- Plan it before you build it and stick with the plan. Changes part way through result in a lot more work.
- Install the plumbing, if you are doing plumbing, before installing the garden. Digging under and through boxes is very challenging. Plumbing is very nice to have.
- If you are connecting this into your existing sprinkler system, make sure that one zone is just the garden. Don't mix zones.
- Build the boxes before you bring in the dirt to fill them. That good rich dirt will grow the thickest matte of weeds and grass with the deepest roots you can possibly imagine in very short order. This changes your good soil into yard waste. Covering it with tarps is not effective either. That was my mistake.
- Find an optimum height for your garden boxes. Some considerations include:
- All the weed pulling and planting happens at the top level. To remove the weeds you will have to bend over however far that is.
- Most of the produce collection happens above the garden bed. Some can happen a few feet above the bed. Think corn. Or vine melons on a trellis.
- A lot more time is spent pulling weeds than harvesting produce. And harvesting produce has more inherent reward making it seem like less work than it is.
- It is easier to work from a seated position than it is to work from a step stool or kneeling position.
- Not all beds have to be the same height. You may choose to make one 3' high for just strawberries and another 8" for just corn.
- If the garden box is taller than the wheel barrow, when you move the dirt from the delivery site to the garden, you will basically have to do it twice. I did mine with two 2x10" boards high. This gives the barrow almost 2" of clearance. If I did it again, I would do one 2x10" followed by one 2x8" board.
- The wider the box is, the more you have to stretch out to get weeds or produce out of the middle. Reaching causes fatigue. A lot of people advocate 4' wide boxes. I prefer 3' wide for this reason.
- Don't bother chipping out the sod before installing the garden boxes. This is a lot of work. You may want to put down some landscaping cloth, newspaper, or herbicide to help prevent some plants from growing up from the gottom. If you do a short box for corn or something which will have roots which want penetrate below the original ground level, definitely do not use an herbicide and probably don't use landscaping cloth. Even then, removing the grass is not strictly necessary but may result in more weeds later. I would at least break the soil up a little though.
- The whole box, if more than 12" high, should not be filled with just good dirt. This saves money as well as helping avoid a later issue weird growth deep in the box. Only the top 4 to 12" should be good dirt depending on the root depth desired. 12" for corn. 6" for most of your above ground plants. Below that can be gravel, logs, untreated lumber scraps ... or other items that serve as a filler as well as allow drainage. Some people strongly advocate logs since they will decay and add nutrients to the soil over the years. This can be a good place to hide some yard waste, but not grass clipping etc. I have very rocky soil. Every time I dug up a sprinkler or planted a tree, I have not been putting any of the rocks back in the hole. I have accumulated a cubic yard or so of rocks which have been put to good use at the bottom of the garden beds.
- Leave lots of room between garden beds. It is one thing for yourself to walk between the beds. It is quite another to take a wheelbarrow through and another yet to turn the barrow around.
- Both the height of the boxes as well as the distance from the fence can help expose the garden to light by getting it out of the shade of the fence. This will affect how early or late you can harvest.
- I did my first two boxes at one level high 3'x8'x10". This was a little awkward as the 8' boards don't fit in the car and are just more awkward to walk through doorways etc. I did the others at 3'x6'x20". This is a lot easier to work with and conveniently the trunk of my car closes with the wood inside.
- Buy the wood for one box in one trip to the store if you are having them cut the boards for you. The guys at homedepot and Lowe's are quite happy to cut your lumber, but their accuracy is about +/-1/4". You get some more accuracy if they set a stop and cut all your 6' sections. Then set a new stop and cut all your 3' sections. Of course, I am rounding off. You have to allow for the amount of material the saw eats. FYI, most of those guys don't. Doing it in two trips, I have some sections that were supposed to be 2' 11 7/8" that are almost a half inch different in length than others. It looks a little sloppy.
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Garden Hints
I am nearing the end stage of installing a nice garden in my back yard. There are several small pointers I would like to share. These apply to building a raised garden.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Fat guy calisthenics
No, that is not intended to be funny. I just couldn't find a lot of exercises online. The articles I found all defer to a doctor. Not helpful.
I did work out a quick and simple routine. It involves 4 dynamic exercises.
1) Breast Stroke squats: Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and push outward with your hands as you squat down. Once you get to the bottom your arms should be fully extended in front. Then sweep your hands out to your sides as you stand up. So that your hands straight out at your sides once you are fully standing. Exhale on the way down and inhale on the way up. The arm motion helps prepare the shoulder muscles.
The lower intensity version has you lowering your arms from straight above your head to down at your side as you stand up and raising them as you stand up.
An even lower version would be to use the back of a chair or door knob to assist with the raising and lowering of the body.
The lowest intensity version would be to sit down in a chair and stand up again using a table for assistance.
A higher intensity version would be to lower your hands as you go down and raise them as you go up.
An even more intense version would be to do a full jump at the top.
The point is to use as many as the big muscles in your legs as possible while moving your shoulders simultaneously.
2) Push ups. Yeah. Obvious. It gets into the shoulders and back. There are a lot of variations. on pushups. IF you are really fat you can't do a lot of pushups. Even if you have the muscles to do it, the strain on your wrists can cause a lot of damage.
The lowest intensity would be pushing against a wall.
A higher intensity is to kneel on the ground so your butt is directly above your knees and do pushups with your upper body.
Next would be to kneel on a pillow and straighten your hips and back. Some people like to keep their knees bent at 90 degrees. I prefer to try and keep my toes on the floor as if I was about to do a normal push up. That way I can switch back and forth depending on how the wrist feels.
You can also play with how far apart your hands are and how high they are. Are they low near your solar plexus, above your shoulders near your ears, or in between? Some day I would like to be able to do very difficult version of the pushup where your hands are low near your solar plexus if your back and legs are straight and you do a large circular motion with your torso but don't move your hands or feet. I imagine just the forward transition (from having your knees bent and your shoulders below your hands and sliding your body parallel and very close to the floor until your knees are straight and your hands are down by your solar plexus) would be immensely challenging.
3) Leg raises. Ideally I would be able to lay on my back and fold in half so that I could touch my toes in mid air. Not even close. My body is out of balance besides the muscle issues. Instead I just raise my legs without bending my knees until my feet are above my hips. The hardest version I can do is to lay down on my back and put my hands under by buttocks and raise my head and shoulders off the ground and hold them their while bending at the waist to put my feet above my hips.
A lower intensity is to rest my head.
Even lower is to bend my knees so that my feet don't stick out as far. Or even just get my knees above my hips and leave my feet where ever.
This should get the whole range of abdominal muscles but not the oblique. One hard thing to remember while doing this is that when your flex your abdominal muscles to raise your legs your should be pulling your stomach flat at the same time. Flat is a relative term.
Most exercise gurus would end with an stomach exercise that focuses more on the upper portion of the stomach muscles, but remember I am not trying to get six-pack abs. I am trying to change something that looks like a saggy water balloon into something that looks more like a keg.
One other positive is that the leg raises can help stretch out my lower back which can sag under all the weight or lock-up during push-ups.
4) Ankle and waist rotations. This may sound like one lame exercise, but it is really two super important exercises. Even though it is listed fourth, I like to do it first and last a lot of days. Being fat, it hurts to walk. The load tends to collapse the arches. The arch supports tend to weaken them further. The ankles start to fold sideways, and your toes start to turn out so you are walking like a crippled duck. Over time this can deform your shins and destroy your knees too. Similar problems occur with the lower back. These exercises specifically help with these issues.
Stand on one foot and rotate your toes in as large a circle as you can. You may find that you cannot do a very good circle. The correct structure of your foot has been crushed under the load. But do what you can.
Similarly, stand with your feet shoulder width apart and put your arms straight in the air. Then rotate at the hip so your arms and head move together in a big circle and you touch the ground as you go by. If I am feeling really worn out or my kids are exercising with me, I will bend my knees and pretend to be an agitated ape. This involves a lot more swaying and grunting. Fewer circles. How straight you keep your knees and how low you go on the circles can affect the exercise. Straighter legs and reaching lower both mean more stretch in your legs. But if you go too far or too fast you can hurt your lower back. So ... take it in stride.
I did work out a quick and simple routine. It involves 4 dynamic exercises.
1) Breast Stroke squats: Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and push outward with your hands as you squat down. Once you get to the bottom your arms should be fully extended in front. Then sweep your hands out to your sides as you stand up. So that your hands straight out at your sides once you are fully standing. Exhale on the way down and inhale on the way up. The arm motion helps prepare the shoulder muscles.
The lower intensity version has you lowering your arms from straight above your head to down at your side as you stand up and raising them as you stand up.
An even lower version would be to use the back of a chair or door knob to assist with the raising and lowering of the body.
The lowest intensity version would be to sit down in a chair and stand up again using a table for assistance.
A higher intensity version would be to lower your hands as you go down and raise them as you go up.
An even more intense version would be to do a full jump at the top.
The point is to use as many as the big muscles in your legs as possible while moving your shoulders simultaneously.
2) Push ups. Yeah. Obvious. It gets into the shoulders and back. There are a lot of variations. on pushups. IF you are really fat you can't do a lot of pushups. Even if you have the muscles to do it, the strain on your wrists can cause a lot of damage.
The lowest intensity would be pushing against a wall.
A higher intensity is to kneel on the ground so your butt is directly above your knees and do pushups with your upper body.
Next would be to kneel on a pillow and straighten your hips and back. Some people like to keep their knees bent at 90 degrees. I prefer to try and keep my toes on the floor as if I was about to do a normal push up. That way I can switch back and forth depending on how the wrist feels.
You can also play with how far apart your hands are and how high they are. Are they low near your solar plexus, above your shoulders near your ears, or in between? Some day I would like to be able to do very difficult version of the pushup where your hands are low near your solar plexus if your back and legs are straight and you do a large circular motion with your torso but don't move your hands or feet. I imagine just the forward transition (from having your knees bent and your shoulders below your hands and sliding your body parallel and very close to the floor until your knees are straight and your hands are down by your solar plexus) would be immensely challenging.
3) Leg raises. Ideally I would be able to lay on my back and fold in half so that I could touch my toes in mid air. Not even close. My body is out of balance besides the muscle issues. Instead I just raise my legs without bending my knees until my feet are above my hips. The hardest version I can do is to lay down on my back and put my hands under by buttocks and raise my head and shoulders off the ground and hold them their while bending at the waist to put my feet above my hips.
A lower intensity is to rest my head.
Even lower is to bend my knees so that my feet don't stick out as far. Or even just get my knees above my hips and leave my feet where ever.
This should get the whole range of abdominal muscles but not the oblique. One hard thing to remember while doing this is that when your flex your abdominal muscles to raise your legs your should be pulling your stomach flat at the same time. Flat is a relative term.
Most exercise gurus would end with an stomach exercise that focuses more on the upper portion of the stomach muscles, but remember I am not trying to get six-pack abs. I am trying to change something that looks like a saggy water balloon into something that looks more like a keg.
One other positive is that the leg raises can help stretch out my lower back which can sag under all the weight or lock-up during push-ups.
4) Ankle and waist rotations. This may sound like one lame exercise, but it is really two super important exercises. Even though it is listed fourth, I like to do it first and last a lot of days. Being fat, it hurts to walk. The load tends to collapse the arches. The arch supports tend to weaken them further. The ankles start to fold sideways, and your toes start to turn out so you are walking like a crippled duck. Over time this can deform your shins and destroy your knees too. Similar problems occur with the lower back. These exercises specifically help with these issues.
Stand on one foot and rotate your toes in as large a circle as you can. You may find that you cannot do a very good circle. The correct structure of your foot has been crushed under the load. But do what you can.
Similarly, stand with your feet shoulder width apart and put your arms straight in the air. Then rotate at the hip so your arms and head move together in a big circle and you touch the ground as you go by. If I am feeling really worn out or my kids are exercising with me, I will bend my knees and pretend to be an agitated ape. This involves a lot more swaying and grunting. Fewer circles. How straight you keep your knees and how low you go on the circles can affect the exercise. Straighter legs and reaching lower both mean more stretch in your legs. But if you go too far or too fast you can hurt your lower back. So ... take it in stride.
Excercising as a FAT person
There was a time when I would say I was in pretty good shape. I was never a professional grade athlete and would never have made it on a collegiate sports team, but I would regularly run 5 miles in 30 minutes without worrying about it making me too tired for other activities.
I didn't used to think much about the exercise I did. I had a lot of time to do it in and a lot of psychological drive to do it with.
Now, I hold my breath to tie my shoes.
Now, I find that I don't know much about exercise and there is not a lot of good material out there for people like me who are more than 100 lbs over weight and busy with life. I have a hard time getting enough sleep on even one night in any given week. How am I supposed to find the time to exercise and lose weight? Here are a few notes from my thoughts about loosing weight:
1) Consistency is most important. I am fat because I don't have good habits. Establishing an exercise habit is the most important thing I can do. It is more important than improving my diet or sleep. Really it is. I have set the goal of exercising 10 times a week. Yes 10. Why 10? So that it becomes a core habit of my life. How many times do you eat? Go to the bathroom? Brush your teeth? Those are a few of your core habits. More specifically they are habits required to maintain your body. Why should exercise be any different? And, if I don't make exercise one of the core habits of my life, I don't think I will be able to get or stay healthy.
2) Make it quick. Time is of the essence. If I require myself to do a 30 minute workout, it will be difficult to find the time. I need to make it a 5 minute workout. I need to be able to squeeze it in and move on with my day. The longer the workout takes the easier it is to decide that I don't have time. A gym membership is completely out of the question.
3) Make it lite. Being fat it is easy to get tired out. And being out of shape it is easy to hurt myself by doing too much exercise. The truth is that I am no longer familiar with my body. If I do too much exercise in the morning I am miserable all day long. If I do too much at night, I won't sleep well and will be miserable all the next day. And it will be harder to convince myself to exercise again.
4) Track the exercise. I have a calendar in the bath room that I put a number and "e" for how many times I exercised that day. This has not worked very well for me. I am also using it to track weight and other things as well. I think that maybe it is too much stuff on the calendar. Maybe it is too many goals. But I think that recording the effort is important.
Again, the goal is to establish the habit. Over time the exercises can evolve into more intense or more rewarding workout. But for now... It has to be a simple routine.
I didn't used to think much about the exercise I did. I had a lot of time to do it in and a lot of psychological drive to do it with.
Now, I hold my breath to tie my shoes.
Now, I find that I don't know much about exercise and there is not a lot of good material out there for people like me who are more than 100 lbs over weight and busy with life. I have a hard time getting enough sleep on even one night in any given week. How am I supposed to find the time to exercise and lose weight? Here are a few notes from my thoughts about loosing weight:
1) Consistency is most important. I am fat because I don't have good habits. Establishing an exercise habit is the most important thing I can do. It is more important than improving my diet or sleep. Really it is. I have set the goal of exercising 10 times a week. Yes 10. Why 10? So that it becomes a core habit of my life. How many times do you eat? Go to the bathroom? Brush your teeth? Those are a few of your core habits. More specifically they are habits required to maintain your body. Why should exercise be any different? And, if I don't make exercise one of the core habits of my life, I don't think I will be able to get or stay healthy.
2) Make it quick. Time is of the essence. If I require myself to do a 30 minute workout, it will be difficult to find the time. I need to make it a 5 minute workout. I need to be able to squeeze it in and move on with my day. The longer the workout takes the easier it is to decide that I don't have time. A gym membership is completely out of the question.
3) Make it lite. Being fat it is easy to get tired out. And being out of shape it is easy to hurt myself by doing too much exercise. The truth is that I am no longer familiar with my body. If I do too much exercise in the morning I am miserable all day long. If I do too much at night, I won't sleep well and will be miserable all the next day. And it will be harder to convince myself to exercise again.
4) Track the exercise. I have a calendar in the bath room that I put a number and "e" for how many times I exercised that day. This has not worked very well for me. I am also using it to track weight and other things as well. I think that maybe it is too much stuff on the calendar. Maybe it is too many goals. But I think that recording the effort is important.
Again, the goal is to establish the habit. Over time the exercises can evolve into more intense or more rewarding workout. But for now... It has to be a simple routine.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
New Age Philosophy and Modern Physics part 2
The other physics phenomenon that seems to come up a lot with new age philosophers is wave-particle duality. This is not what they usually call it. What they are interested in is the idea that observation affects the measurement. Let me take a minute to describe the basic double-slit experiment that is used to validate this.
You take a laser and turn it down super low so that only one photon goes through the experiment at a time. The individual photons go though a very closely spaced pair of slits. And hit a photographic screen on the opposite side. Each individual photon hits the screen leaving a single dot as if it was a particle, a miniature cannonball. However, if photons were little cannonballs then after several hundred photons you would see two clusters of dots ... one behind each of the two slits. But this is not what you see. What you see is a distribution of photons consistent with a wave going through the slits. See the picture I 'borrowed' from another website.
Now we get to the interesting part. IF we add a sensor to the experiment in between the slits and the photographic screen to find out if the photon went through the left slit, the right slit, or both THEN we get two clusters of dots like for little cannonballs. ( I didn't quickly find a picture I liked, so I used copy and paste to modify the picture from above and create the picture below. )
You take a laser and turn it down super low so that only one photon goes through the experiment at a time. The individual photons go though a very closely spaced pair of slits. And hit a photographic screen on the opposite side. Each individual photon hits the screen leaving a single dot as if it was a particle, a miniature cannonball. However, if photons were little cannonballs then after several hundred photons you would see two clusters of dots ... one behind each of the two slits. But this is not what you see. What you see is a distribution of photons consistent with a wave going through the slits. See the picture I 'borrowed' from another website.
Now we get to the interesting part. IF we add a sensor to the experiment in between the slits and the photographic screen to find out if the photon went through the left slit, the right slit, or both THEN we get two clusters of dots like for little cannonballs. ( I didn't quickly find a picture I liked, so I used copy and paste to modify the picture from above and create the picture below. )
Never mind the exact details of this new sensor, suffice it to say that this part is tricky and a lot of physicists have reviewed and repeated the experiment. Details of the sensor is something that I don't consider myself qualified to comment on. The experiment has been performed to varying degrees with photons, electrons, atoms, and molecules by various researchers. Let me get back to that in a second or two (see item 1 below).
The new age philosopher gets excited about this experiment because the act of observing the photon affected it's behavior. It is important to note however that the experimenter still had no control over where the photon went. So while there was an effect, there is no control. This is an important distinction. All credible scientific sources and theories of which I am aware do not allow the observer to have control.
When I point this out, I am usually rebuffed with anecdotal stories of experiments where thoughts reduced crime, changed the shape of water crystals, or a hundred other things. I have looked into several of these and found no credible scientific evidence. One that comes up a lot is Dr. Emoto's "Messages from Water" or a similar publication by the same author. There are several issues with this including but not limited to:
1) Lack of peer repetition. I have found no publications from other researchers that substantiate the claims. There is however, a publication testing crystal formation at specific temperatures which appears to disprove Dr. Emoto's hypothesis. But the author (Libbrecht) was only testing for temperature, not the mood of the technician.
2) No blind tests. In fact, the good Doctor has been quoted as denouncing this procedure. So the person taking the picture of the water crystal knows exactly what to expect and can easily affect the results.
3) Limited data release. The good Doctor has chosen to only release one picture from 1 in 100 samples tested. This means that he could have chosen whatever he wanted to support any hypothesis. Full disclosure would require releasing a video of every sample.
If somebody wanted to substantiate the claims of Dr. Emoto, they could do a blind experiment where the photographers are given samples from three groups without knowing which group they are from. One group could be "love", another "hate" and the last unlabeled. Then it would be the photographer's job to determine which group the sample came from. The accuracy of their categorization would go a long ways to substantiate or disprove Dr. Emoto's claims.
So, why do new age philosophers gravitate towards the same examples regardless of the fact that they do not actually provide evidence of their claims or beliefs? I suppose it is the same reason we all do it, we want to believe what we want to believe and we want to be lazy about it too. But I do get frustrated having the same conversation over and over again ... especially when it is with the same person(s).
Sunday, July 19, 2015
New Age Philosophy and Modern Physics part 1
It seems that science is doomed to be used to justify the beliefs of individuals who have a very limited understanding. I write this post knowing that I am by no stretch of the imagination an authority or minor expert on quantum physics. In fact, I found some of the conclusions and consequences of quantum physics so abhorrent that I switched my major in college from physics to applied physics just to avoid two classes on the topic.
So why do I take the time to write this? I have repeatedly had portions of a conversation with people who want to cite experiments and conclusions from quantum theory as evidence of one belief or another. Unfortunately, they never get the basics right and invariably end up on the defensive rather than learning anything. Excuses range from them not being able to remember some key detail and therefore claiming that we must be talking about different things all together to outright dismissing what I have to say because it is irrelevant or inaccurate. I really should just let it go. But apparently I am not going to just yet.
A recent conversation involved a description of what I am fairly certain was quantum entanglement. Person X could not remember the word entanglement but described two objects that were connected some how and that when researchers did something to object A it affected object B instantly and over great distance. Honestly, even that description is far clearer than what was given to me. I am not certain why they were excited by this. But they followed up by talking about anecdotal evidence (with no specifics as to dates, names, or locations) of twins or parents who 'instantly knew' when something bad had happened to their sibling or child.
So why bring up quantum entanglement (or something like it)? If you take the time to wiki this topic, you will find that current theories and corresponding research indicates that no information can be communicated via quantum entanglement. This is not a route to faster than light communication. Therefore, it has no bearing on topics such as remote viewing even in its familial variation.
However, there is a well established and understood scientific phenomenon which does relate to the interconnectedness of people and communication 'instantly' over great distances. It is called radio. Suppose that we radiate emotions and ideas. We would similarly receive those emanations just like a radio does. It would be foolish to assume that science has discovered all the forces and phenomena in the universe. I think that it is quite possible that there is an emotive phenomenon that science has not discovered. I also think that it is equally reasonable that emotions do radiate in the electromagnetic. However, I have not seen any compelling research or evidence to either effect.
I wish to write more on this subject but have spent far more time in the last while dealing with little children than trying to write ... so I am going to give up for a bit.
So why do I take the time to write this? I have repeatedly had portions of a conversation with people who want to cite experiments and conclusions from quantum theory as evidence of one belief or another. Unfortunately, they never get the basics right and invariably end up on the defensive rather than learning anything. Excuses range from them not being able to remember some key detail and therefore claiming that we must be talking about different things all together to outright dismissing what I have to say because it is irrelevant or inaccurate. I really should just let it go. But apparently I am not going to just yet.
A recent conversation involved a description of what I am fairly certain was quantum entanglement. Person X could not remember the word entanglement but described two objects that were connected some how and that when researchers did something to object A it affected object B instantly and over great distance. Honestly, even that description is far clearer than what was given to me. I am not certain why they were excited by this. But they followed up by talking about anecdotal evidence (with no specifics as to dates, names, or locations) of twins or parents who 'instantly knew' when something bad had happened to their sibling or child.
So why bring up quantum entanglement (or something like it)? If you take the time to wiki this topic, you will find that current theories and corresponding research indicates that no information can be communicated via quantum entanglement. This is not a route to faster than light communication. Therefore, it has no bearing on topics such as remote viewing even in its familial variation.
However, there is a well established and understood scientific phenomenon which does relate to the interconnectedness of people and communication 'instantly' over great distances. It is called radio. Suppose that we radiate emotions and ideas. We would similarly receive those emanations just like a radio does. It would be foolish to assume that science has discovered all the forces and phenomena in the universe. I think that it is quite possible that there is an emotive phenomenon that science has not discovered. I also think that it is equally reasonable that emotions do radiate in the electromagnetic. However, I have not seen any compelling research or evidence to either effect.
I wish to write more on this subject but have spent far more time in the last while dealing with little children than trying to write ... so I am going to give up for a bit.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Easy Pizza
I almost called it "homemade", but that would be stretching it for me. I love pizza more than most people. There is a huge range of enjoyable pizza out there, but my favorite is my homemade pizza. Unfortunately, the crust takes about 1.5hours by itself, so I don't make it very often. It is more common for me to eat freezer pizza or pizzeria pizza, but I like the easy pizza better than either of those. Simplest recipie:
Loaf of store bought french bread. cut it in half to expose the largest inner surface possible in one straight cut (parallel to the table when the loaf is just sitting there).
Sauce.
Spices.
Grated cheese.
Toppings of choice.
Bake it in the oven.
Now for the long version.
Bread: The more artisan breads can make a very good pizza. However, often they are cooked to have an almost burned color to give that fire baked appeal. Not good for a loaf of bread you intend to put back into the oven. Also they tend to have a much harder outer crust which is great if you like it and have good molars. These are not appropriate for little kids or the elderly. I often get the cheapest loaf of bread that has the softest possible crust ... because I have little kids. They still just eat the toppings ... but at least they could eat the crust.
Sauce: Jars of "pizza sauce" are abhorrently thin and are only good for adding a little color to the crust. If you want something to carry the tomato flavor and mix with your spices, then I recommend one 6oz (the smallest size) can of paste mixed with one can of diced tomatoes in sauce or juice. Often I don't have the "in sauce" or "in juice" and settle for the normal ones and drain them. If I have the soft french bread I still drain the "in sauce" and "in juice" varieties as the softer bread gets soggy easier. But the "in sauce" or "in juice" makes the sauce taste fresher and less bitter. BTW this is a lot of sauce. Probably enough for two loaves.
I often add diced spinach to the sauce which can make the sauce a little bitter even with the baby spinach. I don't mind the bitter sauce. I have found spring mix works well without making the sauce bitter. But stay away from kale. Far away.
Spices. I don't like most of the Italian or Pizza spice mixes. They are not balanced right. They are always short on thyme and often omit the nutmeg. Yes don't forget the nutmeg. Just a dash. You shouldn't be able to taste in the sauce unless you are trained. Other spices include garlic, basil, and oregano in order of importance. And NO black pepper. Why you would want that in your pizza sauce is beyond me. The exact balance of spices depends on your personal tastes. If you are really into that tomato flavor, you may even consider replacing diced tomatoes with stewed tomatoes that have been cut to a size of your preference. I warn you though, one inch thick slabs of stewed tomatoes are a bad idea. IF you do go big on the tomatoes consider adding extra basil too. On the other side of the spectrum you may consider petite diced tomatoes and extra garlic.
The spices do not have to be premixed into the sauce at all. I will usually cut slivers of a young white or yellow onion (not from the heart of the onion) and mix them into the sauce as well as the garlic. I am extra sensitive to garlic but still love the flavor so I can't tolerate a bite of pizza with extra garlic. As for the rest of it though ... a bite with heavy basil or oregano is a treat. It makes the pizza less monotonous. I like to sprinkle the basil, oregano, and thyme on top of the sauce.
Cheese: I am not that picky about my cheese. But never get the finely grated cheeses as they end up melting differently. I usually get pre-grated low moisture mozzarella. A mix with some provolone maybe a little romano or mild cheddar is also good. A minimum amount of cheese is one 8oz package of grated mozzarella per loaf of bread. You may find that this is too little for your tastes. Adding another 2oz of mild cheddar to the mix generally fills it out nicely. Putting a total of 12oz of cheese on is getting fairly generous ... but 16 oz is probably over the line even for an afficionado. I don't usually save cheese to put on top of the other toppings. Unless it is a little medium cheddar to crisp on top of a pizza with few toppings.
Toppings: Everybody has their favorite toppings. I will just comment on three toppings: pepperoni, sausage, and pepperocini.
Most packages of pepperoni are just too thin or greasy or both. The small round ones are usually thicker and drier and better for pizza. Outside of that you may consider getting expensive pepperoni, but at least stick to the main brands.
Sausage is usually really "breakfast sausage". This is in no way appropriate for pizza. Most stores that package "italian style" sausage really just cut some spices into their breakfast sausage. This is a mistake. If you want sausage get one that was made for pizza. You may consider a link sausage like Linguica. That is perhaps the most overlooked pizza meat. If more pizzerias made it a standard meat it would not take long before it was more popular than pepperoni.
Pepperocini. My favorite brand is Mezzetta, but lots of brands are pretty good. Do not buy pre-sliced pepperocini. They have to be left to pickle intact and you have to cut the stems off after the fact. The flavor difference far more significant than which brand you buy. If I get them at a pizzeria I always ask if they were pre-sliced; if they were I will not get them.
I have convinced several people to try a two topping pizza with nothing but pepperocinis and linguica. They are usually quite impressed and about one in five of them decide it is their new favorite.
But don't be shy to experiment with your pizza. The whole pizza does not have to have a new brand of olives or an unusual topping like pistachios (which are great but may require some other adjustments for you to really appreciate them). You can make a little test corner. You can also get the dinner party involved and let them top their own section with whatever they like. Just be aware that a lot of toppings have a lot of water and too many can drown your pizza.
Bake: The bake time kind of depends on the toppings. More water from extra vegetables or thick layers of cheese requires more time at a lower temperature. Grated cheese has lots of air which makes it a decent insulator (a big part of why you don't want finely grated cheese). Adding a blanket of pepperoni and mushrooms on top only adds to this problem. You have to get the cheese to 150F to properly melt through. And you have to get the sauce to 120F or hotter especially if there were raw onions that you need to cook. On a pre-baked loaf of bread you don't have to worry about dough temperature, but if you had fresh dough you would need to get the top layer of dough to 140F or so and you have to do it before the sauce absorbs in. This is why most pizzerias don't do thick toppings, thick sauce, or thick crust ... or at least don't do it well.
I really don't know the exact temperatures for all the ingredients, but I do know cook times in my conventional oven at high altitude. A standard loaf with about 10 oz of mozzarella, some pepperoni, and extra thick sauce takes about 13 min at 350F followed by another 3min at
425F. Adding bell pepper, 2oz of extra cheese, and mushrooms means about 17min at 350F and 3min at 450F. The last hot part is to brown the cheese after it is melted as well as steam off any residual juices. A vegetarian deluxe pizza might take 20min at 325 and 5min at 425. I never go above 450F or below 325F no matter how thick the toppings.
That said, remember the bread is bre-baked. Putting the pizza on a stoneware pan will help keep the crust from cooking as much. If you have a convection oven, this won't make much difference.
Loaf of store bought french bread. cut it in half to expose the largest inner surface possible in one straight cut (parallel to the table when the loaf is just sitting there).
Sauce.
Spices.
Grated cheese.
Toppings of choice.
Bake it in the oven.
Now for the long version.
Bread: The more artisan breads can make a very good pizza. However, often they are cooked to have an almost burned color to give that fire baked appeal. Not good for a loaf of bread you intend to put back into the oven. Also they tend to have a much harder outer crust which is great if you like it and have good molars. These are not appropriate for little kids or the elderly. I often get the cheapest loaf of bread that has the softest possible crust ... because I have little kids. They still just eat the toppings ... but at least they could eat the crust.
Sauce: Jars of "pizza sauce" are abhorrently thin and are only good for adding a little color to the crust. If you want something to carry the tomato flavor and mix with your spices, then I recommend one 6oz (the smallest size) can of paste mixed with one can of diced tomatoes in sauce or juice. Often I don't have the "in sauce" or "in juice" and settle for the normal ones and drain them. If I have the soft french bread I still drain the "in sauce" and "in juice" varieties as the softer bread gets soggy easier. But the "in sauce" or "in juice" makes the sauce taste fresher and less bitter. BTW this is a lot of sauce. Probably enough for two loaves.
I often add diced spinach to the sauce which can make the sauce a little bitter even with the baby spinach. I don't mind the bitter sauce. I have found spring mix works well without making the sauce bitter. But stay away from kale. Far away.
Spices. I don't like most of the Italian or Pizza spice mixes. They are not balanced right. They are always short on thyme and often omit the nutmeg. Yes don't forget the nutmeg. Just a dash. You shouldn't be able to taste in the sauce unless you are trained. Other spices include garlic, basil, and oregano in order of importance. And NO black pepper. Why you would want that in your pizza sauce is beyond me. The exact balance of spices depends on your personal tastes. If you are really into that tomato flavor, you may even consider replacing diced tomatoes with stewed tomatoes that have been cut to a size of your preference. I warn you though, one inch thick slabs of stewed tomatoes are a bad idea. IF you do go big on the tomatoes consider adding extra basil too. On the other side of the spectrum you may consider petite diced tomatoes and extra garlic.
The spices do not have to be premixed into the sauce at all. I will usually cut slivers of a young white or yellow onion (not from the heart of the onion) and mix them into the sauce as well as the garlic. I am extra sensitive to garlic but still love the flavor so I can't tolerate a bite of pizza with extra garlic. As for the rest of it though ... a bite with heavy basil or oregano is a treat. It makes the pizza less monotonous. I like to sprinkle the basil, oregano, and thyme on top of the sauce.
Cheese: I am not that picky about my cheese. But never get the finely grated cheeses as they end up melting differently. I usually get pre-grated low moisture mozzarella. A mix with some provolone maybe a little romano or mild cheddar is also good. A minimum amount of cheese is one 8oz package of grated mozzarella per loaf of bread. You may find that this is too little for your tastes. Adding another 2oz of mild cheddar to the mix generally fills it out nicely. Putting a total of 12oz of cheese on is getting fairly generous ... but 16 oz is probably over the line even for an afficionado. I don't usually save cheese to put on top of the other toppings. Unless it is a little medium cheddar to crisp on top of a pizza with few toppings.
Toppings: Everybody has their favorite toppings. I will just comment on three toppings: pepperoni, sausage, and pepperocini.
Most packages of pepperoni are just too thin or greasy or both. The small round ones are usually thicker and drier and better for pizza. Outside of that you may consider getting expensive pepperoni, but at least stick to the main brands.
Sausage is usually really "breakfast sausage". This is in no way appropriate for pizza. Most stores that package "italian style" sausage really just cut some spices into their breakfast sausage. This is a mistake. If you want sausage get one that was made for pizza. You may consider a link sausage like Linguica. That is perhaps the most overlooked pizza meat. If more pizzerias made it a standard meat it would not take long before it was more popular than pepperoni.
Pepperocini. My favorite brand is Mezzetta, but lots of brands are pretty good. Do not buy pre-sliced pepperocini. They have to be left to pickle intact and you have to cut the stems off after the fact. The flavor difference far more significant than which brand you buy. If I get them at a pizzeria I always ask if they were pre-sliced; if they were I will not get them.
I have convinced several people to try a two topping pizza with nothing but pepperocinis and linguica. They are usually quite impressed and about one in five of them decide it is their new favorite.
But don't be shy to experiment with your pizza. The whole pizza does not have to have a new brand of olives or an unusual topping like pistachios (which are great but may require some other adjustments for you to really appreciate them). You can make a little test corner. You can also get the dinner party involved and let them top their own section with whatever they like. Just be aware that a lot of toppings have a lot of water and too many can drown your pizza.
Bake: The bake time kind of depends on the toppings. More water from extra vegetables or thick layers of cheese requires more time at a lower temperature. Grated cheese has lots of air which makes it a decent insulator (a big part of why you don't want finely grated cheese). Adding a blanket of pepperoni and mushrooms on top only adds to this problem. You have to get the cheese to 150F to properly melt through. And you have to get the sauce to 120F or hotter especially if there were raw onions that you need to cook. On a pre-baked loaf of bread you don't have to worry about dough temperature, but if you had fresh dough you would need to get the top layer of dough to 140F or so and you have to do it before the sauce absorbs in. This is why most pizzerias don't do thick toppings, thick sauce, or thick crust ... or at least don't do it well.
I really don't know the exact temperatures for all the ingredients, but I do know cook times in my conventional oven at high altitude. A standard loaf with about 10 oz of mozzarella, some pepperoni, and extra thick sauce takes about 13 min at 350F followed by another 3min at
425F. Adding bell pepper, 2oz of extra cheese, and mushrooms means about 17min at 350F and 3min at 450F. The last hot part is to brown the cheese after it is melted as well as steam off any residual juices. A vegetarian deluxe pizza might take 20min at 325 and 5min at 425. I never go above 450F or below 325F no matter how thick the toppings.
That said, remember the bread is bre-baked. Putting the pizza on a stoneware pan will help keep the crust from cooking as much. If you have a convection oven, this won't make much difference.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
God's Injustice
Last Sunday in church we were talking about Job, and although the class did not get into the topic of justice, my mind did. Job is a great story for understanding justice and injustice.
We sometimes want to think that justice means equal outcome for equal effort and talent. We see from Job that this is not the case. God does not guarantee good things to good people. In fact, He says "...that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." Ecc. 9:11
Sometimes, people get lost in the idea that a person 'will not be tempted beyond that which they are able' to resist. This leads them to think that really bad things only happen to the strongest individuals. But here again, this does not appear to be the case. Sometimes, people break.
What are we left with then for God's judgement and justice? Is it just reward in heaven and recompense in the hereafter? In some ways, it is not even that.
The parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt 20: 1-16) appears to have been composed to illustrate that the reward for following God's commandments does not correlate with the effort in following them and further to express that this is just by definition. However, I think that by societies' standards, if the issue with the laborers were taken to a court of modern law the judge would side with the all-day laborers.
Further, it appears that opportunities in this life are not equal. A person whose family comes to God is surely blessed with more exposure to the gospel than a person related solely to atheists ... by no fault of their own.
Even further, if we allow the definition of salvation to mean eternal increase, we are given no guarantee that the rate of increase will in any way correlate to our talents and sacrifices.
Such is the injustice of God. However, I don't want to be misread as criticizing the Almighty. I am trying to point out the twisted views of justice that we have developed. The truth is that God blesses everybody beyond what we deserve. If it is not the same as the next guy or not quite the blessings we wanted ... tough. We miss the point when we worry about justice. What we really need to focus on is mercy and charity.
We sometimes want to think that justice means equal outcome for equal effort and talent. We see from Job that this is not the case. God does not guarantee good things to good people. In fact, He says "...that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." Ecc. 9:11
Sometimes, people get lost in the idea that a person 'will not be tempted beyond that which they are able' to resist. This leads them to think that really bad things only happen to the strongest individuals. But here again, this does not appear to be the case. Sometimes, people break.
What are we left with then for God's judgement and justice? Is it just reward in heaven and recompense in the hereafter? In some ways, it is not even that.
The parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt 20: 1-16) appears to have been composed to illustrate that the reward for following God's commandments does not correlate with the effort in following them and further to express that this is just by definition. However, I think that by societies' standards, if the issue with the laborers were taken to a court of modern law the judge would side with the all-day laborers.
Further, it appears that opportunities in this life are not equal. A person whose family comes to God is surely blessed with more exposure to the gospel than a person related solely to atheists ... by no fault of their own.
Even further, if we allow the definition of salvation to mean eternal increase, we are given no guarantee that the rate of increase will in any way correlate to our talents and sacrifices.
Such is the injustice of God. However, I don't want to be misread as criticizing the Almighty. I am trying to point out the twisted views of justice that we have developed. The truth is that God blesses everybody beyond what we deserve. If it is not the same as the next guy or not quite the blessings we wanted ... tough. We miss the point when we worry about justice. What we really need to focus on is mercy and charity.
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