wingdings//ding\\onion halves

did you know your keyboard can do this:

JKDEWAFHYGDSRHTRHTRJYYHFDBBVVCCXXSSNNMUUAQU

Write in Wingdings in caps lock.

(If you translate the red from wingdings font, you get "write in wingdings with the caps lock")

These symbols are produced in the wingdings font. I wanted to know what the heck this was about.

So Wingdings is the Microsoft-patented name for the symbols printers (people, not machines) used to spruce up their manual products. The name Wingdings is an amalgam of Windows and the font's original name, Dingbats. 

Both in printing and early internet, Dingbats saved time. It has also been used to promote conspiracy theories. 

(check it below!)check it below!

& THIS IS STILL A FOOD BLOG !

^^please translate this for me, would you?

Useful tips on how to cut an onion: 

1.) Peel off the skin.

2.) Cut in half, length-wise – that is, to divide the ROOTS in half, so that your onion looks like this onion (without the tunic):

3.) You should now have two onion halves. Slice one of those halves vertically, from the roots to bygone tunic. But don't slice all the way. Kind of just – flirt with the roots, and to the basal plate.

4.) Turn your knife so that the blade looks like a horizontal surface. Use this new direction to slice your onion half into horizontal layers. Be sure to watch the video (embedded in image below) if this isn't clear.

5.) Turn your knife back to its default chopping position (blade pointed down), and chop your onion with the blade parallel to the roots.

for assistance, talk to this guy.

answer//respond//Purkinje fibers could be a good band name.

respond or answer?

last week, I began a Human Biology course at a city college. To welcome her students to the content, the professor began by asking a series of general questions.

"What do humans do to survive?" was one of them.

I thought of donuts. Then I really thought about them; the archetypal fried "O" haloed by questionably-strawberry-definitely-pink icing, and sprinkles. 

Then I thought about Bostonian vernacular--about how chocolate sprinkles are referred to there as "jimmies." But I'd rather have rainbow ones on my pastel, faux-fruit glaze.

  eh it's really not all that great

  that's different.

Anyway.

In the five minutes she kept us guessing, we stressed the same answers while increasing in frustration. they were:

1.) "answer"

2.) "adapt" 

3.) by God I even tried "regulate"

"to survive, we regulate everyday."

in some way.

Our top three answers, as a class, yielded no approval from the professor. So why did we keep repeating them?

Breaking it down, blogolysis style:

(the breakdown of chemical compounds is referred to as hydrolysis~~see what I did there~~)

2.) maybe we kept howling "adapt" because the term is vaguely sciencey; Darwin was a guy.

3.) maybe I yelled "regulate" (followed by a bashful giggle--I dont know why I felt embarrassed but I kinda do) because homeostasis was on my mind. homeostasis is the one and only bae, truly.

1.) "Answer" was the most common response. It seemed unquestionable that answer was the answer; we chorused it with momentous frequency, maybe convinced that the professor couldn't hear.

after we learned that the answer the professor was looking for was respond ("humans respond everyday to survive"), our obsession with "answer" seemed to make sense. "Answer" is:

a.) direct, like many of us have come to expect the responses of this world to be. when you connect to WiFi, it's frustrating sitting around, waiting for the little signal waves to figure themselves out.


b.) connotative of clarity. when movie plots are mysterious and hard to understand, they seem unnecessarily obscure compared to the directness of action movies or billion-dollar blockbusters

c.) immediate. why spend time on a thirty-minute meal when your microwave pot pie could go through all the stages of matter in four minutes?

so much of what we experience simply requires pressing a button. survival, however is day by day; no, as a population we haven't adapted to keep up with what we've created and maintained.

I made these the other day, they are vegan and gluten-free.

but i didn't take pictures because i wanted to avoid pushing buttons. these are taken from the website (link embedded in the images):

now here i come, pressing an alphabet.

Purkinje fibers could be a good band name.

DO NOT FOLLOW THIS ENDEAVOR//and why

today. listen carefully:

oh no! the biscuits even injured my mother!

family was coming over. i wanted to share love through biscuits. and the recipe i referred to looked great! it called for only 3 ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour

16 oz sour cream

1/2 cup whole milk

plus, it was found on a mom blog:

http://momonamission.me/worlds-easiest-sour-cream-biscuits/

plus, it provided evidence: 

PLUS, mom blog.

"Mom on a Mission." intoxicating.

where did the recipe go wrong?

ah, wrong question. where did i go wrong?

~~~~~time to reconsider my actions~~~~~

So, why is it that i can play knock-knock with my biscuits?

5 major reasons.

food threads offer a breadth of advice--and demonstrate individuals' amazing desire to help others.

(source of screenshots: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/442520)

1.) using whole wheat flour

this comment immediately resonated: whole wheat flour "can make biscuits heavier." 

Although the original recipe called for 4 cups of white flour, i substituted 1 for whole wheat.

i thought, wow, whole wheat flour. so healthy. but it can complicate the baking process.

whole wheat flour is less refined than all-purpose flour; it contains wheat germ and bran, both of which pack vitamin E, iron, fiber, and other nutrients. while vitamins and minerals are generally pluses, "Thing is," writes Smithsonian Magazine's Alastair Bland, whole wheat flour renders "life harder for bakers." Germ and bran (we'll call 'em G&B, for sentimental purposes) despite their nutritive potentials, propose their own pitfalls to baking:

1.) G&B soak up water more readily than refined flours (like all-purpose) do, creating drier products

2.) G&B make the dough heavier and less able to rise, "leading to loaves almost as dense as French cobblestone" (solid simile, Alastair Bland).

of course, baked goods made with whole wheat flour can still turn out airy and flaky; adding more water may help, again to compensate for G&B's drying effect:

"'You really need to hydrate the flour. Only then can you get really beautiful, soft bread.'" ~Dave Miller, whole wheat enthusiast

(source: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-makes-whole-grain-bread-so-hard-to-bake-63878/?no-ist)

2.) overworking the dough

(source: http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/cooking-tips-techniques/basic-cooking/overmixing-doughs-batters)

first off, gluten is a protein found in wheat and other grains. when gluten is mixed with water, protein chains form. we'll call these protein chains gluten networks: they provide the elasticity that ultimately holds your ingredients together. stretchy dough illustrates this:

~~~~~though stretchy, my dough is not exemplary~~~~~

gluten networks provide structures in which carbon dioxide gas (CO2) can embed and expand, uplifting the dough. but where does the CO2 come from? 

fermentation. 

in baking, CO2 is produced as a byproduct of fermentation, or the chemical breakdown of sugars, typically by yeast or bacteria. yeast (a fungi), often used to make bread, chemically "eats" the flour sugars, producing CO2 and alcohol as waste. 

overall, fermentation influences texture and taste by producing:

CO2 bubbles. they allow the product to rise, giving it that nice airy quality

alcohol. in the heat, alcohol is baked off--but it leaves behind flavors that color our carbohydrate dreams~~

~~~~~HOWEVER~~~~~

"leavening agents would just be bubbling brews without something to contain them."

(source: https://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/bread/bread_science.html)

again, gluten networks provide structure. CO2, as a product of fermentation, is captured in the structure; little pockets of gas become suspended, expand, and some gas even escapes. overall, the dispersion of gas gives bread its airy quality and causes it to rise. 

~~~~ON THE OTHER HAND~~~~

overworking/overmixing dough or batter overdevelops the gluten. when this occurs, according to JoePastry.com, the gluten networks TRAP steam (in this case CO2). Although bakers use gluten networks for this very purpose--to trap and provide CO2 with structure--overdeveloped gluten networks trap the gas too tightly, impeding even distribution of CO2 bubbles. 

when overdeveloped, gluten networks have grips on CO2 that are just too strong. 

When CO2 is detained by gluten, baked goods increase in volume--resulting in dense, tough, rubbery, and tooth-chippin' products.

(source: http://www.joepastry.com/2008/what_is_overmixing/)

AND as The Foodie RD spares audiences of "the organic chemistry details," she highlights that BISCUITS are particularly susceptible to becoming hockey pucks. "Overworking biscuit dough," she writes, "causes not only too much gluten formation, but it also allows the carbon dioxide gas to escape" even BEFORE the biscuits are placed in the oven. here, CO2 potential has been doubly compromised; its ability to provide airiness is severely cut.

(source: http://thefoodierd.blogspot.com/2011/10/food-science-101-over-mixing.html)

watch it again!: do you think i overworked the dough? comment below!

3.) sealing the edges

as you can see, i did somethin' to those edges:

my first instinct was to separate the biscuits on the baking sheet, as i've learned to do with cookies. L.V. Anderson, an associate editor for Slate Magazine, recommends the contrary: "make sure they touch." 

"As they rise in the oven, their tops will brown and harden, but their abutting sides will remain soft, feathery, and white—just like the delicious insides."

4.) omitting buttermilk?

Anderson also contends that biscuits made without buttermilk "inevitably result in disks that are shorter, drier, and blander than buttermilk biscuits." She also warns against overworking the dough: "knead it just until it comes together."

(source: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/04/18/buttermilk_biscuit_recipe_infinitely_better_than_baking_powder_biscuits.html)

i think Anderson's argument is extreme; one person's biscuit-making preferences do not apply to everyone. still, i look to experiment with buttermilk in the future.

SO from this

and this

failure happens, flour spills. but sweep it up and create.

oh, major error #5

5.) failing to visit Maeve in Ireland 

and the major take-away of this blog post: visit Maeve in Ireland and learn to make scones.

understanding how bread rises: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvD-8ZfxfOY