The decimation wrought by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 2022 Feb 24 has been immense. Ukraine has crumbled, its economy severely damaged and its people scattered across the EU and the Western world. On one hand Ukraine has a bully neighbour intent on destroying it, while on the other Western countries have continued to provide Ukraine with enough weapons to continue its fight, the result being even more destruction of Ukraine. Ukraine’s predicament has had many other global implications, almost all bad.
The Covid-19 pandemic slowed down the world economy by messing up supply chains, but the real kicker to the world was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the West’s response to it. Decisions by the West early in the invasion clearly helped Russia and decimated Ukraine, but no country and people will get off Scot-free. As oil and gas, and wheat prices skyrocket, coupled with supply chain problems with China, the world will soon welcome a global recession.
I have really gotten attached to using a poolish as the starter for sourdough bread. Using a poolish is really easy. You just mix flour, water and starter, and set it aside to ferment for 12 hrs. It is technically called a preferment.
There are disagreements between the definitions of poolish, biga and a sponge. It seems like the poolish is 100% hydration, or 1:1 flour:water. The biga is 1:0.7 flour:water, and a sponge is 1:0.4 flour:water.
Achiote paste: A unique Mexican flavour, but if it dries to a brick, is very difficult to break back down to a paste.
Big Weed had purchased this in California, as we do not have access to this here in Toronto. Achiote paste has a very unusual taste which I like. As I only used a half of the small pack I did not know to tightly wrap it so that it did not dry out. The result was a brick that was as hard as rock. Instead of wasting the achiote brick, which I cannot buy here in Toronto, I decided to try to break it down back to smaller chunks of near powder. This was more difficult than I thought.
Our electricity must come from somewhere. Not too many places are blessed with a gynormous waterfall that we harness for clean hydro-electric power, such as Niagara Falls, Ontario. Still, electric cars are heavily subsidized by governments, as without these they simply would be too expensive. This is true in Canada, China and Norway.
Ridiculous, is the rise and fall of automotive fuel in North America/the World, where the OPEC nations have decided to flood the world market with their oil, thus drastically reducing prices. The repercussions, surprisingly, are markedly in the favour of the OPEC nations.
Maintenance of any mechanical device is important for the smooth and trouble free operation. A ripstik is a kid’s toy, similar to a skateboard, and as a kid’s toy, gets vicious abuse. We bought a used Ripstik Classic and it really needed some TLC. Here is what we did. As a result of our maintenance the ripstik runs much smoother and glides farther, resulting in faster speeds and/or less effort. These are all benefits of a couple of hours of maintenance.
