JANUARY 2013
Wednesday 2013.1.30
Eating Out
Some of my friends have strange ideas. They don't invite me out for dinner because they think I cook too well to eat restaurant food. Other friends know better.
A sweet friend of mine had bought a voucher for a three-glass wine tasting and appetizers for two at an Italian restaurant about 40 miles from here. Her significant other abstains from all alcohol, and she couldn't let the voucher go to waste. So she called me, hesitantly, not sure if I would stoop so low as to eat restaurant food. I assured her I really enjoy eating out.
There was a second reason I wanted to go. The warehouse store within walking distance of my home doesn't carry the whole-bean coffee I drink. The restaurant was only blocks away from another warehouse store that does sell the coffee. Convenient, as I was nearly out of coffee.
So, off we went to the Italian restaurant. The wines were good. (I tasted only two because I started to feel the alcohol and I don't like to go any further.) The appetizers were something called Antipasto Rolls. Think of an antipasto of salamis, cheeses, and olives rolled in bread dough and fried, maybe baked. Crisp on the outside and very delicious on the inside.
For dinner we split a Linguine Bolognese because the appetizers were so filling, we didn't have room for a big plate of food. I'm used to Bolognese pasta sauces using ground beef. The dish we ate was made with shredded beef, maybe veal, very tender and delicious. It was the best Bolognese I'd ever tasted.
We took our time, enjoyed the ambience (the restaurant was beautiful) and wasted all the afternoon and part of the evening. It was a delightful expedition and I came home with 15 pounds of coffee beans. They should hold me for a year.
I am definitely going to give that Antipasto Roll a try at home. If I have any success, I'll upload the recipe and video here.
Videos/TV Shows Revisited
If you saw the video of this week's featured recipe, you noticed it is now in high definition wide screen. Encoding takes three hours, but it's worth the effort. Sunday was a push because YouTube reported that the video might have a sync problem between the video and audio. I made a few changes, encoded it again, and then started the long upload. It's a big file. The same sync problem was reported, but I went ahead with the upload anyway. It looks fine. In future, I'll start a video encoding before I go to bed.
As for the TV shows, I have all but forgotten the TV station. I looked at the schedule this morning. The same show, Eggs Benedict/Veal Scaloppine, is scheduled for each of the first three weeks (as far as the schedule currently goes). A different show was to be aired each week. I don't know which shows are being broadcast. This week was supposed to be Miniature Egg Rolls and next week is Almond Biscotti. If I remember, I'll watch this evening's show to see what they are broadcasting. I did send a note, informing them that I'd like to cut my losses by not submitting any shows for the other two seasons this year. YouTube is better.
Sunday 2013.1.27
First the Good News
After driving down to the TV station to point out their error, they put the correct video on their server. I watched it on TV when it was broadcast Wednesday evening.
Now the Bad News
It looked just as awful. The video was dark and low resolution. The audio was horrific. It was the same video I featured here last week—Veal Scaloppine with Spaghetti. I have a TV next to my computer; so I went onto YouTube and opened the video to compare them. Even at full screen, the YouTube video looked and sounded enormously better. The TV show looked as if someone had highly compressed the video. It was disgraceful and left me feeling ashamed.
Now What?
I'm at a total loss to explain what went wrong. I do know that the videos I delivered to the station were beautiful. A friend and I watched a few of them here on an old picture tube TV. I have a DVD player that plays other formats. The MPEG2 video files look beautiful, as though the TV was digital high definition. I asked my friend why. He said it was the high quality of my encoder. The software I use to edit and encode my videos is part of a package that costs several thousand dollars. I didn't buy it; my employer let me load it onto my computers when I did some work from home. After I retired, I didn't erase the software.
This whole experience stings with disappointment. It even entered my dreams. Thursday morning I awoke from a dream in which I was reading comments from people who had seen the TV show. Although they were trying to be kind, their comments were painful to read. When I woke up I had to comfort myself with: "It was only a dream. That wasn't real."
Yesterday evening the same friend came by (with two racks of lamb and an appetite) and we watched the TV show together. Again, I opened the YouTube video for comparison. His conclusion: They compressed the video, badly, and increased the contrast. He knows cinematography; so he is going to adjust my camera's color temperature and other settings.
I delivered 15 shows to the TV station to fill the first season. I'll watch a few more to see what happens. If the others look and sound just as hideous, I won't deliver any more. There is no money involved, other than the $50 I paid to join their club for one year. I'll continue to make videos, but I'll upload them to YouTube only.
The Bottom Line
I decided I don't care. It's public access TV. Who watches public access? I never did. Will anyone see my show on TV? Probably not. What's the benefit? Bragging rights? "Hey, I'm on TV." On YouTube over 1,000 viewers subscribe to my channel and total views are above 160,000. I'm not viral, but those accomplishments give me a sense of pride and satisfaction.
But Wait...There's a Happy Ending
I updated my encoding software. To my delight, there is now a preset for "YouTube Widescreen HD." Encoding takes three times as long (nearly three hours), but I can do this before I got to bed. This week's Feature Recipe video was encoded with the YouTube preset. It looks great.
Wednesday 2013.1.23
Humiliation TV
This week my new TV show began airing on a local public-access channel. I watched my show, at least the beginning of it. The station broadcast an earlier test version. It was simply awful. The video quality was really poor (keep in mind I shoot my videos with a 1080p HD professional video camera and I encode to MPEG2 format directly from those HD files). The audio was even worse. If they had wanted to humiliate me, they couldn't have done better. They even spelled Mobile wrong: Moblie. I turned the TV off and went to bed.
If you've seen my YouTube videos, those look vastly superior to the show that was broadcast on Monday. My YouTube videos go through three layers of degradation before you see them online. I've watched all my finished shows on a standard TV before I turned them over to the station. They were beautiful. A friend watched some of them with me and we were both amazed at how good they looked. He believed it was the quality of the MPEG encoder my editing software uses.
I know the aired video wasn't the finished version I submitted because of the opening introduction. My TV show uses a different intro. My only guess is that they took an earlier test version, one that didn't work, and re-encoded it to make it work, ignoring the correctly encoded version I submitted later. The encoder they used was poor quality and the result was dismal.
I drove down to the station yesterday, trying to set things right. I was visibly upset, but I kept my cool. I explained the problem, even telling them how each video was labeled and numbered:
The_Mobile_Home_Gourmet_S01_E01
The_Mobile_Home_Gourmet_S01_E02, etc. all the way through E15.
Each disc contains four episodes (three on the last disc to complete the 15) and glued to each disc envelope/sleeve is a little progam explaning each video on the disc. A loose copy of the program is tucked into the sleeve with the disc.
The man I spoke with said, "You couldn't have made it easier for us, and yet we STILL screwed up." Yep. He apologized and said he'd deliver my message to the guy who loads the shows onto their server. The incorrect show would be pulled and the correct one would replace it. He also said the guy would call me to confirm that the correction was made. I kept my expectations low. This is a company of people who seem rich with promies and poor on deliveries. Sure enough, he never called. No email either, and I write my email address on every disc I give them.
I'll know this evening if the correction was made. The show will air at 8:30.
I will simply need to be patient and see how the season goes. If these problems persist, I'll pull out before the next season begins. To continue would be a disservice to myself. I'm trying to make a success of my videos. I can't afford to be humiliated on TV.
Sunday 2013.1.20
Odds and Ends
This week my new TV show, The Mobile Home Gourmet, starts broadcasting on a local TV station here in the city. It's hardly network. The station is one of the public access channels and most people can't even see the programming unless they have the proper TV tuner or a converter box attached to their TV. I can't even watch my shows because, although the converters are supposed to be free, I haven't yet succeeded in getting my free converter box. Oh well, I do have the originals.
I've been thinking a lot this week about the ability to produce an entire broadcast-ready TV show at home, without any assistance. The technology we have today is amazing. With some decent equipment (camera, tripod, lavalier microphone, and lighting instruments) along with a computer and some software, one person can shoot, edit, assemble and encode a TV show that is broadcast quality. Of course, a little ingenuity and some useful advice along the way helps. It also helps that I took several theater courses when I was in college. I'm not shy in front of the camera.
I finally got my flu shot this week. I had been trying. The pharmacy at the local warehouse store offers them and their price is the lowest in town. The store is also within walking distance, which makes it even easier. However, every time I asked, they were out of vaccines and were expecting more. On Tuesday morning I was in the store and thought of asking, not expecting any good news. A small supply was in stock; so I finally got my shot. The pharmacist told me I was just in time, as their supply would be gone within an hour. Late August/early September is supposedly the best time; so I put a note on my calendar for later this year.
While at the store I also got a shingles vaccine. They cost 10 times more than the flu shot, $180, but only one is needed in a lifetime. I get a flu shot every year; so I've spent plenty over the years. No side effects to report from either vaccine, so far, other than a little pain in my arm where they gave me the shots.
While down in the city, I needed to kill some time while I waited for a store to open. There is an import shop where I occasionally find some useful gadgets that look good in a video. I found a little "cheese grater" that came with a little wooden box. Cheese grater? No. Much too small. But it looked to be a perfect box and grater for nutmeg pods. Look around when shopping. You can sometimes find odd little things that are quite useful.
I also visited an old friend downtown. I probably hadn't seen him in 20 years. It was a fun visit, catching up on people news—who's divorced, remarried, and who's kids are now grown and married with children of their own. I think it was Aldous Huxley who said something like, "The problem with California is that you sit by the pool and before you know it, you're old." Yeah, but it's a pleasant way of aging.
With the first season of shows completed and in the hands of the TV station people, I started planning my next set of 15. Although it's only January, I'll need to plan for summer. I already have some excellent ideas. I'm thinking of another ice cream recipe, made with cinnamon and rum (will the alcohol prevent freezing?), and I have a recipe for fresh strawberry gelato. A friend wants me to do some beef recipes. I rarely buy beef. I prefer lamb. Nonetheless, I'm looking at beef recipes.
Where I used to work there is a wellness incentive program. As a retiree, I still qualify. By completing an assessment online and watching a couple educational videos, we receive a $100 gift certificate. The word on the street warns to never report any medical issue that might be used by the insurance company as a pre-existing condition, an excuse not to pay for treatment. I'm careful (not that I have any medical issues—I don't). I already have my gift certificate planned. I want to get one of those laser thermometer thingies. A good one is about $150. I've seen the TV cooks use them to test the temperature of a pan or food. It could be fun in a video. Watch for it in coming months.
And, finally, I decided to resurface the counter on which I prepare food in front of the camera. It's a portable thing I built, which can be removed and stored when not needed. I decided to buy some bamboo flooring panels. They look good, but it might not have been a good idea. I'm having difficulty trying to fill the grooves where the seams are. I don't want food to collect down there. So far, I've used only one coat of polyurethane. I'm projecting three or four might be necessary to get everything filled in. I planned for failure, just in case. The new surface can be removed with four screws. Maybe a sheet of plastic laminate would have been better....
Wednesday 2013.1.16
The First Season is Complete
Yesterday I finished TV show number 15 to complete the first season of The Mobile Home Gourmet. I'll drive the disk down to the TV station this afternoon. They are delighted with me for getting everything done so quickly. The entire season of shows will be in their possession before the first show airs, which will begin next week. I don't feel like I did anything special. I am simply happy to have the first obligation satisfied. I did that when I was in graduate school too. I submitted my final thesis early. The first draft needed to be turned in by March. My finished thesis, a 100-page research paper on human sensitivity to psychological stimuli, was submitted before the end of the previous December.
I chose a difficult project for the final show—pastry rolls filled with almond praline cream. When I transferred all the video clips to my computer, I had far more content than I needed for a 30-minute show. 10 gigabytes is ideal. I had 15. There was easily enough content to fill a 45-minute show.
Yesterday I set up the camera again and shot several short pick-ups and cutaways to use in place of some of the longer sequences. The cutting was tedious—it took all day—but I'd rather have too much material than not enough. A few of my earlier videos were too short—around 15 minutes—and so I needed to group two together to fill a show. It works, but I like a show that is about one recipe. I can explore it more and there is more continuity.
Some people have written to express their interest in my TV show. What channel will it be on? Will it be on the Internet? The channel is a local one here in the city. If my show does well, it might go out for distribution, in which case it might be picked up elsewhere here in the USA by other small stations that are looking to fill time slots. Yes, the shows will go on the Internet because I will upload them to YouTube myself. I am free to do that because I own my content. The station creates no content for my show. I deliver a finished show to them and they broadcast it.
That is one element of my show that helps make it unique. There is only one name in the credits at the end of the show. When I edit each show, I only add "Recipe and Video by Dennis Viau" at the end of the video, along with the URL of this web site. There is no camera operator, no boom operator, no hair stylist, no makeup artist, no costume designer nor wardrobe assistant, no editor, no director of photography, no sound mixer, no producer, no writer, no director. From concept to computer to content (the show that airs), the entire process is just me. I work alone.
When the idea for a cooking show first came up, there was some discussion about shooting the show in one of their TV studios. It would have meant setting up a kitchen, etc. Easier said than done, as a gas line, water line, and sewer line need to be plumbed into the set. It would have been expensive, and I probably would have assumed all costs, unless a sponsor could be found. When I delivered a finished video to them, as a proof of concept, they saw right away the prospects. No need for a studio kitchen. My mobile home kitchen is my TV studio and the finished video is high quality. I can thank my friend Eric for that. He had formal training in cinematography. Besides teaching me how to shoot a video, he also helped me set up my studio lighting in my kitchen and helped me solve all the audio issues. Friends are a little shocked when they see my kitchen for the first time. "What's all this stuff?" they ask. "My kitchen is my TV studio," I explain. It's a bit funky, but it's home.
Sunday 2013.1.13
Cutting Boards
On Wedensday I blogged about taking risks in the kitchen when choosing a temperature to which to cook meats to a reasonably safe level, but getting the flavor and texture we enjoy. While writing that blog, I thought about cutting boards.
I have several cutting boards. I read a study done on cutting boards by research scientists at the University of California, Davis. They introduced salmonella bacteria onto the surface of several cutting boards, of different materials and of different ages, and then cleaned them using common washing techniques. The boards were tested for prevalence of salmonella. Some fared better than others.
Although plastic cutting boards are commonly sold in the stores, I never buy any cutting board unless it is wood. Many decades ago I read about the safety of using wood. Studies are still being conducted and the results are still the same. Wood cutting boards are significantly safer than plastic boards, especially after they are used often and scored with knife grooves. Plastic boards can become dangerous because the knife grooves hold bacteria. Wood has natural antibacterial agents that kill the bacteria in the grooves.
What about oiling wood cutting boards?
A former friend of mine swears by walnut oil for his cutting board. No. Bad idea. Natural oils, like butter, can go rancid. If an oil turns rancid in a cutting board, the board is beyond saving. It cannot be made safe. It must be discarded and replaced with a new board.
I used to spend a lot of time on eBay, looking for good deals. I've seen some beautiful cutting boards, some new, some used, offered for sale. One person, who makes boards for sale, proudly proclaimed that his boards are shipped pre-oiled with good quality extra virgin olive oil. No again. Like walnut oil and butter, olive oil too can turn rancid. Any wood board that is treated with a perishable oil should be considered ruined beyond restoration. What oil should we use?
The most often recommended safe oil for treating a cutting board (and you can treat your wooden spoons too) is food grade mineral oil. Mineral oil is nonperishable. It cannot turn rancid. It is often sold in the stores as a "lubricant laxative." If you're concerned about the laxative quality of mineral oil, don't be. After a board is properly treated with the oil, excess oil is wiped away. The rogue molecule or two of mineral oil that might find its way into your digestive system won't send you running to the toilet.
Do your research. I did. To properly oil a new board (never put mineral oil on a board that was previously treated with a perishable oil—it is already ruined), cover the entire cutting surface liberally with mineral oil. Let it soak in for several hours (I usually leave it overnight). If any of the area appears dry after a short time, all the oil has soaked into the wood. Add a little more oil to the dry areas. After the waiting period, wipe the surface a few times with paper towels to remove excess oil.
During the first few weeks of owning a new cutting board, the board can be treated two or three times each week. After that, a treatment once a month can be enough, less often if the board is seldom used.
Often, before I do a video, I spread my general purpose board with a thin coating of mineral oil, wait a few minutes while I'm setting up, and then wipe off the excess. It gives the board a better appearance on video. If I see a dry look to the surface of a board, I oil it.
As mentioned above, you can also treat your wooden spoons. Keeping them treated with mineral oil helps to prevent staining from foods and, like cutting boards, helps to protect them from bacteria. This is helpful if you cook with a lot of olive oil. Use a new, untreated wooden spoon when cooking with olive oil and you introduce a perishable oil into the spoon's wood. There is a risk the oil could become rancid. Treating the spoon first with a safe mineral oil helps to protect it from perishable oils.
Many people are conscientious about their kitchen surfaces, keeping them clean, even wiping them with a bleach/water solution to kill germs. Think about your cutting boards and wooden spoons too.
Wednesday 2013.1.9
Acceptable Level of Risk
A discussion of the USDA recommended cooking temperatures for meats came up recently. You can see their latest recommendations yourself at:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FACTSheets/Safe_Minimum_Internal_Temperature_Chart/index.asp
No meat is 100% safe. Several years ago a friend and I each ate a hamburger at a restaurant near where we worked at the time. The burger looked to be cooked properly, but within 24 hours we were both violently ill. We never ate there again. We probably should have reported the incident to the local Health Department, but the restaurant closed a short time later anyway. Perhaps multiple reports were already submitted.
If you wanted to be the most safe in your car, you'd probably leave it in the driveway and go sit in it occasionally without driving anywhere. Even then, an out-of-control vehicle could careen across your lawn and into you automobile. We've seen those freak videos of a car plowing into the front of a store or into someone's living room. No one is ever 100% safe, but what are the odds of being hit by a car while watching a rerun of Seinfeld?
What is an acceptable level of risk? Our homes could catch fire or collapse in an earthquake. We see news reports of tornados or hurricanes destroying homes. Nonetheless, we feel safe enough in our homes to be satisfied with a reasonable level of insurance to cover damages, should they occur. I live in a mobile home park with about 60 homes. In the 18 years I've lived here, not one has burned down, and many of the homes here are quite old.
So what about food temperatures?
I know that lamb should be cooked to an internal temperature of at least 145°F (69°C). America's Test Kitchen altered my Pesto Lamb recipe when they published it in one of their cookbooks. They recommended cooking to an internal temperature of 120°F to 125°F (49°C to 52°C) for a good red meat at the center. I like my lamb pink, but not red. I generally aim for a finished temperature between 130°F and 135°F (54°C to 57°C) for lamb, maybe going a little lower for rack of lamb because I like the meat to be really tender. Ground meat should be cooked to 160°F (71°C), but I like my hamburgers to be pink and juicy inside. And therein lies the issue.
Often we're willing to increase the level of risk a little to get something the way we want it. That level of risk is the key factor. On my About the Cook page I wrote about my mother leaving steaks on the kitchen counter to thaw all day, even in summer, and my being doubled over with food poisoning the following day. That's not a level of risk, that is 100% hazard.
I don't take chances with chicken. Even a little variance can result in food poisoning. I cook chicken thoroughly, even overcooking it a little, because it won't affect the flavor and texture much. Overcook an expensive filet mignon and you'll feel the pain twice: In the mouth (it will be tough) and in the wallet (you wasted a lot of money).
Eggs are another issue. In the reports I could find online, they estimate that one egg in 20,000 might contain salmonella. The risk is usually in the yolk because the shells are typically washed and sanitized before going to market. How many of us cook egg yolks all the way through all of the time? You can't even stick a temperature probe into a yolk without breaking it. When I poach an egg, I leave the yolk uncooked. Risky, but the odds are so minuscule, they are well within my acceptable level.
What are the odds that there is a dangerous infection in ground meat? Not all ground meat is infected. I've been buying ground meat from the local warehouse store for years and it never made me sick. To always cook ground beef to 160°F on the off chance that it might contain dangerous bacteria seems excessive, especially when you have a long record of enjoying safe meat. Choose your own level of acceptable risk.
I do take risks with lamb and pork. I have eaten pork that was slightly pink inside. It was so tender, it could be cut with a fork. My mother cooked pork chops thoroughly, and then some. We needed to use a steak knife to cut them and chewing the meat was good exercise. I undercook pork a little. According to Wikipedia, an average of 11 cases per year of trichinosis (roundworm infection) were reported in the USA between 2002 and 2007, and those were from eating wild game (such as bear meat) or from home grown pigs. Farm grown pork is considered to be very safe because of government-enforced safety regulations.
In conclusion: The USDA doesn't take into consideration the quality of the cooked food, only the safety. In the kitchen, however, we weigh the considerations between quality of texture/flavor and those of safety. I know plenty of people who cook. Few of them check the internal temperature when cooking meat. Most of them don't even own a good instant-read digital food thermometer. Although I do undercook some meats, I have never made myself or my friends sick. Buy meat from a reputable retailer, handle it safely, keep it refrigerated until ready to cook, use it (or freeze it) soon after purchasing it, and wash your hands often with soap and warm water. With a little common sense we can live safely with an acceptable level of risk, and we can enjoy our food too.
Sunday 2013.1.6
Getting Back Into the Groove
When I signed the contract to deliver 45 cooking shows to a local TV station, my life became a little stressful. As a retiree, I typically enjoy a fairly relaxed way of life, but 45 shows added some pressure.
I relied on my past successes, doing videos of recipes already published here and on YouTube. I knew they would be easy and I had already worked out all the problems. Success was almost guarantee. I therefore cranked out about half a dozen TV shows in rapid succession (after I figured out how to encode them to satisfy the TV station's specifications for broadcast).
This week I did my first new recipe for which I shot all the still photography and shot the video for the TV show and this web site, all at the same time. I made a classic French chicken fricassee. I used to do videos this way when doing recipes for my YouTube channel, but TV adds complexity because there are more camera angles, nearly twice as many clips, and many cutaways to add action and interest to what would otherwise be a boring educational video. Trying to also shoot all the still photography for the recipe PDF makes the task even more complicated.
Thankfully, I'm getting good at it. My latest videos look so good, one might think I am using a two-camera setup in my kitchen. I still use the same one video camera, but I get more inventive with cutaways that give the video a look of editing between two different camera angles—one on me and one on the food.
I was very proud of myself that I did everything in one day, from concept to computer to content. Before I went to bed in the evening the video was edited and encoded (the content) for the TV station. All the still photographs were also edited and the recipe was written, waiting for proofreading later. (And the chicken fricassee was delicious too!)
I also came up with another way to eke another video out of the archive. I had prepared chicken cacciatore for a web site recipe and YouTube video. For YouTube, I don't need to hold to a minimum/maximum size limit. For the TV station each video must be at least 28 minutes in length, but not exceed 30 minutes. The cacciatore video was only 23 minutes. It was too short and there was not enough source material to stretch it by another five minutes. However, I used boneless chicken in the recipe. So yesterday I videoed a pick-up of me demonstrating how to debone a chicken. I worked that into the video and with a little tweaking got it down to just under 30 minutes. Phew! Another TV show done by only adding a pick-up.
So far I've done 12 shows, 11 of which are ready to submit. One, my Mom's Christmas Cookies, I am holding until the third season, when it can be broadcast right before the holidays. I hope to have all 15 shows for the first season complete and submitted before the first show airs during the week of January 21.
Today I am doing another duck recipe. This one will use a stuffing made with three different kinds of rice (Arborio, brown, and wild rice) with sausage meat, onions, sage, and celery. I will make a port reduction sauce again, but I want to use dried cranberries in the sauce for a richer flavor that I think will work well with the duck. This recipe is one of my own creations. Hopefully it will be successful and I'll have another video ready to submit. The recipe and YouTube video will be published here in coming weeks.
So, although there has certainly been a learning curve in the process, I am finally getting back into the groove of working in a similar way that was comfortable for me prior to the TV contract. Life is good.
Wednesday 2013.1.2
Another Year Begins
I was at the grocery store buying ingredients for my new TV show and the register clerk asked if I had any special plans for New Year's Eve. I have my rituals for the end/beginning of each year; so I told her about one of them.
I listen to The New Year's Eve Bash on KUSC FM, a radio station out of the University of Southern California. They broadcast classical music throughout the year, but on New Year's Eve they broadcast many old comedy recordings along with some ritual pieces—a 1950 Decca recording of Der Fledermaus and a Strauss waltz at midnight—this year "Tales From the Vienna Woods." After midnight they always play a comedy recording of The Goon Show. This year it was "Lurgi Strikes Britain," which I also have on CD. Other recordings follow, but I don't have interest in them. I go to bed after The Goon Show.
That is the one interesting ritual. Others are mundane. I print my calendars for the new year. If you watch my videos you'll see a calendar on the wall at the back of my kitchen. It displays three months at a time and the month pages are removable, hanging from little plastic hooks. I used to buy a new one of those calendars at Borders each December. The store is gone now, so I must print my own. I like the calendar design too much to change to a new style.
I have two more of those calendars in the home office, one above each of my computers. It's a time-consuming ritual, as I need to create each of the pages using a document layout program on one of my computers and then print the pages on 8½- by 14-inch card stock. The stationery store doesn't sell card stock that size; so I had to buy 11x17 stock and cut my own.
Yet another mundane ritual involves sorting this web site's blog archives into a year archive, which also includes creating the headers for those pages. So, to the panel on the left of this page I added "Archive 2012" to contain all of last year's blog entries. Many of life's routines are less than fascinating.
The beginning of another year is also a time to consider changes to this web site. At some point in the year, probably in August when the site enjoys another anniversary, I will change the Recipe Archive, breaking the page into separate pages for each of the categories. I have too many recipes to list all on the same page.
The biggest news for 2013 is, of course, my TV show–The Mobile Home Gourmet. Most of the YouTube videos that will be uploaded during the year will be complete TV shows. They'll be rather long, as each show must fill 28 to 30 minutes to fit into their programming schedule. The exception to this will be short videos, two of which I will later combine into one show later. For example, one of the shows I created was titled Soup & Side. It contained two short videos, my Clam Chowder and my Eggplant Parmesan. The preparation of each was too short and simple to fill an entire show.
This week I burned to DVD another four shows, which I'll submit next week (their office is closed this week). That's eight shows completed and turned in. A ninth show is done and I have a tenth, Mom's Christmas Cookies, in the vault for December. During the next 2½ weeks I hope to do another six shows. It's an ambitions schedule, but my goal is to submit all 15 shows for the winter season before the first show broadcasts. Then I can take it easy for a while and just concentrate on this web site.
So that's how another year begins for me. Hopefully all of you will enjoy the new year as well.