Interesting. The Progressive Baker says:
More than adding flavor, salt begins to affect your baked goods from the moment it's added to the dough.
Here are some things you should know about what salt does in your baked goods.
* Salt slows down all the chemical reactions that are happening in the dough, including calming fermentation activity to a steadier level.
* Salt also makes the dough a little stronger and tighter.
* Salt impacts the shelf life of baked goods, but its effects depend on weather conditions. Salt is hydroscopic, which means it absorbs water. Consequently, in humid climates, it will trap moisture from the air, making a crisp crust soggy, and therefore shortening shelf life. In dry climates, however, the salt helps hold water in the bread longer, inhibiting staling, and thus extending the bread's shelf life.
* Salt, of course, adds flavor to baked goods. It also potentiates the flavor of other ingredients, including butter and flour.
Cupcakes cooling, for those still following along. It'll be time to remove them from the pan soon.
Watching Ginepri/Haas still. This is exciting. I envy you again, msbelle.
Reading about systemic polysemy. I was wondering about the following two paragraphs:
As it happens, there are curious conditions on the transfer that takes the names of artists into their individual works (i.e, into count nouns -- it's another rule that takes the names of writers into mass nouns that denote their oeuvres, as in "300 pages of Marx"). We can use the name of a painter or sculptor freely to refer to his or her works -- three Picassos, a new Giacometti -- though we don't ordinarily do this with the names of composers (*We heard four Beethovens). And we can only use the names of directors and authors in this way when they're associated with genre films or genre fiction. It's a lot easier to say There's a Hitchcock playing at the Bijou than There's a Bergman playing at the Bijou. When we speak of "a John Ford" or "a Kurosawa," we're probably thinking of the director's genre movies (Westerns or samurai films as the case may be) rather than his other works. And "a Woody Allen" is much more likely to be, say, Annie Hall than Another Woman.
It's the same with works of fiction. It seems normal to say I love to curl up with an Agatha Christie or a John Grisham, but odd to say the same thing of Doystoyevsky or Italo Calvino (I can imagine saying that of Dickens). And while it's fine to say That's my favorite Neil Simon, you probably wouldn't speak of my favorite O'Neill in that way. With literary or cinematic works, that is, the name-to-count-noun construction presumes that the works by the author are of a generic muchness: one's pretty much the same as the next.
I agree that the President saying he read "three Shakespeares" souunds weird, but if I say I'm going to watch a Kurosawa, I don't care what genre it is. I'm telling you who directed the movie I'm about to sit down to.
Hmm.
Okay, this match needs to end soon. I have to go buy a DVD burner before my coupon expires.
Muesli:
I always put the salt in bread, because I recognise the chemical necessity. In cakes I balk, because the main thing I don't like about many bought cakes tends to be the saltiness (next is the sweetness).
I'm pretty sure that was too long a nap.
Mine certainly was. I am about to walk over to TJ's for a few things and then see if this day is totally shot or not.
Also waking up at the act break of a very distrurbing dream? Messing with my head. A lot.
I want cupcakes now.
Bread without salt in it tastes funny to me -- I know because of some bread machine incidents. But then, just about everything tastes better with salt, to me. (Only exagerating somewhat.)
We have key lime pie! DH went to get snacks for the football game watching and brought home pie. Yum.
I want a TJ's, but I don't think it is happening any time soon.
Pretty much everything needs some salt. Who else puts salt on watermelon? Just me?
Acres of cleavage/boobage. Far too many women wearing corsets/bodices in unflattering ways.
Oh, this reminds me -- I meant to make a catty comment about Lil Kim at the VMAs. Clearly she hasn't lost all the lock-up weight, since I doubt she wore the corset and black pants outfit as part of a new classiness.
Who else puts salt on watermelon? Just me?
In Israel (and I think in a few other Mediterranean countries) they eat watermelon with cheese. (A crumbly cheese sort of like feta.)
I like salt on my watermelon.
I could see feta on watermelon. The salad I had yesterday was just endive, pears, black olives, and feta. It was very yummy.
