r ranson

My friend thinks their refillable oil bottle is the bees knees and fits very well with their kitchen style.

For air fryer, I put the veg in a bowl and massage a drizel of oil into them.  Usually I add spices. It seems to stay greased ths whole cooking time.

Waffle iron i don't use often.  But a butter wrapper rubbed on a warm grill works well.  It's a thing my grandmother picked up in The Depression, to keep old butter or margarine wrappers in the fridge for use to grease pans and the like.  I just sort of inherited the habit as I hate to toss food and these can be used two or three times before tossing.

A brush or paper towel diped in oil and quickly applied also work, but it's hot so fingers can hurt.

Another friend runs the block of butter directly on the hot griddle between waffles.  Tastes amazing, if a bit too much like burnt butter.

I don't know how to use cooking spray.  What situations does one use it and maybe I can share the style we use.

Although one friend has a refillable oil spray gadget.  Put the oil in and pump the lid up and down a few times to create pressure, then press the nozzle when you want to spray it.  But I don't know why.

the whole 8 cups of water started in the late 1800s, early 1910s with a few studies of what an active soldier needs to survive when working in desert conditions.  8 cups (smaller than what we use for a 1-cup measure, which is considerably smaller than the "glass" measurement we use to measure water today) was the minimum.  This can be obtained through food as well as through drinking.

Active working soldier.  That's a good 12 hours a day of doing physical stuff, outside, in exposed conditions, in that day and age.  

It wasn't until about 100 years later that people started studying this again with mixed results.  The focus was no longer on surviving in extreme conditions but "healthy".  The measurement of "healthy" determines the conclusion of the study.  

Generally, a traditional diet, with minimal salt, and all other nutrition balanced, no processed foods, very little water is needed even if moderately active.  A modern diet, yep, at least two liters of water seems to be required to prevent dehydration for a sedentary lifestyle.  

To put it another way

Most of human history, drinking water was a good way to die before reaching breeding age.  Most of human history we would drink "dehydrating" drinks like wine, beer, sake, broth, etc.  Fermented or salted liquids and get the rest of our moisture through the food we ate.  It didn't kill off the species (not as fast as "fresh" water did in some places).  So the modern "8 glasses a day" really goes well with "modern diet and lifestyle" and isn't a universal truth.  

If I apply mulch, the plants drown and rot.  Some well established herbs can survive coarse woodchips, but won't thrive.

Likewise summer mulch only works for me where there is regular and intense irrigation.   Otherwise it keepsmthe water out as it is usually bone dry by the 8 to 10 weeks of drought (drought here lasts 5 to 8 months each summer).

I learned this by applying mulch to half my garden over seceral years and observing how the mulch side did and how the unmulched side did.  As we don't water most of our garden plants, they collect a lot of moisture from dew and the mulch prevents it from getting to the roots and the winter rains from draining during the cold wet season we call winter.

So glad they won't be culled.

hepatitis sucks.  We haven't had this yet in our flock, so I'm not sure what to do for it.

Bump

I found a Nigella recipe for carrot cake cupcakes.  It looks delicious.

But it reveals a flaw in my plan.  With carrot cake, there is no won't power.  If I make a full cake, I will probably eat the whole thing in under 4 hours and be sad there is no cake left for tomorrow.

But cupcakes have portion control.

And if I freeze some...can carrot cake freeze well?

I had an ah ha moment this morning.  

Trying to fix some foliage, making it darker in patches, I accidentally fell into my watercolour style of working with pigments and brush stokes.  

Glazing is all about making the painting darker, as is modern watercolour style.  So it makes sense.

Say, I'm darkening a shadow under a leaf to make it stand out better.  I put my red/green mix along the edge of the leaf bottom.  Lightly wipe my brush and grab a bit of stand oil mixed with the lighter colour of the body of the surface under the leaf (usually another leaf), but not too much paint/oil.  Like I wouldn't want to grab too much water on the brush if watercolour.  Return to the painting and "pull" the shadow colour I put down before so it blends with the dry paint layer.  

Ahhh, it makes sense when I think of watercolour techniques, but when I try to put it in oil painting words, something breaks.

But it works.  I feel like I might actually be close to understanding Glazing.


Key point, must be transparent colours. Actually transparent.  For this I used hansa light, quin rose, and some earth green or green earth.  It's transparent,  almost floculating green.  To darken the greens, more paint or more red.  To lighten, more oil /  less paint, or more yellow, or both.  Note, not all hansas are transparent so test fist.

Doesn't work as well with thinner oil like regular walnut or linseed.  Needs some stand oil mixed in there.  Haven't tried with stand alone as I keep a small jar of 1:1 stand:linsed (or walnut or both) oil.  

And yes, it probably doesn't make sense but it's mostly a note to myself so I can do an example later if people want.

Someone gave me a free slice of carrot cake yesterday.  I'm devouring the rest of it right now.  It is so freaken good!

In my mind, carrot cake is the world's greatest cake.  It's got the yummy icing that isn't too sweet.  The bestest of all the vegetables to dampen any guilt of eating cake.  Sometimes raisins or chocolate chips.  When it's right, it's heaven!

But a good carrot cake is hard to find.  Either there is too much icing, or not enough. The cake is either too bready or too sweet.  

Maybe it's time to try making my own?  

Anyone got a favourite recipe for carrot cake?

For years I used the Canon PowerShot line.  Some of them are very simple with buttons.  Some are more complex, like a SLR, but without the changeable lens.  Some have wifi or Bluetooth.  Most of the older and cheaper ones don't.

All seem to use SD cards or can plug in directly to a computer. Just click and drag the pictures to the computer. Unlike other brands that need special cards or software.