DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Like seismic pressure built up over decades, my urge to bake has grown for days… and when I finally erupted, out came a large loaf of Gravenstein sourdough and 12 lbs of bagels.

The apple-sourdough recipe is truly weird. To begin, chop up a Gravenstein apple and let it ferment in sugared water for 10 days, then add some flour and elaborate it into a bread dough. My previous experiences with this recipe have all been disappointing — yielding slow-to-rise loaves of unremarkable character. This time, the resulting levain was surprisingly fast and strong, easily leavening my doughs in less time than is predicted by the recipe (which is from Joe Ortiz’ The Village Baker). The finished loaf lacked the irregular sourdough-style crumb I was hoping for, because I manhandled it during shaping. But the crust was excellent, and the bread had a mild and unusual apple-cider flavor.

My main sourdough bagel recipe is from Peter Reinhart’s Crust & Crumb, and it is great. I usually make extra for friends and neighbors, but sometimes I make extra and keep them all for myself. Heh.

Today I also invented my own bagel recipe, using a whole-wheat variation on the apple-sourdough starter. In baker’s percentages, I used 100% levain (that’s a lot), about 60% water, 2% salt (not quite enough), and a dash of dark malt. The resulting bagels are classic: dense and chewy, with a moist crumb and a hint of apple cider as in the loaf bread.

Looks like Matt Haughey had my kind of vacation.

Eeeek!

Scanning my logs, I was shocked to see that Code Red (or variants thereof) continues to hammer my server, attempting to infect it. There are a lot of infected IIS servers out there… debris.com has been hit over 300 times in the past 5 days.

If you’re running a webserver with PHP, you can easily send a warning email to administrators of infected machines. The code goes into your 404 (“document not found”) handler, so unless you do have a file called default.ida, this should work for you.

The source code is here: PHP Code Red Warning Generator

Many U.S. states maintain their own “Do Not Call” lists, which telemarketers are forced (by law, and often by threat of fine) to heed. If you live in any of the following states, you can opt OUT of telemarketing calls: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming

Some states have restrictions that are of interest, whether or not they maintain “Do Not Call” lists. (Arizona, Kansas, Maine, Pennsylvania, Virginia)

Residents of ALL states can employ one of these methods, as well:

• The Direct Mail Association’s Telephone Preference Service (free registration by mail; $5 fee for online registration)
  
• Private Citizen, a widely-endorsed, nationwide “Do Not Call” list ($20)

California residents: our list is coming! CA Senate Bill 771 provides for a California Do Not Call list, which will be set up in early 2003.

Delaware residents: See Senate Bill SB41. Illinois residents: see SB1830. Massachusetts residents: see HB5225. New Jersey residents: see S445.

It is not surprising that criminals are attempting to benefit from this legislation. Beware the “do not call” scam.

I will endeavor to keep this data up-to-date; feel free to suggest changes using the email address elsewhere on this page. I thank Macintouch for pointing to the article that began this research frenzy (States Ring In Do Not Call Laws), and to the readers who have supplied additional information.

Update: On 2003-03-12, President Bush signed legislation creating a national “do-not-call” list. According to the AP report, “telemarketers say the registry will devastate their business.” That sounds like reason to celebrate. The system should be in place by summer 2003.

Patronize these links, man:

• Telemarketing Primer
• Laws, by state

Pictured are my first two attempts at fougasse, a French flatbread that is analogous to focaccia, which is Italian. These two loaves actually looked better than they tasted; I’d overbaked them, mistakenly believing the crumb would benefit from additional gelatinization of starches, when in fact the breads aren’t very thick, and were already baked through.

The things that look like lesions are basil leaves and hunks of parmesan, romano, and garlic. (I regret to say I hadn’t any pine nuts.)

Overnighting the rest of the dough in the cooler resulted in a vastly improved bread. This is surprising because the dough was already 3 days in the making. But I guess additional time is nearly always a good thing.