Mike Nolan
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There are so many different aspects by which flour can be defined that most online descriptions of it remind me of the old story about the 7 blind men and the elephant: Each blind man was accurately describing one important part of the elephant, but none of them were describing the whole elephant.
For the last several weeks I've been reading Wheat Flour Milling by Posner & Hibbs, the standard textbook on the subject, and though I'm only 2 chapters in, I'm already pretty overwhelmed by all the material. (People can and do earn PhDs in flour milling.)
I'm probably going to write an article (possibly several) on what I've learned later this fall, so I won't go into it in depth at this time.
As I understand it at this point, type 00 flour describes the granularity of the flour, ie, how finely ground it is. That doesn't tell you what kind of wheat it came from, what protein levels that wheat has or how much of the bran and germ are still left in the flour, and those are all things that affect how the flour will perform in various types of baking. (There can be other factors as well, such as how the flour has been treated before or after milling.)
Basically, Italian flours come in Type 0, Type 00 and Type 000, the more zeroes, the finer the grind. Type 0 is a coarse flour, type 00 is probably fairly close to most American AP flours for grind (though some sources say it is a bit finer than the average American AP flour, more like 'southern' flours such as White Lily), and type 000 is very finely ground, the closest equivalent in the USA is probably cake flour.
Different brands of Italian 00 flour will be made from different types of wheat, and that will affect how the flour performs in various types of baking.
The suitability of Caputo Type 00 flour for pizza, which it is how sources like Amazon may label it for marketing purposes, is an entirely separate matter. If you follow the discussions on pizza-oriented forums like Peter Reinhart's Pizza Quest, you will find some people who insist that you must use a very high protein content flour for pizza and others who insist that you should use a lower-than-average protein content flour. Both factions have valid arguments for their points of view, but that's because they have different opinions as to what pizza crust 'should' be.
Peter Reinhart's book American Pie gives a number of different crust recipes, from various types of pizza across the USA and around the world, and calling for various types of flour. I've tried several of them, and I have to say they were ALL delicious!
There was always a parade on the 4th in my small home town, too, although I just heard from the alumni association and this year's parade is on the 3rd. (We'll be there for the gathering of my high school class, which is celebrating its 50th reunion, but not for the parade.)
Lincoln doesn't have a city parade these days (not sure if it ever did, I don't recall one since we moved here in 1977) but it has a city fireworks celebration though it isn't always on the 4th. Our block will have a block party and parade on the 4th, complete with a fire truck escort.
We don't bother with fireworks ourselves any more, but the neighborhoods surrounding us more than make up for it, by 9PM it'll sound (and smell) like a war has broken out!
Squirrels will eat tomatoes too. (In fact, our gardener tells us that squirrels will eat the composite material our new deck is made out of.)
Not sure about possums and raccoons, but I suspect they'll eat anything.
Have you ever heard of the fence Australia built to try to keep rabbits out of the western area of the continent? (Rabbits are not native to Australia, they came with the British settlers and, having no natural predators, multiplied like, well, you know.)
Sounds more like a cooperating arrangement than a change of ownership.
We've been watching a baby bunny grow this spring/summer, it figured out how to climb into the pots on the back patio, climbing into taller pots from the shorter ones, and has been feasting on my wife's annuals. It especially seems to love her gazanias. Finches and other small birds really love gazanias when they go to seed in the fall, too, so we moved the pots around to make it harder for the bunny to get into the taller pots where the gazanias are, and got some more gazania plants, too. The ones the bunny had nibbled down are rebounding, I'm pleased to report.
We have house guests this week, so we're going through bread pretty fast just at breakfast, so I'm making honey wheat bread tonight.
This is what Wikipedia says about biscotti:
"Biscotti" is the plural form of biscotto. The word originates from the medieval Latin word biscoctus, meaning "twice-cooked."
Biscuits as a 'twice-baked' product were often made as travel food, especially travel by ship. (Hardtack. which is made from flour, water and sometimes salt, shows up in many books about sailing ships.)
Not sure how the name got applied to raised biscuits in the USA, which are a quick bread.
I'm up for trying to promote National Cake Week, maybe we can get others working on it too. I'm not sure an 'online clandestine cake club' would work, part of the fun would be seeing and tasting other people's cakes!
i made Vienna bread (PaddyL's Double Crusty recipe) and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (my mother's oatmeal crisps recipe) today.
I think PBS is either 3 or 4 seasons back from what's been shown in Great Britain.
But that's about how far back I stopped being able to view episodes online.
There's a link about 'National cake Week' (Oct 2-8, 2017), but I think that's a UK event, not an USA one. Maybe we should try to promote it here and see if we can create a movement!
I think the link was there, but I just couldn't see it on the laptop I was using this morning, it shows up better on the big screen monitors in my office.
You're a lot closer to the nearest 'Clandestine Cake Club' location than I am.
It will be interesting to see how GBBO handles the transition from BBC to Channel 4. Losing 3 out of the 4 personalities could be more change than it can tolerate. I used to think of myself as a pretty good baker, but the weakest of the contestants on GBBO could bake rings around me.
This year will be the first year in a long time that I will be in town for the county fair. I'm not planning on entering anything this year, but I do think I'll make a trek clear across town (we're in SW Lincoln, the fairgrounds are in NE Lincoln) to see what the baking and photography entrants look like.
Acrylamide wasn't even discovered until 2002, so there haven't been a lot of studies on it yet.
The American Cancer Society seems to think the evidence is not yet conclusive. See https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/acrylamide.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide
It seems to be present when potatoes are cut up and cooked or fried at a high temperature (ie, potato chips and fries.)
There are cooking benefits to pre-soaking sliced potatoes or starting them at a low temperature (130-150 for 20 minutes), it may turn out there are health benefits as well.
I'm not sure when the new labeling standard for maple syrup takes effect, the guy from Wisconsin who sells syrup at the local farmers markets still labels his as grade B.
This is actually one time when the labeling change might make sense, Grade B is now a lower quality syrup than Grade A, it's just from later in the season and has a darker color and (IMHO) a more complex and interesting flavor.
I don't see a link.
Molasses is an underused flavoring. Maple syrup is tricky to cook with, it can get cloyingly sweet. I have paired it with Dijon mustard a few times, that's a combination that should work well with pork. (Grade B syrup is better for cooking IMHO.)
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