Tuesday, April 17th, 2001
(Subtitle: Simple Breads from the Italian Oven)
If you like flatbreads, this book will sing to your soul. Carol Field offers 4 basic dough recipes and over 50 ideas for savory toppings, sweet toppings, rolled, layered and filled focaccias and schiacciatas, and the possible combinations are endless.
Many of the recipes are written with a straight-style dough in mind, so they can be prepared and eaten on the same day. However, as most professional bakers would, Field recommends halving the yeast and relying on an overnight retard in the cooler to bring out the full flavor of the wheat in the dough. A short section on dough technique at the beginning of the book explains the process clearly; even beginning bakers can take immediate advantage of these recipes.
The book is intelligently designed, with flaps on front and back covers for marking pages, and printed on heavy coated stock to withstand repeated dustings with flour or an occasional spill. And it is filled with colorful photographs from Joyce Oudkerk Pool, depicting about one-third of the focaccias.
The recipes I’ve tried so far have all been amazing. I recommend this book to all breadbakers and pizza makers. You won’t be disppointed.
My favorite recipe, thus far: Schiacciata with potatoes and rosemary (p. 68) — surprisingly appealing, given its starch-on-starch nature.
Patronize these links, man:
posted to area: Cookbooks
updated: 2004-04-29 17:56:40
So, PG&E is bankrupt, rolling blackouts are imminent, and energy rates are rising faster than Gray Davis’ bile. What’s a technology junkie to do?
I’ve been researching residential solar power systems. California pays a sizeable subsidy — $3 per generated watt, it turns out, or 50% of the cost of the entire system, whichever is less. Which raises the question: exactly how much would a residential solar system cost?
The first step toward an estimate is to size the demand. Dig out the last year’s worth of electricity bills and add up the monthly Kwh figures. Divide by 12 to find your average monthly usage (and cringe, if you tend to leave lights on or use an electric oven).
I found cost estimates in two places: Six Rivers Solar and SolarDepot.com, with additional figures from Occidenal Power. The concensus is that every kilowatt of generation capacity costs ~$10,000, post-subsidy, and provides ~150 Kwh per month.
Electricity in California, pre-bankruptcy, cost about 11 cents per kilowatt-hour, so over a 20-year period, a 2 kilowatt system would save me (20 yrs * 12 mos/yr * 300 KWh/month * $0.11) about $8000. Given an installation cost of ~$20000 that seems like a very bad investment. Even with a 100% rate increase from PG&E, a $20k PV solar investment would take 25 years to pay off. Can that be right?
I hope these calculations are incorrect… I’d love to take advantage of the state subsidy, and stop relying on PG&E’s shoddy service. But if these figures are accurate, I don’t have any choice but to wait for photovoltaic prices to drop significantly.
The California Energy Commission has a nice site on their subsidy, called the Emerging Renewables Buy-Down Program, but it would benefit from a simple worksheet to assist with system sizing and cost estimating.
In the meantime, I guess all I can do is conserve.
Update: The above numbers are incorrect; the costs are lower, and the rebates greater than described here. For example, as of 2004-2006, a 2.5kW PV system costs $15-$18k and takes 12-14 years to pay itself off. We have since purchased a solar power system.
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posted to channel: Solar Blog
updated: 2006-02-25 17:32:48
Monday, April 16th, 2001
This is an interesting article on how authorities caught Abraham Abdallah, who is accused of forging the identities of, and stealing millions of dollars from, a long list of celebrities including Spielberg, Lucas, Winfrey, Perot, Soros, Icahn, Ellison, Geffen, and more. The crime relied on technologies that didn’t exist a few years ago, such as virtual voice mail and free web-based email, and yet the police relied on old-world techniques (staking out PO boxes, impersonating couriers) to finally make an arrest. Thanks to Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram for the link.
I bet this story ends up on the big screen before too long.
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posted to channel: Web
updated: 2004-02-22 22:49:16
Friday, April 13th, 2001
Our free journal / weblog / diary software system, Monaural Jerk, has a new home: http://monauraljerk.org
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posted to channel: Colophon
updated: 2004-02-22 22:49:16
Thursday, April 12th, 2001
In today’s SF Chronicle, reader Rajvinder Kaur offers this boneheaded suggestion for saving energy: “Start using disposable stuff even at home so that you use the dishwasher infrequently.” (I mean no offense to Kaur; perhaps he was misquoted.)
I invite the Chronicle, which printed Kaur’s suggestion without editorial comment, to take Kaur on a tour of the landfills in Alameda county, which are packing away about 2M tons of solid waste per year, to see (and smell) the results of this energy-saving “stragedy.” Tip: wear a biohazard suit.
Maybe I’m dumb, but I can’t fathom how disposable tableware could possibly save energy. Let’s do a quick analysis:
- to buy disposable goods you have to drive to the supermarket, burning gas, oil, and rubber, spraying toxic chemicals throughout your neighborhood
- disposable goods are generally packaged in plastic, which you have to discard. (read on to find out what happens to plastic refuse)
- paper plates and cups can be recycled, assuming a truck comes through your neighborhood to haul away the paper, and then big machines shred and crush and bleach the paper, creating more vast clouds of toxic chemicals, including dioxin
- plastic plates, forks, knives, cups, etc., are often made of petroleum products, and when you throw them into the trash they have to be hauled to the landfill, where they decompose slowly for 100 to 500 years
- Styrofoam plates and cups have to be hauled to the landfill, where they’ll sit unchanged for over a million years, because Styrofoam never decomposes
In contrast, Kaur could take a non-disposable plate and glass from the cupboard, a non-disposable knife and fork from the drawer, and wash them all off when he’s done, with about a quart of water. Let them air-dry. Total waste: none. Total petroleum consumed while hauling waste: none. Total energy expended: whatever it took to make a quart of warm water.
I respect anyone who tries to reduce energy consumption — especially when my power is out. But to conclude that the best way to save energy is to use disposable goods is to be clueless to the big picture, in which the planet is slowly choking under the weight of its own waste. The casual disregard for what happens after discarding “disposable” goods is irksome; it’s as if there’s no world outside one’s own property lines.
To put a positive spin on this rant, I’ll list some ways to save energy which don’t come at the cost of the health of neighbors and future generations.
- Instead of watching television for hours per day, try reading a book. Share the (fluorescent) light with a friend, kids, spouse.
- Unplug your TV when not in use, to save the “phantom power”
- run only full loads of laundry through your washing machine
- vote to approve construction of the local nuke plant, so long as they bury the radioactive waste in some other county (just kidding)
See also: great tips for saving household energy, great resources for becoming waste conscious and energy efficient
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posted to channel: Personal
updated: 2004-02-22 22:49:16
