Homemade flour tortillas

OK so. Tortillas. I mentioned them last time, here’s the deal. Homemade tortillas are a gift from the universe unto your palate. You need them. Here’s the recipe I used about 2 hours ago, with notes. It’s based on one from the King Arthur Flour website.

• 350g plain flour plus a lot more for dusting
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 tsp table salt (don’t use kosher or coarse here)
• 200ml water at 42-49 degrees C
• 50ml vegetable oil (or a solid fat like butter, shortening, or lard)

Mix the dry ingredients together. You could whisk or sift them but it’s not really worth the effort. Just make sure it’s mixed well.

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Things I miss from Texas

OK So it’s been a while since my last post. That’s the way it is.
A month ago (give or take), we moved to an island off the North coast of Scotland. Long story. This is a list of the things I miss from Texas that I can’t buy here. At least in an acceptable form.

• Tortillas The markets have Old El Paso brand, which isn’t horrible, but they’re not as good as handmade. And corn tortillas? Nowhere to be seen. I can easily make flour tortillas in my kitchen though. Takes about an hour start to finish, and half of that is letting the dough rest.
• Breakfast tacos See “Tortillas.” Also easy enough to recreate from scratch, although the bacon here tastes (and cooks) differently.
• Whataburger It wasn’t a regular thing for me even when I did live in Austin, but now that I can’t have it, there are some serious cravings happening.
• Big ol’ greasy American-style pizza There are amazing pizzas here if you know where to look (Eviedale Bistro in particular) but they’re very much the fashionable style of pie: fairly thin crust, very delicious but sparse toppings, designed to be eaten with a fork. I haven’t been able to find Domino’s or Pizza Hut-style pizza, with a medium-thick crust (or deep dish, my personal favorite), far too much cheese, and greasy pepperoni that curls into delicious grease cups when it’s baked. I can probably do this in my kitchen as well, but I don’t know the oven well enough yet.

I’m sure the list will grow over time. For now I’m going back to getting used to “no central heat” and “right-hand drive car.”

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Introduction

Uh, I’m not sure what to say. If you’re not reading this in ~October of 2024 then there may not be a whole lot of context. But suffice it to say that I feel the actions of Matt Mullenweg have irrevocably tainted the Wordpress brand in my eye, so I’ve moved to a different CMS.

Enjoy, I guess. I have nothing more to say at this time.

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Happy birthday, Mom.

I think today is the first time in a while I’ve actually been able to sit back and breathe at work. Not the usual screwing off at work that I usually do, but actually relax. It’s weird. Let’s run through the last 10 days or so.

Thursday 1/28: DDOS attack from 4p to 9p. Friday 1/29: DDOS attack from 4p to 9p Saturday 1/30: DDOS attack from 11a to 1130a (I missed seeing Star Wars 7 because of this), another DDOS attack from 6p to 9p Sunday 1/31: Nothing of note happened. Monday 2/1: DDOS attack from 5p to 9p. Advanced DDOS mitigation turned on this night. Tuesday 2/2: DDOS attack from 4:30p to 9p. DDOS mitigation needed some help because our old filters weren’t transferred. Wednesday 2/3: DDOS attack from 5p to 9p. DDOS mitigation helped. Thursday 2/4: DDOS attack from about 6 to 7p. DDOS mitigation helped a lot Friday 2/5: DDOS attacks were mitigated. My phone didn’t ring once. Saturday 2/6: Power outage at San Marcos office from 2am to 10am. Had to fix things once the power was restored. Huge fight with Heather. Dinner with 16 other people for Mindy’s birthday (at The Melting Pot). Sunday 2/7: I think this was relaxing? I don’t remember doing much of anything except play with the new Linux installation on my home workstation. Took over an hour to get Steam working. Monday 2/8: I thought my phone rang at 6:40 to report another attack, but it was actually just a powered-down switch in the San Marcos office. I couldn’t fix it, problem was resolved by local personnel.

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I learned to knit a few years ago. This isn’t much of a surprise; I like making things with my hands, and wool is cheaper than plywood. However, as a beginner, I made several mistakes that I’m sure “veteran knitters” already know about. If I’d had a page of advice, like what I’m about to list but moreso, it would’ve helped a lot. Anyway:

• The yarn really will stay on the needles. Even if you’re using double-pointed needles. You don’t need to keep pulling on it to keep it tight.
• Don’t knit so darn tight.
• Don’t knit at the points of the needles, knit at the barrels. If you knit with only the points, your stitches will be too tight.
• Gauge really is important, even though it’s a pain in the neck.
• If you live in Texas, don’t start with a scarf. There’s like maybe 6 weeks in the year when you’ll wear a scarf in Texas. Make a coffee sleeve or something.
• No, really, the yarn will stay on the needles all on its own. Even if you’re using cheap aluminum needles and you’re knitting with really slick acrylic yarn. Friction will keep the needles from dropping out.
• Blocking works. If you think something is too small or doesn’t fit quite right, block it into shape before you give up and rip it all back.
• Seek out good videos (on youtube or similar) that show you “POV” angles of what you’re trying to learn. I liked knittinghelp.com when I started, and recommend it to you.
• If you’re using double-pointed needles, the first couple of rows will feel like all you’re doing is making a giant bird’s nest. Don’t worry. Unless the pattern you’re using is to make a bird’s nest, chances are that after 3 or 4 rows it’ll even out and get significantly easier.
• If you use a long-tail cast-on, chances are you made your tail too long. I always do. Either trim the tail back to 4-5 inches after you finish your first couple of rounds, or (if the stitch pattern allows) knit with two strands (the tail and the working end) at the same time until it’s effectively woven in.
• The staff at your local yarn shop can be AMAZINGLY helpful. Talk to them if you run into a problem.

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It’s been a while, blog. Good to see you’re still (mostly) working just fine. Here, have a post!

I dumped out my pockets, took a picture of the (carefully-arranged) contents, and here’s a breakdown of what it all is!

This is what’s in my pockets right now (well, this plus my trusty Nexus 4, with which I took the photo, and a white men’s handkerchief). From left to right (ish):

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Apologies in advance for anyone who still follows my RSS feed. Posterous is shutting down, so I’m uploading my archive from there to here, so as to not lose anything that I’d shared over there. I *think* it’ll preserve post dates, and there won’t be a glut of posts all showing today’s date…

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300. Not as high as I thought but still too high. Let’s see if we can’t make that number smaller.

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Heather’s laptop started freaking out a few hours ago, with the trackpad ceasing to function about 0.5 seconds after logging in (it worked just fine on the Win7 login screen, and worked on initial desktop population, but stopped moments later). She couldn’t immediately fix it, so I figured it was a usermode driver problem, and was harboring visions of rooting through the registry or doing a system restore (not the “Wipe everything and reinstall” kind, the “Windows keeps backups of your registry for when you do something stupid” kind). Not fun. But I’m stretching pizza dough, so it’s not like I can work on it immediately.

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Let’s see if it looks as good as it should, out of the box.

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