Friday, October 25, 2013
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Kipp Rustic County Bread
Kipp Rustic County Bread
Ingredients
for 3 loaves
For
the Dough
1 ½ teaspoons dry – active yeast
¼ cup warm water (105 degrees to 110
degrees F)
2 ¼ cups water @ room temperature (70
degrees F)
9 ounces (about 1 cup) Biga (yeast starter).
Preferably 2 to 3 days old
4 cups organic unbleached all-purpose flour; plus
½ cup more for sprinkling (dusting)
1-1/3 cup organic whole wheat flour (or sour
dough, or rye flour)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon sea salt
A little olive oil for the rising bowl
½ cup Corn meal for the baking stone
½ teaspoon of honey
Making
the dough:
In
a small bowl, wisk yeast with ¼ cup of warm water for about 5 to 10 minutes.
Add honey.
In
a medium bowl: 2 ¼ cup water, add biga (bring to room temperature). Hand
squeeze the biga in the water with your hands – work it in until it becomes
chalky white. Then pour the small bowl of yeast mixture into the medium
bowl.
In
large bowl measure out the 5 cups of flour (you can mix up different flour to
make different breads). Add salt.
Take
a cup of the flour from large bowl and mix into medium bowl. Continue adding
flour, mixing with wooded spoon until it’s soft and sticky. It’s done when
dough pulls away from sides, but not from bottom. About 5 – 6 minutes at medium
speed. Place on counter and kneed (folding back on itself) several times
dusting with flour.
The
first rise:
Lightly
oil a large bowl with a few drops of olive oil for rising. Place dough in bowl
and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise 3x the size (about 2 hours).
Second
Rise: Use
spatula and take out of bowl onto counter. Divide the dough into 3 equal
pieces. Pat down lightly and form a ball like pizza (closed end). Spread corn
meal on board and put dough there to rest (to prevent sticking). Let it double
in size (about 45 minutes).
Baking: Preheat over 450 degrees
with bread/pizza stone in oven. Just before placing in take a knife and cut top
of dough in 3 places and sprinkle corn meal on top. Put on stone and spray with
water to get a nice crust. Place parchment paper (3 pieces) on dough for the
first 15 minutes, and then remove. Total cook time about 30 - 35 minutes. Take
out let it rest for 2 hours, slice and put into freezer bags and place in
freezer.
I
find it easiest to keep in the freezer and take out when I want a slice or two.
Just pop into the toaster and then enjoy with your favorite topping. Mine favorite is
peanut butter.
Yeast Starter - Biga
Yeast Starter – Biga (sponge)
Ingredients
¼ cup warm water (not over 105 degrees
F)
½
teaspoon dry – active yeast or 1/5 cake (a scant ½ teaspoon fresh yeast)
1-1/3 cup water (@ room temperature,
about 70 degrees)
3-3/4
cup (scooped and leveled) organic unbleached all-purpose flour
A
few drops of olive oil (for the rising bowl)
Mixing the
biga:
First pour the ¼ cup
warm water into a bowl or measuring cup. Sprinkle on and Wisk in the ½ teaspoon
of yeast; let stand 5 to 10 minutes, until the mixture is creamy and the yeast
has thoroughly dissolved. Pour the yeast mixture into the bowl of the mixer,
stir in the rest of the water, and use the hand whisk to beat in 1 cup flour.
Set the bowl on the machine; attach the paddle, and measure in the remaining
flour. Mix at low speed for 1 to 2 minutes to make sticky, batter-type dough. Alternately:
Mix by hand first with a whisk, then with a wooden spoon. (I use the latter
method).
Rising:
Lightly oil the
rising container with a few drops of olive oil (a tall Tupperware container – rectangle
4” x 5”, about 8” to 10” tall).
Place mixture in
container and cover tightly with Glad clingwrap with a rubber band to
hold in place. Mark the level of the biga on the outside of the container so
that you may judge the eventual amount of the rise. Set at cool temperature
(about 70 degrees F) for 6 to 24 hours. The biga should triple in volume
and then fall back upon itself. It will be a sticky big bubbled batter
when it is ready.
Storing the
biga:
Refrigerate after
24 hours where it will keep for several days.
To Refresh a
Starter:
A fresh starter
begins to sour after four or five days. To refresh a starter, remove and
discard 1-1/2 cups of it. Blend and wisk to batter like consistency. Add 1-1/2
cups of flour in bowl with about 1/3 cup of water; stir this into the starter
and let the starter rise again before refrigerating. You may freeze a starter.
I keep a portion
of my original starter/biga when I need to make more. I believe this is the key
to tasty bread. I add anywhere from a half a cup to ¾ cup of my old starter when
making new biga.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Here's a plan by Robert Reich
Here it is, an actual plan that will work ....
Robert Reich
In response to my post a few days ago, asking you whether you worried about the loss of Main Streets and bookstores, the decline of good jobs with good wages, and sweatshop labor -- and whether you nonetheless bought stuff through Walmart or Amazon, sought discount flights, and got the lowest-priced deals you could find regardless of where the goods came from or how they were made:
...
Some of you said you had no choice but to shop for the lowest price because you had to stretch your dollars. You just didn't make enough money to be "socially responsible." That's understandable. Workers are consumers, and people trapped in low-wage jobs can't be expected to promote, through their purchases, an economy offering higher living standards than they themselves experience. And that's precisely the problem. More and more Americans are falling into that same trap, competing over a smaller and smaller share a total economy whose largest shares are going to an ever-smaller number.
Which is why consumers can't possibly do this alone. And why we need a political movement to reverse these trends -- including, at the least, these ten essential steps: (1) a living wage and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, (2) an exemption on the first $15K of income from Social Security taxes and elimination of the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, (3) a new WPA and CCC, and major infrastructure investments, to put the long-term unemployed back to work, (4) early childhood education for all, high-quality K-12 for all, and access to affordable higher education, (5) a single-payer healthcare system, (6) an easy way to form unions through simple up-or-down votes at the workplace, (7) a higher marginal income tax on top earners, more tax brackets at the top, a wealth tax, and a tax on financial transactions; (8) a resurrection of Glass-Steagall and a cap on the size of the biggest Wall Street banks, (9) a ban on gerrymandered districts, voter-suppression laws, and other means of blocking the majority's will, and (10) reversal of "Citizen's United" (by constitutional amendment if necessary), strict campaign-finance limits, public financing of elections, a resurrected "fairness doctrine" for the media, and stricter limits on the "revolving door" between government and industry or Wall Street.
We can do all of this. Just look at what the Progressives accomplished between 1901 and 1916, or the New Dealers between 1933 and 1941, or the proponents of the Great Society in the 1960s. (If you don't think reforms like this are possible, you're part of the problem.)
Robert Reich
In response to my post a few days ago, asking you whether you worried about the loss of Main Streets and bookstores, the decline of good jobs with good wages, and sweatshop labor -- and whether you nonetheless bought stuff through Walmart or Amazon, sought discount flights, and got the lowest-priced deals you could find regardless of where the goods came from or how they were made:
...
Some of you said you had no choice but to shop for the lowest price because you had to stretch your dollars. You just didn't make enough money to be "socially responsible." That's understandable. Workers are consumers, and people trapped in low-wage jobs can't be expected to promote, through their purchases, an economy offering higher living standards than they themselves experience. And that's precisely the problem. More and more Americans are falling into that same trap, competing over a smaller and smaller share a total economy whose largest shares are going to an ever-smaller number.
Which is why consumers can't possibly do this alone. And why we need a political movement to reverse these trends -- including, at the least, these ten essential steps: (1) a living wage and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, (2) an exemption on the first $15K of income from Social Security taxes and elimination of the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, (3) a new WPA and CCC, and major infrastructure investments, to put the long-term unemployed back to work, (4) early childhood education for all, high-quality K-12 for all, and access to affordable higher education, (5) a single-payer healthcare system, (6) an easy way to form unions through simple up-or-down votes at the workplace, (7) a higher marginal income tax on top earners, more tax brackets at the top, a wealth tax, and a tax on financial transactions; (8) a resurrection of Glass-Steagall and a cap on the size of the biggest Wall Street banks, (9) a ban on gerrymandered districts, voter-suppression laws, and other means of blocking the majority's will, and (10) reversal of "Citizen's United" (by constitutional amendment if necessary), strict campaign-finance limits, public financing of elections, a resurrected "fairness doctrine" for the media, and stricter limits on the "revolving door" between government and industry or Wall Street.
We can do all of this. Just look at what the Progressives accomplished between 1901 and 1916, or the New Dealers between 1933 and 1941, or the proponents of the Great Society in the 1960s. (If you don't think reforms like this are possible, you're part of the problem.)
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Fred Huber
Wow it's been a while since I've posted! My father-inlaw Fred Huber age 91 passed away July 5th. He died in his home with family surrounding him. It was very peaceful. We are going to miss him deeply. The grave site visit will be this Friday at The National Veterans in Sarasota.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
School Violence
Christopher Kipp
9/2/2008
School violence arises from a complex set of causes and risk factors that are embedded in our cultures, communities, schools, families, and peer groups. We look to blame the problem of school violence on out-side factors such as playing violent video games or viewing violent movies. Is playing violent video games making children more aggressive or more violent?
Columbine High School Shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were avid computer gamers. According to psychologists Craig Anderson and Karen Dill, “One possible contributing factor is violent video games. Harris and Klebold enjoyed playing the bloody shoot-‘em-up video game Doom, a game licensed by the U.S. Army to train soldiers to effectively kill.”[1] Is it that some students feel socially isolated and unable to form interpersonal relationships? “An FBI investigation concluded that Klebold was significantly depressed and suicidal, and Harris was a sociopath.”[2]
Before video games children learned to play alone with dolls and train sets, which required a certain amount of imagination. This activity stimulated their brains. “That’s not the case with modern computer games, which do the children’s thinking for them and put them in their own little world.”[3]
“Lee Malvo the “DC Sniper” had a long history of anti-social and criminal behavior, including torturing small animals – one of the best predictors of future violent criminal behavior.”[4]
We blame the young people’s violence on the easy access to weapons, violent video games, and how the media-portrays violent acts as opportunities for killers to have their “15 minutes of fame.”
“Focusing on video games distracted many people from the much more powerful factors that seem to have contributed to this tragedy: the failure of the people around Cho (including his family, teachers, school administrators, court officials and fellow students) to respond appropriately and effectively to his profound and obvious mental illness, as well as the availability of firearms to Cho, despite his court-mandated psychiatric treatment in 2005- treatment that he apparently never received.[5]
1992 to 2001 over the top violent video sales increased, with titles like Mortal kombat, Mortal Kombat 3, and Doom. “Between 1994 and 2001, arrest for murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assaults fell 44 percent, resulting in the lowest juvenile arrest rate for violent crimes since 1983. Juvenile murder arrests reached a high of 3,790 in 1993. By 2004, arrests were down 71 percent, to 1,110.”[6] “For reasons not yet understood, arrests for simple assault (actual or attempted attack, without a weapon) increased by 106 percent for boys and 290 percent for girls between 1980 and 2004”[7]
“Feeling of closeness to parents and connectedness to school, for example are known to buffer the effects of exposure to real-life violence on violent behavior.”[8]
In conclusion we as teachers should avoid pre-judging children. Our goal is to lead by example, show respect, and continue to give our students strong affirmations in line with school policies.
[1] Kutner, L. Olson, C. “Grand Theft Childhood: The Big Fear p. 6. Anderson, C. A., and Dill, K. E. “Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78(4), pp. 772-90
[2] Cullen, D. “The depressive and the psychopath: At least we know why the columbine killers did it.” Slate, April 20, 2004
[3] Save the Children IBID.
[4] Miller, S.A. “Malvo team cites role of violent media: Movie, video games seen brainwashing defendant”. Washington Times, December 9, 2003 p. B-01
[5] Kutner, L. Olson, C. Grand Theft Childhood – The surprising Truth about Violent Video Games. Another unfortunate consequence of this event was the unwarranted association of mental illness with violent behavior was extremely rare. Most people who suffer from mental illness are much more likely to the victims of violence than the perpetrators of violence. The vast majority of people who act violently are not mentally ill.
[6] Kutner, L. Olson, C. Grand Theft Childhood – Chapter 3: Science, Nonsense and Common Sense. Snyder, H.N. Juvenile Arrests 2004. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. December 2006.
[7] Kutner, L. Olson, C. Grand Theft Childhood p. 95. Snyder. H.N. Juvenile Arrest 2004. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice, December 2006.
[8] Steinberg. L. “youth violence: Do parents and families make a difference?” National Institute of Justice Journal, April 2000, pp. 31-38.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
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