Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum, et tertium non datur. To err is human; to persevere in error is diabolical; there is no third option. Bit of a tough love phrase, that one. Most of us know this as the later paraphrase of Alexander Pope: to err is humane, to forgive
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mark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Infinite Scrolling
And neither have any form of navigation! Alltop loves a good scroll.
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Archiving past posts
I spent a busy weekend copying posts from my previous blog (hundreds of posts, currently archived on another server awaiting my resolution) onto my hard drive. I plan to resurrect some of these posts – maybe with a bit of updating or editing – in a WordPress archive site here
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: What, no raisin bread?
I have a large – and growing – stack of books about bread. So many that I’m running out of shelf space for them all. Some are for artisan bread, some for regular homemade bread (traditional recipes, usually with lots of kneading), others are for bread machines. A couple are generic
Continue readingChristy's Houseful of Chaos politics » Christy's Houseful of Chaos: I Came From the Water – a children’s book about Haiti.
I always like to share what I’m reading with the kids, so after reading The Big Truck That Went By, I borrowed from the library I Came From the Water by Vanita Oelschlager. I Came From the Water uses very simple language and few sentences per page to describe a
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: A Tale of Two Loaves
An interesting experiment this week: using the same basic set of ingredients to make bread, but one made by hand, the other in the bread machine, both made the same day. I’ve been curious about this ever since I got the machine. Would the two methods create similar breads if
Continue readingChristy's Houseful of Chaos politics » Christy's Houseful of Chaos: Haiti – Thoughts about The Big Truck That Went By by Jonathan Katz
Sometimes it seems the problems of the world are too ingrained, too built into the structure of how things have been, so one of the things that stands out for me in the book The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Collingwood: 2114
I had one of those odd dreams recently; a crazy mix of future and past, where rotary dial phones and smart phones co-existed, where past and future intersected. A retro-future dream. I was in Collingwood, an odd Collingwood, but it was still my home town: recognizable,familiar, but also changed. Modernized
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Looking back on 2103
It’s been quite a year, both personally and politically. The best of times, the worst of times, to paraphrase Dickens. Looking back on 2103, it was a busy, eventful, successful, and yet often challenging year. I accomplished many things on different levels – personal and professional – and, I believe, overcame
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The last loaves of 2013
As my stock of bread dwindles, I’m contemplating what breads to bake this weekend, as well as what I may want to try before the New Year. I’m also pondering my baking successes and failures these past few months. Mostly successes, although a few have been “qualified” successes – edible
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Dictionaries: Concise, Compact, and dacoit
Dacoit: noun; one of a class of criminals in India and Burma who rob and murder in roving gangs. A member of a band of armed robbers in India or Burma. A bandit. Origin: Hindi and Urdu. I love dictionaries. I like opening them up to a random page and
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Salt and bread making
Salt is one of the four essential ingredients in making bread, along with flour, yeast and water. Nothing more is needed, although often a lot more is added. Salt is listed in all the recipes. Only one bread I’ve ever read about is salt-free (a Tuscan specialty mentioned in William Alexander’s
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY
The Dark Side of Christian History The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe: Morningstar and Lark, Orlando Florida, 1999 ISBN 0-9644873-4-9 This is the sort of book that I had to force myself through. It was not so much the purported subject matter but rather the author’s not-so-well-hidden
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY
The Dark Side of Christian HistoryThe Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe: Morningstar and Lark, Orlando Florida, 1999 ISBN 0-9644873-4-9 This is the sort of book that I had to force myself through. It was not so muc…
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY
The Dark Side of Christian History The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe: Morningstar and Lark, Orlando Florida, 1999 ISBN 0-9644873-4-9 This is the sort of book that I had to force myself through. It was not so much the purported subject matter but rather the author’s not-so-well-hidden
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Weird World of Plotto
I came across Plotto a few years back – references to it in other works, rather than the actual book. it sounded strange, complex and wildly over-reaching. I couldn’t find one – it was long out of print. It wasn’t until I got my own copy that I realized how
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: What am I doing wrong?
I began a levain last week (Nov 19) and it seemed to go well at first, but then it just seemed to have stopped… or slowed to a crawl. Was is dead? Or just dormant? Did I have a welcome guest growing in the bowl or was it a wet
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Doing it by the numbers
The first thing I learned – well, not the first but up there, for sure – is that volume measurements are for amateurs. Being an amateur (and expecting to be there for some time yet), I took it on the chin when asking typical neophyte questions about recipes and ingredients.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: New studies show babies have basically decent impulses and are strongly driven by moral imperatives
More research shows once again that compassion, empathy and mutual aid, and an instinct toward cooperation, are innate in human beings, confirming what the great Russian biologist and anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin had already amply demonstrated over a hundred years ago, in his monumental work, Mutual Aid. My but our
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: These Poolish Things…
Poolish. Levain. Banneton. Biga. Autolyse. Retardation. Lactobaccilli. Bassinage. Windowpane test. Crumb. Batard. Barm. A new vocabulary is building in me, one that brings the lore of breadmaking, the etymology of the loaf to my conversation.* It’s a necessary vocabulary, if one wants to fully understand the techniques and technology of baking bread. Knowing
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