Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

"When will the pandemic end?" I'm sure billions of people have asked over the past 22 months. Medical science has a technical answer for this, relating to the Basic Reproduction Number, abbreviated R₀ (R-naught), a measure of a virus's contagiousness. By that standard we're not to the "after" phase yet— particularly because Omicron seems to have a higher R₀ than previous strains. 

Recently I read an alternate definition of pandemic/post-pandemic based on a sociopolitical gauge. By that standard, the pandemic is over when we stop focusing on interdiction and instead shift to adaptation. I.e., we stop trying to stop the spread of the virus and instead focus on how to learn to live with it picking us off. But that is not a "Back to Normal" scenario; it's a New Normal. It is a scenario where the pandemic becomes an endemic. 😨

By that social definition we're already post-pandemic. We're into the endemic. 😱

What's the evidence for this? First, half the country, political, has been post-pandemic for at least a year already. That half is done with closures and limitations on indoors restaurants, clubs, gyms, concerts, etc.; done with masking requirements (indeed several states have made it illegal to require masks anywhere); done even with social distancing. And approximately 30% of the country say they will never, ever get the Coronavirus vaccination.

Sadly it's not just the reality-denying wing of the US that's basically given up on trying to stop the pandemic and focused instead of learning to live— or tolerated acceptable losses— with it. It's our Democratic leadership, too. President Biden's speech on the pandemic 10 days ago was all weaksauce stuff. He promised to get us more tests— which haven't arrived! Everyone I've spoken to about Coronavirus is scrambling to find one! And he sent the military in to bolster hospitals that are becoming short-staffed due to insufficient resources and burnout.

Days later the CDC announced a new, shorter recommending quarantine period for people infected. The reduction was not because medical science says less time is needed but because the government recognized virtually nobody was quarantining anyway and hopes a shorter time will get more people to comply.

Crucially, these are not measures to stop the virus; they are only measures for us to figure out how to live with it— and to accept 1,000+ US deaths per day (note: that's 9/11 THREE TIMES A WEEK!!!) from it.

The fun thing about hiking along the craggy ocean bluffs on California's Central Coast is that every bend you round, nay even every 50' in a straight line you walk, a new perspective comes into view and it's beautiful. That's why this "Whale Peak Loop" trail we were hiking Saturday (see part 1 blog) starts out being about anything but Whale Peak itself. Oh, we'll get there eventually. It's just there's so much beauty down at the coast to spend time walking in.



Part of what makes these scenes beautiful is the brilliant red and green ground cover. It's also a bit surprising. I don't remember seeing so many plants growing on these bluffs on past trips. Without it you'd see a lot more bare rock. Craggy, bare rock is beautiful in its own way, too. I know I like it. Its beauty is subtle, though, and hard to capture with photographs.

So, yay for plants, right? Better pictures and better for the environment, right? Uh, not so much.



The plant that's growing all over the cliffs in this area is named ice plant, Latin name carpobrotus edulis. It's a succulent that grows thick, triangular leaves. You can see them in the enlargement pic above. (It's a crop at 100% from the original of the pic I shared above it. It's from near the edge of the frame with a super-wide angle lens so image quality is not the best.) 

Ice plant's red and green leaves create striking colors. And it makes flowers, too. It wasn't flowering during this visit, though on previous visits to California's Central Coast we've seen it flowering in brilliant yellow, pink, and magenta.

So what's not to like? Well, ice plant is a nonnative species from South Africa. It was planted in California starting about 100 years ago to help control erosion along rail and road embankments. It did that job well and it really thrives in the Central Coast environment. And that's where the problem lies. It thrives so much it has choked out many other species of plants.

One plant or another, what's the difference? you might ask. Well, some of those plants are needed by native animal species for food or nests. By killing off those plants, ice plant is causing these animals to die off. Ice plant also spreads easily over cliffs and dunes. The bare rock and sand are important habitat for other animals. With loss of habitat they're dying off, too. Various state and local groups are working to remove areas of ice plant and seeing rapid return of native plants and animals. Sometimes it's Kill a plant, save an animal.

Keep reading! Hiking Whale Peak Loop, part 3

A few weeks ago Hawk and I baked challah, a Jewish style of bread, at home. As I noted in that entry, the result looked good but tasted meh. It had a crumbly, un-bread-like texture. What's that old saying? "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" You can bet we tried again.

Ding, ding, round two!

This time around we did a few things differently. I picked a recipe from a Betty Crocker cookbook instead of Hawk's recipe from her mom. Hawk sneered at the notion that a mainstream cookbook recipe could make a good Jewish challah, but as I compared the two recipes (and several others) I noted that they were similar. The all have the same basic ingredients, unsurprisingly, in close to the same proportions. The main difference was this recipe wasn't huge!



Hawk's mom cooks like she learned to cook to feed a squad of US Army soldiers (funny but true story!) and never scaled down her recipes. Her bread recipe makes three large loaves. This time around I'd make just one.

Making just one loaf was a good choice not just because, well, we can't eat 3 loaves, but also because a single-loaf ball of dough is easier to knead. My mainstream cookbook offered the helpful advice that when a bread turns out with a crumbly texture, like the previous batch had, the most likely problem is too little kneading.

Despite the dough ball starting out small it grew to be pretty large after rising for 2 hours:



The dough is big and puffy after rising. Most of the apparent volume is air. It's released by chemical action of the yeast and is trapped by the protein chains in the flour— chains that are created through kneading. The amount of air trapped this time indicated to me that we'd formed better protein chains than before. Yay, science!

The next step is "punching down" the dough, as most recipes call it. This brings it back to something closer to its original size. It'll rise more later.



After punching down the dough I divided it into thirds, rolled each third out into cords, and braided them together for the familiar shape of challah.

A bit of technique I refined this time was to brush the egg baste thoroughly on the raw bread, making sure to cover down the sides as well as in all the nooks between the braids. This gives the bread a nice, golden brown color when baked.



So, how did take 2 turn out? Well, the crust on this loaf has a pleasing color. It was just a tad too tough, though. I may try baking it a few minutes less time next time. Or I may cover the bread with a loose foil wrap during the last 10 minutes of baking; that's a suggestion the Betty Crocker cookbook makes for keeping crust softer.

What about the texture, the main issue with batch #1?



The texture is much improved. This challah has more of the stretchy, "pull apart" texture one expects from yeast bread. It's not yet great, though. I would rate it merely okay. I believe kneading the dough better this time is part of what improved it over take 1. (I believe there were other factors, too.) Next time I will knead it even more.

Finally there's the matter of flavor. It was bit bland. Hawk thinks it needs a lot more sweetness. A few squirts of honey, perhaps? We'll try that next time.

In my previous entry I wrote about baking fresh challah. When done well it's dense, soft, and lightly sweet. Eating good, fresh challah is a delightful experience. That's why in Jewish tradition it's served as part of celebrations: on the sabbath and on many holy days. How did ours turn out? It's time to taste it and see!



In a word, Meh.

Wait, WHAT??!?!

Understand, I'm often my own worst critic. I have high standards for how I'd like things to turn out. When the result I get is less than the one I want, it's important I a) acknowledge the shortcoming and b) identify how to do better the next time.

I really wanted this challah to turn out deliciously. I wanted it to be as enjoyable as the challah my mother-in-law (MIL) bakes and some of the people at her temple bake for sabbath luncheons I've joined them at. It fell short of that mark. Oh, it was still better that some home-made challah I've had elsewhere and even better than some store-bought challah I've had. It just wasn't great.

Specifically? The texture was off. The bread had a crumbly texture, not a stretchy, sort of taffy-like consistency good, fresh bread has when you pull it apart. From reading I've done about yeast breads, a common reason for this is not kneading the dough enough. Kneading is important to create bindings among the gluten proteins in the flour. These bindings give it that stretchy consistency, both in the raw dough and in the baked bread. (Yup, there's science in cooking!)

There are also a few minor technique bits I flagged mentally as we prepared this recipe. I have very little experience baking bread— okay, this was my first time ever— but in reading a dozen recipes for baking yeast breads I noticed certain commonalities that MIL's recipe diverged from. I wonder if MIL, who's a skilled cook, has a few oddities in her recipes that are adjustments for idiosyncrasies... things like the behavior of particular brand of yeast she buys, compensation for an inaccurate thermometer in her oven, etc.

At the same as I'm hard on myself because I always am, I've got to give both of us credit for making a relatively decent batch of challah. This is Hawk's first batch in about 30 years and my first bread ever. That's right, I've never actually baked a yeast bread from scratch before! I've made cakes many times; I've made quick breads like banana loaf. I've bought pre-made pizza dough and baked it. But never this. I'm sure over the next few tries we'll get better... and then maybe we'll make bread that compares to baking from my MIL and the ladies at her temple, all of whom have decades of experience!