JANUARY 2015

Wednesday 2015.1.28

Movie Magic

Or at least, in my case, cooking video magic.

I received an interesting fan comment this week. The person watches my web site, videos, and Facebook entries closely. I would describe him as a devoted fan. I enjoy his comments. He noticed that one of the cans in the picture in Sunday's blog has a small dent in it. Or maybe it was a can I held up in one of my videos. His concern was that a dented can might be contaminated and cause botulism.

Let's get that concern out of the way first. Botulism in a dangerous disease that attacks the nervous system. It is caused by the toxin botulin that can develop in improperly canned foods. There are other sources. Foods spoiling in enclosed containers are a common source. People who do home canning know how to sterilize their containers and to heat their jars of foods to a minimum temperature to kill bacteria before storing them. The danger of dented cans is that a seal might be broken or the can punctured, allowing bacteria to enter and spoil the food.

With that out of the way, now I can confess something. The cans you see in my videos are often empty. I originally opened them from the bottom rather than the top so that I could save them as props.

The reasons are simple: When I'm making a video I often don't have the time to wash and dry a can while I'm cooking something. Often I shoot cutaways before or after doing the bulk of the video. Before starting a video I typically assemble any props and plates I think I might need. Organizing my materials makes the video process easier.

Yesterday I wrote the recipe for the Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts I mentioned in Sunday's blog. The day on which I made the meal was a little strange. I often give the food to neighbors, but none were home that day. I ended up giving the chicken breasts and sauce to the manager of the trailer park. I don't often do that because I don't want people talking about me behind my back, accusing me of swaying the manager for some sort of advantage. I don't think he would permit that; he's very professional. Nonetheless, some people like to gossip.

The recipe turned out better than I hoped. Often when I attempt something new I need to make it two or three times before I get everything right. This meal almost fell together on its own. It was a very easy, but elegant, dish to make.

And recently I read a New Yorker article about sausages. It was in an old magazine from December, 2012. I don't have stacks of magazines piling up in my home. Someone occasionally gives me a New Yorker, and I know who to ask if I want a few to read. I like the writing style in the magazine. In fact, many years ago when I took a course in creative writing, the instructor recommended the New Yorker as some of the best writing in the USA.

Thinking about sausages makes me want to order that sausage stuffer attachment for my Kitchenaid that I mentioned several months ago. I think it would be fun to make my own sausages in a video. I understand it takes a little practice. It might be one of those foods I need to attempt again and again before I'm ready to do it in a video. It's on my mind. I'm not sure if I'll order the attachment, but I put it on my Amazon wish list, just in case.

And, Finally…

Today is bread day again. I've said it too many times already, but I love being retired. When I had a job I had to use bread carefully because I could only bake bread on the weekends. Now I can bake whenever I want to. It's a good feeling.

Sunday 2015.1.25

Following the News

I am really enjoying our semi-weekly meetings to discuss world events in the news. I'll admit to being a bit of a news junkie. One of my computers has two monitors, one of which can be switched over to TV. Usually I take notes on the computer while watching the news. Later I use a highlighter to select any topics that might be of interest in our discussion group.

Watching the news has a special advantage: Sometimes authors of important books are interviewed. As mentioned in previous blog entries, I read books. Of interest to me during the past two weeks was an interview with Jeremy Scahill who challenged CNN on air. He accused them of bringing "terror experts" onto their programs, people who actually know nothing about international terrorism. They work for corporations that benefit financially from fear of terrorism, such as companies that sell drones to the government. That's why I watch a lot of news. The different perspectives help me get more accurate information. And I read the books, which go into the news in depth.

I have no interest in radicalism. I never joined any "occupy" group or marched in any protest. This week I watched the documentary We Are Legion: The Story of Hactivists. I could never do what they do. I like the fact that more accurate information is made available to the public, but I'm not in favor of releasing damaging state secrets. Governments everywhere make backroom deals. It's interesting to read about, but I'd rather make cooking videos and write recipes.

Sometimes I think governments could reduce hactivism by simply being more transparent. It's the suppression of truth that causes some people to resort to illegal means to get the facts. That's another reason I prefer the books. They're legal.

As for Cooking…

Although I've slowed down somewhat, I haven't stopped making videos. A few weeks ago a fan of the web site told me about a meal she made for her husband. She stuffed chicken breasts with a mixture of spinach, cheese, and ham, then cooked them in tomato sauce. I saw the possibilities. I used prosciutto rather than ham, and included ricotta cheese. The local grocery store recently added real San Marzano tomatoes to their line of canned vegetables. They've been selling the fake ones for a long time.

San Marzano is in Italy. Pomidori pelati doesn't mean they are Italian tomatoes. The can's name, "San Marzano", is merely a registered trademark. The name is supposed to fool people into thinking they're buying genuine San Marzano tomatoes. I once saw a TV chef hold up an identical can while extolling the virtues of San Marzano tomatoes. Evidently it works. So what's so special about "San Marzano"?

Here in California we have places like Napa Valley. It's a growing region renowned for the quality of wine grapes. San Marzano is a region near Mount Versuvius in Italy. Like Napa Valley, the climate and soil conditions are exceptional for producing tomatoes with a delicious and distinctive flavor.

I made the Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts this past week, doing a video as well. They were incredibly delicious. I don't like chicken white meat. I prefer the dark meat. But I would definitely make these again, especially if I am making dinner for guests who prefer the white meat. And here's a little trick: I had some stuffing left over, about two heaping tablespoons. I stirred it into the sauce for added flavor. There's no point in wasting it.

A Final Note…

Someone named Tom wrote to me with a question about jerk chicken. Sorry, Tom. I tried to respond, but I received a reply from the mail server that said your email address was unavailable.

Wednesday 2015.1.21

A Little Something About Food

I think it's a little amusing that I like California's seasons (summer and sort-of-summer) much better than New England's seasons (all four, in spades!). It's just cold enough at night for the heat to come on, helping me feel all cozy in bed, but warm enough during the day to walk or bike to the store without wearing a jacket. And this is the latter half of January! In New England I wouldn't step outside this time of year without wearing a heavy winter coat, rubber boots, and gloves.

By April/May I'll be pleased with the lengthening days and warmer weather. For now, I'm enjoying the cooler weather. It's my time to eat soups, stews, and chili. A week ago I mentioned the Pork and Bean Chili I had made. I put portions in the freezer and every few days I take one out and heat it in the microwave. Yum.

I've had brown chili, mostly in restaurants (and I suspect it was Dennison's, from a can). Good chili should be red.

I haven't written the recipe for the chili yet, but the video is done. I also finished editing a video of Chicken Breast with Artichoke Hearts. Likewise, the recipe is yet to be written. They will be uploaded here and to YouTube in coming weeks. In fact, I have so many videos and recipes in the vault that I might not get to the chili recipe until summer.

I'm still looking through potential projects for future videos. There are many, but few of them inspire me the way the chili did. If you like chicken breast meat and/or artichoke hearts, you'll like the other recipe and video I did. I wasn't impressed with the chicken because I prefer the drumsticks and thighs. I'll eat chicken white meat, but it never tastes as good as the dark meat.

Today I am doing a recipe that didn't come from a book or a TV show or a magazine. A fan of the web site writes to me often. She is more of an organic cook. She'll look in the refrigerator, take a quick mental inventory, and then decide which items to put together for their evening meal. I can be spontaneous when I cook, but I try to write things down when something turns out really delicious. I want to feel confident I can reproduce it again.

I'll Sleep On It

Something amusing happened since I wrote about my pastime with ebooks in Sunday's blog. One of the problems with some of these ebooks is that someone scanned the book pages and then ran the images through optical character recognition (OCR) software to transfer the text to their computer before assembling the ebook. OCR software isn't perfect. Errors creep in, especially when text is in italics. Like my recipes, I like a clean error-free copy.

Yesterday I was reading The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett. Igor, who speaks with a lisp — S sounds like "sleep" are pronounced with a TH, as "thleep" — was telling Vimes something. He said "…drive over on the a week…" and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the correct text should be. It wasn't important, but my mind wouldn't let it go. I even checked other versions. They all had the same error.

I've always had an issue with patterns. Since I was a child I've been fixated on them. I once stared at a TV Guide cover because my mind wouldn't let it go. Something was wrong. After a while I saw that the artist (it was a drawing for the TV show M*A*S*H) had drawn the windows in the ambulance doors incorrectly.

The English language is made up of patterns too (as are most languages). This morning I woke up with the expression "once a week" on my mind. My brain had sussed it in my sleep. Igor was saying, "drive over once a week," but the S sound in the word once was pronounced as TH — "onthe." The spell-check function in the OCR software had corrected the "error" by added a space — "on the".

And therein is the amusement. Not only had my brain corrected the text while I slept, it also traced the problem back to the spell-check function in the OCR software. Brains are amusing. (Evidently they taste good too because some people eat them. I don't.)

Sunday 2015.1.18

Pastimes

Try to explain to someone why you do something so mind-bogglingly dull and mundane that no one in the world — maybe the exception is you — would waste their time doing it and the explanation, "It's sort of fun," seems pathetically inadequate.

Lots of people understand why I make cooking videos. They're fun to make. It is fun to give away (or sometimes eat) the food I make. Some people — perhaps very few, but more than zero — have fun watching them. My recent return to YouTube resulted in several "Welcome back — we missed you" messages. I'm gratified.

I like reading books. In Wednesday's blog I mentioned my expectation of an ereader device I ordered, a Nook GlowLight. It arrived. I like it. I've been reading my first ebook on it, Russell Brand's book Revolution (which I find more self-indulgent than informative, but the fun of reading it on my new ereader makes up for the lack of engagement).

As I've mentioned before, my Nooks both support the EPUB ebook format. It is my format of choice. I have the Sigil software utility for building or editing ebooks. My free cookbook was written entirely in Sigil, and is therefore in EPUB.

Hopefully I won't shatter your day by reporting that not all commercial EPUBs are the same. I have lots of them. Some are poorly conceived, still holding to the notion of page numbers, for example. A link might refer to an anchor "chapter_12.html id:page#237". There are no page numbers in ebooks. Just link to the chapter file and you're done. Am I complaining? Yes? Forgive me.

I don't buy ebooks. I never have. There are unimaginable sources out there in another kind of Internet called Usenet. Don't ask. I've tried more than once to explain it to friends and associates. They look at me as if I've discovered another branch of physics that can only be understood by scrapping the base-10 numerical system and inventing an entirely different kind of number set.

I don't always like the way ebooks are formatted. Why put space between the paragraphs? On the Internet, such as the page you are reading right now, white space makes the text easier to read on your computer monitor. But on an ereader I think the pages should look the same as they do in a book printed on paper pages. Using Sigil, the change is often as simple as editing the cascading style sheet text class to include "margin-top: 0" and "margin-bottom: 0." See? A new branch of physics. Your eyes are already glazing over.

Some ebooks don't have a cover; they only have a title page. I like a good cover. It helps me to recognize the book in my Nook library when I am searching for it. Usually I find a cover, or a better one, by looking for cover images on the Internet. I have gone so far as to make my own covers.

The text in some of my ebooks was scanned from a hard copy of the book (this was before I had access to the Internet) and then run through character-recognition software before formatting into an ebook. The paper books made their way into recycling many years ago and probably became part of a Christmas card you received in recent years.

I just re-formatted an Oscar Wilde ebook, The Picture of Dorian Gray, because all 13 chapters were in one huge file. After dividing the book into chapters and adding them to the table of contents with the appropriate links, I loaded the finished book onto my Nook. I've read the book twice before, but I didn't have an ebook copy.

Why do all this? I like books. But I'm not one of those people who collect ebooks like bitcoins, but never do anything with them. Some of those people have never read a book, but they proudly declare: "I have 42,000 ebooks in my computer!" — as if having that abundant wellspring of knowledge within easy reach is proof of being erudite. On the other hand, I like it when someone asks me "What books have you read lately?" so that I can confidently rattle off a number of authors and titles as if I were boasting about the number of notches in my belt.

I don't collect ebooks; I read them. I recently finished John Dean's book, Conservatives Without Conscience. Yesterday I finished reading Russell Brand's book. I am taking a little break from nonfiction by reading one of Terry Pratchett's novels, The Fifth Elephant (having read the previous 23 books he'd written — see? Notches in my belt). Then I'll start on two of James Risen's books. I also like having my ebooks on a convenient device where I can quickly refer to them when I need to look something up. There is no "Find" function in a paper book. So, it's worth a little effort to get my books the way I like them.

Besides, it's a pastime. Some people pore over their stamp or coin collection. Some people restore antique furniture. I edit and read ebooks.

Wednesday 2015.1.14

Giving Attention to The Vault

I sometimes mention videos or cooking projects that come from the vault. That is the expression I use for projects that were completed and then set aside because there was no immediate need for them. Eventually they will make their way to this web site and YouTube.

Sometimes the results are amusing. One of my recent uploads was a video I made during the summer, but on an unusually cold day. It sat in the vault for several months before being uploaded. Someone commented on there being an "unusually cold day" in winter. Isn't that usual? It makes me think of the TV show Ice Road Truckers. They shoot the show during the winter when the lakes and rivers in Alaska and Northern Canada are so thickly frozen they can be plowed and used for roads by 18-wheeler trailer trucks transporting heavy loads. The show, however, is aired in the summer months (after all the production work is done) when the lakes and rivers are ice free.

The vault popped in size recently. I started uploading to YouTube again because monetizing my videos (Google can add advertisements) turned out to be worthwhile. They're generating a little capital. I hadn't posted to YouTube since the middle of September. I had been uploading my videos to platform, but there was no web site screen I can look at to see how well (or poorly) my videos are doing. YouTube provides a lot of useful data.

Something new was added to YouTube in my absence, something I really like. Formerly, YouTube would randomly select a frame from a video to serve as the thumbnail that would appear on their web site. The funniest one I saw was of me shaping Chocolate Biscotti loaves while wearing rubber gloves. I looked like I was handling a large turd. YouTube now allows video creators to upload a separate photo to serve as a thumbnail. I always shoot final photographs of my video foods on a plate, photos I call my "royals." They make good thumbnails.

Neither web site pays enough to cover the costs of the foods I buy for the videos, but combined they help defray some of my investment. A few people might think the expense is covered by the fact that I get meals from making those videos. Actually, I don't eat most of the foods I prepare in my videos. There is nothing wrong with them. I prefer simpler meals, typically my Minute Meals. Most of the foods in my videos are given to my friends and neighbors. Some is thrown into the trash.

I do save some foods. Today I am making another version of Pork and Bean Chili for a video. I'll portion that into single servings and freeze them for later. I really like chili.

And Finally…

One final point maybe worth mentioning: The Nook GlowLight ereader I ordered last week is "out for delivery." I'll have it later today. Boys and their toys!

Sunday 2015.1.11

Je Suis Charlie

I wasn't sure how to respond to the killings at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. I grew up with Mad magazines and I am a fan of South Park. My taste in humor tends toward the irreverent. But I hadn't heard of Charlie Hebdo until the killings made the news here in the USA.

Evidently the French are determined advocates of freedom of expression and devoted lovers of satire. From the reading I did it appears Charlie Hebdo is practically a national treasure.

The magazine knew the risks. Their offices were firebombed when they reprinted pictures of Muhammad in 2006. Going back much further, the magazine (then under the name Hara Kiri Hebdo) was banned by the French government for its satirical cartoons depicting the nation's response to the death of Charles de Galle. They simply changed their name and kept publishing.

Our world is definitely changing, but not always improving. Like many, I wonder how bad some things can get before all the negativity settles down.

Uploading Again

This week marks a shift in direction for me, yet again. I uploaded another cooking video to YouTube. I hadn't uploaded to YouTube in many weeks, focusing my attention instead on another platform. The change came about when I saw how much my monetized YouTube videos were earning. To the contrary, I wrote to Customer Service at the other site to ask if there was a way to know how much revenue, if any, my videos might be earning. They never responded. At any time I can check the results on YouTube. It seemed only natural to shift my focus in the direction of the best data.

I must confess, however, that this week's feature recipe, Oxtail Stew, was not one of my favorites. I can state with absolute confidence that I will never make it again. It's not an awful stew. Quite to the contrary, it was somewhat delicious. The only problem is that I still have not recovered my taste for beef. To explain:

When I grew up Catholic in New England we didn't eat meat on Fridays. Saturday was the rebound. Mom would sometimes take frozen steaks out of the freezer and let them thaw, all day, on the kitchen counter, no matter how hot and humid the weather. They might sit there for 6, 8, perhaps 10 hours before she finally broiled them for dinner. Some Sundays I was doubled over in pain from the food poisoning — not always, but often enough to develop an aversion for beef. To this day, I prefer lamb when I feel like eating red meat. (And I'm very careful about thawing frozen foods in the refrigerator, not on the kitchen counter.)

I don't know that I'll upload to YouTube as regularly as I did in the past. I will, however, no longer neglect it in favor of another platform — at least not until I change my mind again. Google has a way of irritating me sometimes.

And, Finally, Toys

I ordered another toy this week. I've mentioned in the past that I have a NookColor tablet. That is the reason why my free cookbook is in EPUB format. The Nook supports EPUB. Even though the line of tablets might soon be a ship without a captain, I ordered another one. This time I purchased the e-ink display model. It's smaller, weighs a lot less, and they claim the battery will last eight weeks between charges. Depending on how much I read, my NookColor might need to be plugged in every night.

I did look at the Amazon Kindle models, but they don't support EPUB, which is a deal-breaker for me. I have hundreds of books in the format and I know how to create (or, in my case, also edit) books as EPUBs. Simply put, they are like web pages. They use HTML, cascading style sheets, and handle graphics and links all the same way. After building this web site from scratch, EPUBs seemed like second nature to me.

There are, of course, other ereader tablets that support EPUB. I looked at those too. I went with the Nook because I already understand how to side-load my books into it. There will be no learning curve. The only challenge now is: Waiting patiently for the new toy to arrive. Hopefully I'll have it in my hands by the end of this week.

Wednesday 2015.1.7

Still Learning

I don't for a moment regret getting older. Age has brought me into retirement, a relaxed time of life when I can complain about the motorcycle belonging to the guy across the street because it wakes me up before 8:00 in the morning. I don't mind not knowing the day of the week. Is it Monday or Tuesday? Do I write my blog today? I like having the time to learn new things about cooking and foods in general.

I consider this the penultimate stage of my life, the last good stage. I know what will follow, perhaps in a few years, perhaps not for a decade or more. I'll need someone to take care of me as I slowly decline as an invalid, being helped into my bed each evening, hoping I won't wake up in the morning. There is another, new type of learning I am encountering in these advanced years — learning how my body changes as it gets older, learning about new aches and pains I never had before.

On Monday evening I would have bet all the money in the bank that I was coming down with another bladder infection. I went through one when a hospital gave me a staff infection. I know the feeling. I got out of bed, painfully, twice during the night to swallow some Tylenol because the discomfort was keeping me awake. Yesterday morning I called my doctor and went in for an exam.

I like the doctor. He is easily as old as myself, soft-spoken with a gentle manner, a patient and thoughtful listener. After describing my symptoms he asked me to lie down on the examination table. He pressed here and there, starting from just below my rib cage and working down toward the bottom of my abdomen. "Does this hurt? — Does that hurt? — How about here?" "No — a little bit — that hurts the most." Meanwhile, the results from a lab sample I provided returned. It was negative. No sign of a bladder infection. My temperature was normal. Heart rate, blood pressure, etc., all within recommended guidelines.

He went a little deeper. Some of you men know what's coming when the doctor puts on a rubber glove and reaches for a tube of K-Y Jelly. "Does that hurt?" "No." Well, maybe a little to my sense of pride and dignity. He kept exploring and found no lumps in my most private places, lumps that might indicate a form of cancer not uncommon among males. Lance Armstrong had it. (And that's the reason why I included no pictures in today's blog.)

"After more than 40 years as a doctor I haven't got an explanation for the pain you feel. I can, however, tell you that nothing worries me. There is no sign of trouble." That made me feel a little better. He requested blood tests and I went to the nearby lab to have the blood drawn. Needles, thankfully, don't bother me. My mother was a medical secretary and I grew up around doctors. Needles are just tools of the trade. The doctor said he'd call me in the afternoon if anything serious was found in the blood tests. I never heard from him.

Such unexplainable things happen. A few years ago my tongue lost all sense of taste. I could smell fragrances and aromas normally. But the tongue — which detects sweet, sour, salt, and bitter — could taste nothing. Everything, from coffee and sugar to chicken and mashed potatoes, tasted like pepper. A specialist blamed a virus and said it would probably take two to three months before the nerve endings in my tongue recovered. It became humorous when I had to taste food at the end of my cooking videos. I smiled for the camera and indicated my satisfaction. In truth, I might have been chewing cardboard seasoned with pepper. My taste buds did recover, eventually. Sweet was the first sensation to return, followed slowly by the others. It took about three months.

Are my symptoms merely another sign of old age? Or might I have sat too long in the wrong position, stressing the abdominal muscles in the area where they attach to my pelvic bone? Yesterday evening something happened that made sense of it all. My body temperature began to rise, reaching 101.4°F by bedtime, and I began to feel sick. Ah-hah! It is nothing but the flu. In September I went for my annual flu shot. I get one every year. Therefore, my symptoms were too mild to be recognized as influenza. Not even the doctor recognized the symptoms, and this is flu season.

The last time I had the flu was in 1983 — I know the exact year because I remember where I was living at the time. It's easy to forget what it feels like to have the flu after more than 30 years without it. This morning my temperature is back down to normal. Although I still feel a little residual pain, I otherwise feel great. I expect to be fully back to normal by the weekend.

Sunday 2015.1.4

There Be Gods

At the end of last year I mentioned, yet again, that the countertop I use when doing videos was still in the shop, being covered with Corian. That day, a Wednesday, something happened to change my mind about a few things.

I went onto YouTube to see how my videos were doing. Shortly after the beginning of December I had changed my status, monetizing my videos. Google can add advertisements and pay me a paltry sum for doing so. (I was planning to slowly delete all those videos, one or two each week, during 2015.) Well, the monetization turned out not to be as paltry as I imagined. I expected pennies, not dollars. At the end of the month, after only three weeks, my videos had earned $20. It's hardly enough for a down payment on a three-bedroom home, but it is far more than I expected.

Google pays when the total accumulated funds top $100. At the rate my videos are earning so far, I can probably expect payment every three to four months. While not enough to offset the cost of making videos, every little bit helps. That adds up to maybe — just maybe — stimulate me to make more videos and resume my uploads to YouTube. Ergo, there be gods.

Thus inspired to make videos again, I decided to drive to the kitchen countertop shop to check on the status of my counter. No one was around, but the doors were all open. I called out several times, "Is there anyone here?" No answer. I looked around. There sat my counter, still not covered with Corian. However, the countertop I had picked out had been seamed and readied for the finishing work. It just hadn't been trimmed to my final specifications. I decided I had waited long enough and prepared to take my counter home. I backed my truck up to the rear door of the shop and began to collect my counter.

"Hello?" a voice called from somewhere in the shop. The owner had been in the back, behind closed doors, maybe in the bathroom. He hadn't heard my voice earlier. I pretended I wasn't going to take my counter away, but I politely told him I was in need of it. I had waited long enough.

The Corian, by the way, was better than I had imagined. I brought with me a sample of the Corian already in my kitchen. The top, a light gray granite pattern, is an exact match. It is perfect! Really. There really must be gods! This kind of success doesn't happen to me. When I eat at the Chinese buffet again, I expect my fortune cookie to read, "Next time you won't be so lucky."

How could such a coincidence happen in my favor? I don't know, but I am doubly happy. I asked the owner when the counter would be finished. "I can have it ready by Friday, unless you need it today." Today suited me better. We had originally settled on $150, but I knew he wasn't totally satisfied with that price. However, it was an old piece of scrap, rejected by a householder. It was stored up in the rafters for nearly ten years and he never hoped to recover any money for it. So my price was better than nothing. I told him if he could get the counter finished by the afternoon I'd pay him an additional $50 more. "It will be ready by 2:00," he said. I went to the bank.

At the appointed time the counter was trimmed and ready to put in the car. I couldn't be happier with it. And such a deal! The average cost of Corian is about $100 per square foot. My counter is exactly 10 square feet. That's $1,000 of Corian for $200. Really, I couldn't be more delighted. I'll count this as another Christmas present, and proof there be gods. You might notice the difference in future videos.

Although the counter's wood grain is pretty (and still available because the Corian isn't cemented to the wood), the color always played havoc with my photography. A neutral gray photographs much better.

To inaugurate the new counter, I did a video of a quick bread, Coffee Date Bread. It was easy to make. The recipe and a link to the video will be on this web site in coming weeks. I was so pleased with the recipe, I wrote a basic formula — 1 cup nuts, any kind; 1 cup dry fruit, any kind, etc. — and laminated it for one of the recipe binders I keep in a kitchen cupboard. Those are the tried and true formulas I refer to again and again.

I also want to point out that I took a white-balance reading on the neutral gray countertop with my camera, a Nikon DSLR. The photograph of the bread for the recipe page wasn't touched up, other than cropping for size. There was no need to adjust brightness, contrast, nor color balance. I was never able to get this quality with the wood countertop. The bread, by the way, was delicious.

And, finally, one amusing note: Last night I had an anxiety dream about the counter. A crack developed in it and when I touched the counter it fell apart and crumbled beneath my fingers. I have strange dreams sometimes, but they make me laugh.

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