Tag: disaster

Days of Fire

Fires are raging to the south of us, in Los Angeles county. I am in the county just north, Ventura. We had fires here that burnt out a lot of the areas with which I am familiar. Several years ago my in-laws were evacuated and showed up on our doorstep at 1:00 a.m. Josh’s brother’s family were evacuated from their canyon and are now back home, but areas around them are devastated and many people they know are homeless, having lost everything. If we didn’t have family here, or Josh wasn’t restricted by work where he can live, we would be long gone as I am so sick of this. It is only going to get worse, IMO.

That said, the local electric company, SCE, turned off our electricity to help prevent downed power lines – if they happen – from sparking and setting off fires. These are called “PSPS” shut-offs – public safety power shut-off or shutdown.

It’s a smart thing to do as down lines in a dry, dry area are often responsible for fires. One of our current fires is apparently the work of an arsonist – beyond my comprehension.

We had no electricity for 2 days, and while it wasn’t especially hard on me as there is a lot I do without the need of electricity except for light, Josh wasn’t able to work or play very much. Sleep from stress is difficult for all of us – the back of the brain and the ear are tuned to hear alarms of all sorts. The electricity was shut off in the middle of the night, and last night turned back on.

This was a bit of a financial loss in terms of food. 2 days without electricity means lost frozen food and fresh. Luckily, food is still in the area – we have 6 grocery stores nearby – and roads and transport are not down or blocked. Hot water continued throughout the 2 days. Gas for cooking and heating water, thankfully, but not for heat as the furnace requires electricity to start up. Here in CA where we are, cold nights exist but are not as if we were in upstate NY without electricity or oil to burn in the dead of a winter’s blizzard.

The winds are expected to pick up again, and I expect fires are going to continue to start or burn unabated. We are going to find a generator so we can have some electricity to keep from losing perishables and have access to phones and such in times of emergency. Meanwhile, all we can do is hunker down, or when in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. Or:

What else can you do? Life is so fragile but in times of safety and comfort, we forget it so easily.

The Wreck of the Madeleine

No, not the Good Ship Madeleine, nor sister to the HMS Pinafore, but the Delicious Cookie Madeleine.

A madeleine is a French cake-like cookie, essentially a genoise, known for its shell-like shape from the pan side and a blump on the reverse. A good recipe is to be had at Preppy Kitchen – it produces a lovely, light, delicate cookie with a subtle hint of lemon. However, a couple of things – bake at 350F, and use a pan which makes smaller madeleines than mine does! I have one pan and I filled the madeleine molds full, like really full, and the batter runnethed over the tops of the molds and the cookies flowethed unto each other.

As you can see, my madeleines are robust and hardly delicate to look at. They are baked blobs of blobs of batter.

And, how to get them out of the pan? Well, I had thought of trimming their edges, but then the brown around the sides would disappear, and that little bit gives a crunch to the otherwise soft, airy cookie. And, if they sit in the pan, they get soggy. So, what to do with a hot pan and a cookie mess? Simple – dump them all out on the wire rack. This way, too, I could see if the cooking spray I used to grease the madeleine shapes would work.

And the spray worked beautifully. Now, I have a pile of weird-looking cookies that don’t look especially appetizing – certainly not as lovely as our very first photo, which is a royalty-free one off the internet. However, be not dismayed! They are delicious! Good dunked in coffee, and most likely tea, and if you are familiar with M. Proust, you know of which I write.

Make yourself some madeleines, at least once in your lifetime. Make a test cookie or two in your pan – don’t overfill, but don’t underfill, either. I used a heaping tablespoon of batter for my pans, and it was too much. Here is the recipe below – refer to the link above, too, to get some good info that is not included here, and below is the recipe from a devilishly good and delicious website:

Madeleine Cookie Recipe

Ingredients
  • 7 tbsp unsalted butter (100g)
  • 2 large eggs at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100g)
  • 1 teaspoon lemon zest
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour plus 1 tbsp (100g sifted)
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 pinch salt
Instructions
  • Melt the butter either in your microwave or in a small pot over medium heat. Browning the butter will add a lovely depth or flavor to the cakes but is of course optional. Once melted or browned pour the butter into a bowl and allow to cool.
  • Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder into a bowl then whisk together and set aside.
  • Add the eggs and sugar to the bowl or your stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment or a large bowl if using an electric hand mixer. Beat on high until the mixture is a light yellow color with a thick silky texture, about 8-9 minutes. You’ll see the beater leave trails when it’s ready. Mix in the vanilla and lemon zest toward the end.
  • Fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture and mix until just combined. You can sift the flour mixture into the eggs while you fold to avoid getting lumps or over-mixing the delicate batter.
  • Drizzle the butter into the batter and gently mix until just combined.
  • Cover and chill the batter as well as the buttered tins for 1 hour then scoop one tablespoon of batter into each scallop-shaped well. Bake at 350F 8-10 minutes.
  • Serve with a light dusting of powdered sugar.

Notes from the Baker

Making these cookies needs a light touch. If you can, weigh your ingredients within a gram or two. Make sure you whisk your dry ingredients together and then sieve or sift the dry ingredients into the egg-sugar mixture. Fold it in with a light touch.

After you drizzle the butter over this, again, use a light touch. Turn your bowl as you fold. The butter will eventually work into the batter, but do it carefully.

Be sure to refrigerate the pan and the batter – I had mine in about 90 minutes. This stiffens the batter a bit and preserves the air beaten into the egg-sugar mix.

The recipe says to bake 8 minutes – which I did – but when I saw how big they were, I did another five, touched the center for a springy firmness, removed the pan from the oven. After letting the pan sit for a minute, contemplating what to do, I just turned the entire pan over and watched the cookies peel away from the pan, helping some as needed.

Make some batter. Make some test cookies. Enjoy no matter how homely they may look.

This Morning’s Disaster

This morning I set out to do a couple of things.  First was to do another ink / pen drawing.  I used the same sketchbook as I did yesterday, one with lightweight paper that worked very well yesterday.  Second, the attempt to stretch myself a bit and do a beach scene.  I find waves incredibly difficult.

The sketch itself was okay – nothing particularly challenging in and of itself.  I rather liked the composition.  However, if you look at the sketch above, do you see those little greyish streaks in the lower left and center?  That should have clued me in then and there – the paper is very thin.  Water?  What was I thinking of?

And here we are, with washes applied with a lot of water.  Even though you cannot see it, the paper became mottled in appearance, buckled and crumpled.  Ugh!  But, what the hell, I may as well try something.  And thus, I picked up my box of Caran D’Arche’s Neocolor II crayons, and carried on . . .

Having never really used the Neocolor crayons before, I will say I liked them.  I scribbled in colors which I thought might work, and then laid other colors on top of them to blend before using water.  And then with a waterbrush – not a laden brush – I smoothed and shaded.

I am not pleased with this picture at all, but I still learned something about a medium I haven’t really explored – the watercolor crayons. On a heavier paper designed to take water, there is a lot of potential here.  I love coloring, so I can see myself moving into this area, perhaps more so than with watercolor pencils, which seem more delicate to me in their color rendering, but perhaps that is wrong as I have limited experience with them as well.

Oh, well.  The picture was a disaster, but the potential far outweighs it.

 

Preparation

In the aftermath of Japan’s 8.9 earthquake, all of our good intentions to be prepared for catastrophes tend to resurface.  However, the fact is, they are simply intentions – it is the actual task of getting prepared that takes a bit of work.  Human nature lives in denial, and we all think that it cannot, or will not, happen to us.  So, we put off until tomorrow what should have been done yesterday.

Living in California, I should know better.  I remember the Northridge earthquake – it happened on Martin Luther King Day, one day before the new semester began at CSUN.  A week or two later, the semester finally began, the campus had some ruins, and driving there I saw Reseda Blvd. was lined with collapsed buildings.  But, as I was not in the middle of the damage, my mind just puts it as something that happens to someone else, not me.

Being ready for a catastrophe requires forethought and action.  When we prepare for events which never arrive, we feel foolish and stupid, as if we wasted our time.  Hopefully, we will always be met with that!  But when, and if, we meet with disaster, our ability to get through it may be a little easier, and we may be able to help others as well.

Looking through the web for ideas on what is needed to be prepared for an earthquake, there are several sites, many of which tout their “all in one” kit, for a price.  Maybe they are good deals.  However, I thought this link had some good tips, and was quite thorough.  Here is a PDF which is very comprehensive, and includes a lot of great information from state and federal agencies.  For emergencies, we need to be prepared not just at home, but at work, and in our car.  When I lived in Colorado, I had food, water, sleeping bag, and so on, with me all the time in the car.  Makes sense, even in California, to be prepared.

The expression “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” is incredibly cynical, but ironically too true.  I’ve got the intentions, but I hope I don’t get to hell before I get those kits together.