New MacBook Air Announced

This week Apple announced its new MacBook Air. Link: Apple press release. I've been waiting for this because I love my Air but it's 6.5 years old. That's an eternity in computing!

I looked at replacing my Air in November 2020 when the M1 processor model came out but decided there were too many things I thought were the opposite of improvements in that model. I considered it again earlier this year as I'm constantly space-crunched on SSD storage for my digital photos. But still it wasn't right. In particular, I hate the loss of an SD card slot. That really simplifies my workflow for digital photography! So I waited for the next model in hope it would come back.

Now the new Air is here. Let's take a look!



The headline feature is that the new MacBook Air sports the new M2 processor. The case it comes in is slightly redesigned. The wedge shape gives way to more traditional box shape, though overall the max thickness is said to be thinner, and the weight remains svelte at 2.7 pounds. And it's available now in four colors. Rumors that Apple would offer half a dozen bright colors á lá the classic iMac didn't pan out. But in addition to silver, dark gray, and gold, there's now dark blue.

But what about that SD card slot? I was hopeful it'd be in the new M2 Air after it reappeared last year in the M1 Pro MacBook. Alas, no. Though the new Air does add one slot, a dedicated charging port in addition to two USB-C ports. Having to run power through the limited USB-C ports was a pain that made it necessary to use clunky, failure prone adapters for even relatively simple setups. Separating out the power makes things way easier, and it's a MagSafe adapter, too.

What about the new M2 MacBook Pro, then? Well, the new one— the 13" model— does not have an SD slot, either! It's the 14" model that has it. Sure, I could go with a 14" Pro... though with a comparable configuration of RAM and SSD, but with the slower(?) M1 Pro CPU, it costs $300 more than the Air.  And it's larger and heavier. I'm not going to pay that kind of a premium to avoid dragging around a dongle for my photography workflow.

Making Chicago Deep Dish Pizza at Home - Mostly from Scratch!

I make Chicago-style deep dish pizza at home a lot. The first many times were frozen deep dish pizza. Yeah, I know. But Safeway started carrying Gino's East frozen pizza a few years ago and it's actually pretty good. Still, frozen pizza is never the best. Next I started buying pre-made crusts and adding my own toppings. Those were even better. And that also got me thinking, "What if I make my own deep-dish crust?"

This past weekend I made a deep dish pizza taking another step towards full from-scratch ingredients. I bought a ball of premade pizza dough at the grocery store. Instead of rolling it out into a traditional New York-style pizza like I've done countless times, or making a calzone like I've done a few times recently, I pressed it into a pan and topped it Chicago-style. I.e., cheese on the crust, then 1 meat and 1 veg, then fresh home-made sauce on top.

How'd it turn out? Here's the first 1,000 words:



I kneaded and rolled out the dough into a round... -ish... shape larger than the pan. Then I laid it in the pan, pressing the extra dough up against the sides with my fingers. I brushed oil on the dough, laid on the toppings, and baked it.

One thing about the form factor is that I used a spring-form pan. That wasn't my first choice but it was all we had. It turns out we don't own a traditional round cake pan right now, so I used what we had. It worked perfectly. Releasing the sides from the pan meant I didn't have to try digging the pie out from inside it. I just took the sides off and basically slid it from the pan bottom onto the wooden board to cool, cut, and serve.

So how did it taste? I'll add another thousand words:



Overall this was a success. The pizza had good taste and texture. The cheese was plentiful (I used 8 oz. of freshly shredded mozzarella), the toppings were plentiful, the fresh sauce I made was good.

A few things were not quite right.

— One, the dough isn't Chicago style pizza dough. It's not made with corn starch. So the flavor and texture were slightly off from a Chicago pie.

— Two, the crust was a little overcooked. Oh, it was still good; it just wasn't perfect. I baked the pie for 25 minutes. Next time I'll try 22 or maybe even 20. The challenge with cooking time is I don't know how to test for doneness other than trial and error.

— Three, as you can see in the photo above if you're a connoisseur of Chicago pizza, there's not enough tomato on it. That's on me for choosing to go light as I spread sauce atop the uncooked pie. I was trying to avoid over-sauced pizza, which I hate. As I iterate on doing this I'll fine-tune my technique to get the amount of sauce neither under nor over but just right.