Drowning in Tomatoes

My tomato plants have gone completely crazy, and all the tomatoes are ripening at once. Yes, I know, such a problem!

This is what I did with some of them. Served with focaccia; recipe follows.

Tomato Pasta Sauce



2 dozen home grown tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 large sweet onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh basil chiffonade
2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped
1 lb button or crimini mushrooms, sliced
Good splash red wine
Good splash marsala wine
1 or 2 tablespoons sugar
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 lb dry pasta (in this case I used linguine)

Sweat onion and garlic in olive oil in large pot. Add tomatoes and herbs and bring to a simmer. Add wines and sugar, salt and pepper, and bring back up to a simmer. Simmer for two or three hours until thick and lovely. Add mushrooms. Simmer until mushrooms are tender. Cook pasta according to package directions. Add pasta to pot and toss with sauce. Serve with freshly grated cheese such as parmigiano reggiano or romano.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Focaccia
From "Baking with Julia"
Recipe by Craig Kominiak



Equipment: This recipe assumes you have a stand mixer. You'll also need a single-edge razor blade and a spray bottle of water to produce steam in the oven during baking. A baking stone or unglazed quarry tiles are nice but not essential. A pizza peel is nice but not essential.

Makes 3 focaccias.

2-1/4 - 2-1/2 cups tepid water (about 90ºF)
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
6 - 6-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons salt

Mixing the Dough Whisk 1/2 cup of the water and the yeast together in the bowl of a mixer. Set the mixture aside for 5 minutes, until the yeast dissolves and turns creamy.

Meanwhile, pour 1-3/4 cups warm water into a large measuring cup, add the olive oil, and whisk to blend; set aside. Whisk 6 cups of the flour and salt together in a large bowl and set this aside as well.

Pour the water-oil mixture over the yeast and stir with the whisk to blend. Add about half of the flour and stir with a rubber spatula just to mix. Attach the dough hook, add the remaining flour, and mix on low speed for about 3 minutes, or until the dough just starts to come together. If the dough appears dry and a little stiff, add a few drops of warm water, scraping the bowl and hook if necessary to incorporate the water and create a soft dough. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and continue to mix for about 10 minutes, scraping down the hook and sides of the bowl as needed, until you have a soft, slightly moist, extremely elastic dough that cleans the side of the bowl. You will know that the dough is properly mixed when a piece can be stretched, without tearing, to create a "window", an almost transparent patch of dough.

First Rise Transfer the dough to a work surface and form it into a ball. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, turn it around to cover it with oil, and cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. allow the dough to rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

Second Rise Fold the dough down on itself to deflate it and let it rise again until doubled and billowy, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Shaping and Resting Fold the dough over on itself again to deflate it (as you do this you can hear the bubbles squeak and pop) and turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface. Using a metal dough scraper or a knife, cut the dough into 3 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball.

The dough needs to be refrigerated for between 24 and 36 hours. (It is this long refrigerated rest that gives the focaccia its characteristic chewy texture and surface bubbles.) Place each ball in an oiled gallon-size lock-top plastic bag and refrigerate.

About 1-1/2 hours before you plan to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator and gently take the balls out of the oiled bags. (If you have a problem, cut the bags open with scissors to release the dough.) Place the dough on a lightly floured surface, dust the tops of the balls with flour, and cover loosely but completely with plastic (to avoid having the tops go crusty). Let rest for 1 hour, until the dough reaches a cool room temperature and feels spongy when prodded.

THE TOPPING

Herb-infused or other olive oil
Chopped fresh herbs (such as rosemary and/or thyme), 2-3 tablespoons
Coarse sea salt
(Other toppings can include sauteed and cooled onion, slivers of garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, olives - I used chopped fresh basil and sun-dried tomatoes.)

Cornmeal

Position an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 450ºF. If you have a baking stone, place it in the oven and preheat it too; dust a peel with cornmeal. Or line two baking sheets with parchment paper and dust the paper with cornmeal; set the baking sheets aside. Fill a spray bottle with water and set it aside as well.

Shaping the Dough Use your palm to press down gently on each piece of dough, causing bubbles to appear on the sides, then slit the bubbles with a single-edge razor blade to release the gases. Gently pull and stretch each piece of dough into a square about 10 inches across, taking care not to overwork the dough or handle it too roughly -- you don't want to knock out the bubbles you've worked so hard to create. Let the dough relax, covered, for about 10 minutes, then tidy up the edges with your hands.

Baking the Bread Transfer the focaccias to the cornmeal-dusted peel or the parchment-lined baking sheets. Use a single-edge razor blade to slash each square, cutting a tic-tac-toe pattern, or making three slashes in the center of the dough and enclosing them in 4 slashes to form a square with open corners. Brush the focaccias with olive oil, sprinkle with fresh herbs and coarse sea salt and any other toppings, and put them into the oven.

Bake the breads for 15 to 20 minutes, or until they are golden with a heavy speckling of small surface bubbles, spraying the oven with water three times during the first 8 minutes of baking. As soon as you remove the focaccias from the oven, brush them with a little additional olive oil and transfer them to a rack to cool before serving.



Storing The focaccias are best the day they are baked, but once cooled, they can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 weeks. Thaw the breads, still wrapped, at room temperature and warm them in a 350ºF oven before serving.

Tim's Parking Power is Mighty

In other words, the Great Goddess Asphaltina was definitely on our side today.

For the last week, we've been shooting elements for network coverage of the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Well, actually, we did quite a bit last week and the week before as well, but this week has been intense and busy and very, very fun.

We started the day at 7 AM, with an interview in Berkeley with the founder and President of Computers & Structures, Inc., Ashraf Habibullah, and looking at amazing computer models of how bridges and buildings in the Bay Area will behave in a large earthquake. Ashraf, in addition to being an engineer, is an amazing still photographer (we geeked about medium format cameras - he has *two* Hasselblads with digital backs and I'm suffering deep camera-envy) and an enthusiastic patron of the arts and co-founded the Diablo Ballet (check out the photo gallery; Ashraf is the photographer). I could have talked with him all day; a fascinating, intelligent, enthusiastic, *joyous* person who loves everything he does.

But we had a date at AT&T Park, and the Giants' home opener, where 102-year-old Violet Lyman, who we interviewed yesterday, and 103-year-old Herbert Hamrol, who we interviewed a couple of weeks ago, joined six other survivors of the '06 Quake in throwing out the first pitches. They both had, as Violet put it, "so much fun!", and we'll no doubt see them again on the day of the anniversary, April 18.

It being Opening Day, however, Tim and I headed to the ballpark early, in the hopes of getting a parking spot less than a mile from the ballpark. For those of you familiar with the area, we were sitting at the red light in the left turn bay on Embarcadero, waiting to turn onto Third St. and the parking lots, when a woman got out of the passenger seat of the car in front of us and approached Tim's window brandishing something orange. Tim thought maybe she was scalping a ticket, and opened his window to politely decline when she said, "My husband said I should ask you if you wanted a parking pass. We have two and we can only use one."

Um...



This is the parking lot closest to the ballpark.

Tim and I were both too taken aback to thank her properly, and they disappeared into the depths of Parking Lot A never to be seen again. I think we're *still* too taken aback to thank her properly.

But it didn't end there, oh, no.

After the pig fuck rather crowded conditions in the press corps characteristic of the home opener, our intrepid correspondent, George Lewis, bought us a lovely lunch at the Acme Chophouse, the restaurant attached to the ballpark, where we watched the first five innings of the game on the television and feasted on a gorgeous cheese and beet appetizer and I had a perfect Dungeness crab salad, with a dessert of organic pumpkin custard brulée (oh. my. god.).

And the Giants, ultimately, won the game, 6-4.

Then, upward and onward, to Chinatown to shoot the first of George's standups.

San Francisco's Chinatown is the largest outside of Asia, but its streets, especially the most scenic (and therefore the most desirable for our purposes), are narrow and crowded, and a free parking space is as rare as feathers on a lizard. We needed a parking space in a spot next to where George wanted to do his standup because we needed to light George, and we can run lights from an inverter plugged into the truck. Any other day of our lives there would be no way we'd manage to find a parking spot *in* Chinatown, much less in the exact spot we needed it.

Except for today.

Granted, Tim was originally parked in a yellow zone, spilling into a red zone, and the 4 PM tow trucks were gathering up the hill. But, miracle of all miracles, a van pulled out of the space right at the corner where George wanted to be, and Tim cut to the chase by backing up, through a red light, in the wrong direction on a one-way street, and grabbed the space.

Two Chinese gentlemen applauded, whistled and cheered, declaring, "Now *that's* the way you do it here!!"

Four quarters in the meter and 30 minutes later and Standup #1 was in the can.

George wanted to do the second standup at the cable car turnaround at Hyde St., and so off we went to the most touristy section of town. Fisherman's Wharf is nearby, and Ghirardelli Square is right there.

In other words, another parking nightmare.

But, and you know what's coming, there was a single space within a four-block radius of the turnaround, and it happened to be right across the street, in front of the Buena Vista Café. Tim and I took it as a sign, and after we got three stunning takes of George doing his standup as laden cable cars moved smoothly through the background of the shot, we bid him and his producer a fond farewell and stopped at the Buena Vista for a drink before heading home. Okay, two drinks, it had been a long day.

I was going to complain about a few things, but, you know, after reading this, I think I'll let the complaints stay with the bitch session Tim and I had on our way home, and simply bask in the contentment of having been Victorious Parking Warriors today. I suspect it'll never be that good again. And I'm wiped out. After too many months covering trials and doing nothing but sit in a chair mixing hourly live shots, I've gotten soft, and a day spent with the gear strapped to my body, running around the streets of San Francisco has left me wanting nothing more than a hot bath and a soft bed.

I hate computers.

Wait, no I don't. I hate Linksys.

With one single exception, I have never successfully installed a piece of their hardware without having to get on the phone to technical support. You'd think I'd learn. But no.

Yesterday I bought a Wireless G adapter for Tim's desktop. I thought it would be an improvement over his Wireless B adapter (also Linksys, by the way), as I had a Wireless G Router (also Linksys, and also a right royal pain in the arse) and the signal in the shed was pretty weak. He was unable to get a 'net connection yesterday (although he had one the day before), so I thought, hey, brilliant idea, let's upgrade your equipment.

Not content to set myself up for insanity with just one piece of hardware, I also bought a Wireless G Range Expander. Also by Linksys.

Well, whatever the trouble is with getting a 'net connection, it isn't in the wireless adapter, because the single exception to my having to call tech support was installing the bugger on my own desktop. Works a treat. On Tim's computer? Not so much. It connects to the access point, but cannot acquire an IP address. Everything is configured properly, all Tim's settings are as they should be, every other computer in the house is happy and joyfully surfing the 'net, but Tim's computer cannot acquire an IP address. I have not gone so far as to run a CAT5 out to the shed to test a hardline connection. I haven't got one that's long enough, I'll have to go buy one. In the meantime he can check his email on his Mac in the house.

So, this morning I proceeded to set up the Wireless G Range Expander with the handy dandy Setup Wizard on CD. Um, no, I didn't.

Got through all the stuff, security password and encryption keys and la and da and stuff and watched as the software configured the range expander and, boom, at the very end of the procedure, an error message:

"WRE54G can not associate with this AP in repeater mode."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Me, being me, unplugged everything, replugged everything, reset everything, *including* the router, reconfigured the router, went through the whole procedure at least eight times.

Now, seriously, people with healthier psyches than mine would probably have chucked everything back into their boxes by now and taken them back to the mindless drones who sold them and said, "Give me a credit or I'll sic American Express on you!" Not me. Never me. I was going to make this puppy work even if I *did* have to call tech support.

Which I did.

I'll skip the bits where I had to ask the very nice Indian gentleman to please speak more slowly. I have hearing loss, and I have difficulty hearing on the telephone because part of my ability to hear a conversation is to see lips moving and when I don't have that it's difficult for me to understand unaccented English, so I have a particularly hard time understanding accented English on the telephone, whatever the accent. My English friend Mervyn understands this very well; although I've been listening to his accent for nearly 20 years, I still frequently have to ask him to repeat himself when we're having a telephone conversation. Although he tells me that *I'm* the one speaking accented English :).

I'll also skip the bits where I had to convince this tech that I wasn't a complete nimrod, although sometimes it's just easier to play dumb and muddle through being told how to ping an IP address. I understand that, possibly, more often than not, they get a novice on the other end of the phone, so that's just my tender little ego getting irritated. But I did waylay him somewhat by explaining right out of the gate that all the firmware was up to date, as, in my experience (and I've had a *lot* of experience), that's the first thing a Linksys tech will ask you to do.

The meat of the matter is that in order to get these two pieces of hardware, made by the same manufacturer, designed to work together, to, you know, actually work together, I had to disable WEP security on the router, activate the Auto Configuration on the expander, setup the range expander's security through the Web interface, reset security on the router through the Web interface, then power cycle the range expander.

Why the hell do they bother with a Setup Wizard with *any* of their hardware? It never works, but every time I buy something of theirs I'm hitting my thumb with the same damn hammer before I suck it up and call them.

In any case, it's all working now, although Tim's computer still can't get a 'net connection. Which is, sort of, where I came in, eh?