A few things to consider about Donald Trump

Politics

If you’re considering voting for Donald Trump, consider some of the things he has said. These are all direct quotes with links that show the source.

When asked about abortion.
"There has to be some form of punishment”. For the woman? "yea"
When asked about how to deal with the enemy and enhanced interrogation techniques.
"I would bring back waterboarding, and I would bring back a hell of a lot more worse then waterboarding."
When asked about Mexicans,
"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with them. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Trump was having a dispute with Megyn Kelly from Fox news, Trump said,
"You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her, wherever."
This is one of Trumps tweets,
"Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics-a tough subject-must be discussed."
Regarding John McCain,
"He's not a war hero," "He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured." 

"I never liked him after that, because I don't like losers,"
RE: Voters that support him
"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and I wouldn't lose voters,"
Global warming
“It’s freezing and snowing in New York – we need global warming!”
RE: …
“I have so many fabulous friends who happen to be gay, but I am a traditionalist.”

You hear people talk about the “real Trump” as if to say that the things he says may not actually be his real opinion. However, I believe his statements above reflect his true thoughts or lack there of. There are threads of racism, sexism, and ignorance. I believe he is gaslighting America. He has also openly admired Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein. And has been admired by Kim Jong-un.

Regarding the truth about anything, Trump exhibits a reality distortion field similar to what I’ve read about Steve Jobs.  He will literally say anything if he thinks it will benefit him, it does not matter to him whether it is true or false. It does not have to matter, he has manipulated people his entire life in order to get what he wants, and many have and still suffer because of this. This is really important because he uses  gas-lighting  to manipulate his followers. This is why he can says he can shot people in the middle of Fifth avenue and not loose voters. His followers are gaslit. The reason he says believe me so much is because he has no real plan and someone with no plan would require peoples belief.

This article is a work in progress. I will to continue to refine my thoughts over time.

 

The quest for Canele – Roundup & Troubleshooting

Cooking

I’ve made a lot of batches of Canele and I want to share what I’ve learned along the way with a few troubleshooting tips.

Mixing air into the batter

In many recipes it says to be careful mixing the batter because air will cause them to rise out of the molds. I experimented with this. What I found was that whisking or mixing vigorously for me made no difference! In fact now I mix the batter in a blender which incorporates a ton of air. After a 48 hour rest and several stirs over the period of days causes the air to come out.

What is causing the Canele to rise out of the molds?

In one word, egg whites. They do still rise a bit with only yolks, but I’ve found that every time I’ve used egg whites they have risen out of control. Another change I made was to use granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar. I also stopped sifting my flour. I mix my ingredients in a blender and I rest the batter 48 hours.

I’m thinking, this may not occur as much if baking in copper molds. I’ve read that the first 20 minutes of baking may set the batter and keep it from rising. More testing will be needed.

Update: Recently, I purchased copper molds. So far, they are rising more out of the copper then the silicone.

Why is the Canele sinking in the middle

I think this is caused by too much liquid. Here is an example. canele attempt 4

This is mid bake, you can see how they caved in the middle. To fix this I used less milk. I lowered the amount from 1cup to 7/8 cup.

How to get that really crips and mahogany crust (the molds)

A large part of the flavor and experience of Canele is that dark brown exterior. There are a few types of molds. Copper, Silicone, and Aluminum. I can confirm it’s true what they say. you simply won’t get the deepest darkest crusts unless you use Copper. This is because copper conducts heat the best. You can get a great result however with silicone, it won’t be as dark as with copper, but it can still be awesome. I have gotten a good result from aluminum, better then silicone but as a rule I don’t like cooking in aluminum.

This is about the best I can do with silicone in my electric oven. I’ve seen them darker made with silicone, but I think they were made with a convection oven.

canele color

I have got them darker using silicone, but I think they were a bit burnt an dried out. Image below.

Canele color

I did get them darker once with out burning, I used a dutch oven. I baked them in a Le Creuset braiser with the lid on. Below is the result.

canele in a duch oven

Below is an example of aluminum vs silicone. The one on the left was made using an aluminum mold. The two on the left were in silicone. All baked at the same time.

aluminum silicone

The beeswax and butter mixture

I really wanted to make a video of my technique, but I can tell you less is more. A really thin coating is best. The image below shows the amount of beeswax butter mixture that I use. I gently warm it then brush it into the molds. I brush the bottom first then brush each of the fluted sections with one swipe from the bottom to the top. This would be enough for 12 molds.

beeswaxbutter

Below is an example of too much wax. in the mold. You should have a very thin and very even coating.

too much beeswax

This is the current recipe that I’m using

Here is the recipe I’m using

This post is part of a 7 part series on Canele

iTunes deleted all of my apps when I didn’t authenticate

Technology

cracked-broken-apple-logo_full

Recently I purchased a new Mac laptop. I moved my iTunes data from the old laptop to the new one. The first time I tried to sync my iPhone 6 it said I had to have encrypted backups. I have no idea why. I didn’t have that setting checked. However, that isn’t the main problem. When I first synced it asked me to authenticate with iTunes. When I declined it popped up a few more times and I declined repeatedly. Finally it started to sync. I was watching my phone and I noticed that my app icons started to disappear. At first I thought maybe this was normal, but after a few moments I realized this was a disaster. I pulled the cable out of my phone, but by this time the damage was done. I was left with 23 apps out of a previous 99.

I thought about the options, and decided rather then to sync with my old computer. This would not have brought back the data anyway. I decide to sync again with the new laptop. This time I authenticated. I noticed right away that it put all of my apps back onto my phone, even creating the correct folder structure. Problem was, all the the data in the apps that were deleted was GONE. I spend over 3 hours re-configuring my apps. I lost a lot of data. Including two games I had been playing for over 6 months. Along with all of my progress. I had backed up my phone not too long before with dropbox and other online services. So, extremely critical data was recovered, but not all.

I’m really pissed this happened. My wife kept asking why this would happen. I speculated that because I didn’t authenticate iTunes Apple thought me a pirate and therefore assumed I didn’t have ownership to my own apps. This is my best guess. My wife said she feels she is no longer in control of what happens with her iPhone when syncing.

iTunes didn’t even provide a warning before wiping out my apps. I don’t remember seeing a message that said, if you don’t authenticate, all of the apps from your phone will be deleted. That would have given me a chance and I would have clicked an enthusiastic NO.

I really like my Apple products, but I don’t know how this could happen.

As an aside, I’ve noticed when setting up iPhones and Apple computers more and more is dictating how your data is stored without giving the user a choice. It’s forces iCloud on the user, and it’s not easy to find the settings to turn all of it off. I know Apple wants to integrate services, but it’s doing it with a heavy hand. Unless the user is savvy they will not even know what’s going on. I’m an expert and I still wonder sometimes. I turned off a lot of iCloud services after they were defaulted to on, on my new Macbook.

As far as insisting to encrypt my backups, I’m lost. I have no idea why now it’s doing this. iTunes provides no reason, and no other option to move forward. I like encryption, but on my terms, not Apples.

itunes encrypted backup
Maybe it forces encryption because of health data. The option to uncheck is greyed out.

I would like to see Apple explain what it’s doing and why, and give users the chance to decide for themselves.