]

I use the 'poke a hole in the middle' method, but I usually make smaller bagels (3 ounces of dough per bagel) and my hands are too big for the rope method at that size. I haven't made bagels in a while, the smaller ones are about 40 carbs per bagel.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

It's fairly subtle, I don't know that I would have identified the cake as having buttermilk in it in a blind taste test.

I don't personally think powdered buttermilk and cultured liquid buttermilk are interchangeable. The powdered stuff doesn't have that acetic 'tang' to it.

[Mike Nolan]

Yes, turbinado sugar is often referred to as 'sugar in the raw' (which may be a trademark), though that's somewhat inaccurate as it is partially refined sugar. I always get a chuckle out of those who insist that they will only use 'raw' sugar, referring to turbinado.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm with bakeraunt, I'd like to see the recipe if only to enjoy it vicariously, since I'm doing almost no baking with my wife on a 20 carb diet. But she went back to work to get ready for the fall semester this week down 30 pounds from where she was in early May!

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