Making Ciabatta

Ciabatta is made with the same dough as for boule, except handled with wet hands instead of flour. It is also placed on flour and flattened to the thickness of 3/4 inch before baking. 

First the dough is mixed, producing a wet dough that conforms to the container.

Two hours' worth of rising. 

Refrigerate for a day, during which time a hint of sourdough flavor will develop, more so for longer times. Then shape and flatten.

After baking in a humid oven at 450 F for 20 minutes or so, the bread is ready. At work these were demolished in about an hour.

Effects of Gibberellic acid on garden plants

Barely a week ago, I decided to make use of my 20 grams of gibberellic acid, and mixed up what hopefully was a 200 ppm solution. GA increases plant internode lengths, and is commonly used to roughly double commercial grape and sugarcane yields.

To test the solution, I sprayed it on one Ichiban Eggplant, one wide pot of five Spicy Globe Basil plants, one Mentha spicata plant, and one sorrel plant. Here are the results, one week in:

It appears that only one or two basil plants have begun to show any signs of increasing height. The plants were growing vigorously as it is.

Here is where the difference is most noticeable, and especially in the picture below. The eggplant has doubled in height and growth in one week, especially in the top half. 

Notice how tall the plant has gotten. It's not necessarily spindly (though it definitely could use fertilizer),  it is simply being stretched, so that normal growth becomes elongated, like taffy.

Most of the top four inches of growth on the stalks of this mint occurred over the week. 

Updates will continue, especially as the eggplant begins to produce on very elongated stems.

How time flies

My, has it really been nearly a month since the last post? Amazing. And so it's another Friday at the office, where we're watching three movies in a row. Last week was Pineapple Express, God Bless America, and Wanderlust. God Bless America was the best, with Pineapple Express ("stoner movie) a middling second. This week it's Men in Tights, some TV show movie, and now Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

About the last one I've realized just now that shorts of Monty Python are hilarious, just not the whole movie consecutively. So now the sound of David Oistrakh playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with Gennady Rozhdestvensky and the USSR State Symphony Orchestra plays in surround sound around me.

This is my Holy Grail - First recipe down, many more to come.

Decameron - Ninth Day - Third Story

Master Simone, at the instance of Bruno and Buffalmacco and Nello, makes Calandrino believe that he is pregnant. Calandrino, accordingly, gives them capons and money for medicines, and is cured without being delivered.