Thankful For Our Daily Bread

I learned to make a sourdough starter and sourdough bread during this shelter-in-home period. I still think every baked loaf is a miracle. I am grateful for the practice and thankful that everything has been edible, even if not always worthy of a social media post. 

Here are some photos of the loaf I baked for Thanksgiving:

Meet Experiment 253 - my starter:

Orange is still one of my favorite colors

Orange is still one of my favorite colors, despite the wildfire smoke that saturated the atmosphere over the West yesterday, lighting the daytime sky with an eery orange glow. I spent my lunch hour walking around the neighborhood and taking photos. Most things seemed to reflect the orange, except household lights, streetlights, and vehicle headlights. This hearse caught some of that white light momentarily from a turning bus. 

Memories of hot & humid weather elsewhere

This current heat wave in the Bay Area, dotted with rolling thunderstorms, reminded me of a past trip to San Antonio. Twelve years ago, Eric and I were there in the middle of summer, the week before the 4th of July. Eric was at a conference and I explored the city on my own. I explored the McNay Art Museum and the San Antonio Botanical Garden alone but Eric and I eventually got a chance to take a boat cruise and stroll around the Riverwalk. It did rain a few times while we were there. The weather was hot and humid - but perfect for leisurely walks with a wide-brimmed hat on and a fruit slushy in hand for little moments of sweet brain freeze.

 

This post is also an excuse to share another "Where my Flickr Photos are Being Used on the Internet" photo. It is of my fourth most-viewed Flickr photo of Riverwalk, by the Casa Rio Restaurant. The tour boat in the foreground, ready to take the right turn, was waiting for the other boat to pass from under the bridge. This appeared in a 2016 post from a discount / deals aggregator website, faredealalert.com: 

From Faredealalert.com's website, July 22, 2016

If we ever have a chance to visit again, I'd like to stay in one of the hotels by the river so I can explore it further. On this trip, we stayed by the Alamo, at the Emily Morgan, which was convenient when we finally visited the Alamo. We weren't prepared for the torrential downpour that greeted us after our visit but we were just a short walk to dry clothes.

An island, in a lake, in a volcano, on an island, in the ocean

Taal and its people on my mind. 

A Family Favorite

From KCET's website, May 11, 2012

My photo of biscuits (baked and photographed in 2010) was featured in KCET's website under the Food and Living Section. It accompanied a recipe for vegan Savory or Sweet Mini-Biscuits. I think it's a little weird to post a recipe with a photo of a finished product that was not made from the recipe being featured. I'm a little curious why they didn't take photos of their biscuits if they did make the recipe. Then again, maybe someone thought my photo might encourage readers to make their biscuits  and maybe my photo offered a good representation of what the final bake could (should?) be like. That doesn't seem so bad... right?

I recently made a batch of biscuits for breakfast, to be the base for some creamy sausage gravy. My favorite biscuit recipe is Alton Brown's Southern Biscuits (not vegan) with a minor alteration. I use all butter instead of half shortening/half butter for the fats, since I don't really have a use for vegetable shortening outside of this recipe and Eric and I think the biscuits turn out just fine.