1. Going home again

    Howard Waldrop

    Cover of Going home again by Howard Waldrop, published 1998-12-30 by St. Martin's Press, 222 pages
    Figure 1. Cover of Going home again by Howard Waldrop, published 1998-12-30 by St. Martin's Press, 222 pages.

    I particularly enjoyed “The Sawing Boys” and “El Castillo de la Perseverancia.” Waldrop’s unique voice has me working through all of his (often overlapping) story collections, and makes me wonder if I should start going to SF cons to hear the current generation’s readings of their own works.

    Posted on Bookwyrm about a year agoon August 25, 2025 - 6:12 PM and archived here at /bookwyrm/2025/08/25/8294470/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/bookwyrm/2025/08/25/8294470/ in the Bookwyrm collection in both HTML and markdown.

  2. Morning Walk

    Figure 1. A map of San Francisco, California. The path of a two and a half mile (four and a quarter kilometer) walk is indicated. About 5100 steps and 404 feet (123 meters) elevation over three quarters of an hour.
    Posted on Strava about a year agoon August 25, 2025 - 2:48 PM and archived here at /strava/2025/08/25/morning-walk/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/strava/2025/08/25/morning-walk/ in the Strava collection in both HTML and markdown.

  3. Yesterday was a lovely day for a little municipal yachting, and hiking conditions on Angel Island were ideal, although we were dodging half-marathoners descending the north ridge trail, the sunset trail return was less trafficked.

    Sutro Tower from Mount Caroline Livermore on Angel Island. The bottom 1/5th of the photo is is a solid layer of clouds. In the center, the tiny “pirate ship” spires of Sutro Tower and the barest bit of the three horizontal braces peeks above the clouds. The rest of the photo is blue sky with a few much higher faint wisps of clouds.
    Figure 1. Sutro Tower from Mount Caroline Livermore on Angel Island. The bottom 1/5th of the photo is is a solid layer of clouds. In the center, the tiny “pirate ship” spires of Sutro Tower and the barest bit of the three horizontal braces peeks above the clouds. The rest of the photo is blue sky with a few much higher faint wisps of clouds.
    San Francisco’s skyline from the vantage point of a ferry boat half a mile from the coast. To the left, the residential towers of Rincon Hill, followed by Salesforce Tower, the Ferry Building we’d just left behind, centering on the transamerica pyramid, all backed by blue skies and high white clouds. The right half of the skyline is much more residential and lower, centering on the now modest Coit Tower, all backed by a low, gray fog bank enveloping the Outer Richmond.From the vantage point of Angel Island, all that was visible was the fog bank.
    Figure 2. San Francisco’s skyline from the vantage point of a ferry boat half a mile from the coast. To the left, the residential towers of Rincon Hill, followed by Salesforce Tower, the Ferry Building we’d just left behind, centering on the transamerica pyramid, all backed by blue skies and high white clouds. The right half of the skyline is much more residential and lower, centering on the now modest Coit Tower, all backed by a low, gray fog bank enveloping the Outer Richmond.From the vantage point of Angel Island, all that was visible was the fog bank.

    And then the Angel on my shoulder said, “It is more important that people who play music on bluetooth speakers on hikes in the woods with their friends are on hikes in the woods with their friends than that they are supposedly spoiling your supposed vibes.”

    “You get to decide if your vibes are spoiled, not them.”

    “Who are you to get bummed out by this, you use a bluetooth speaker biking in the city, how is this any different?”

    After which the Devil on my shoulder said, “You should get to tell the people at the ranger station that people under 30 were on the island, which will bum them out and they’ll say, ah, jeeze, we’re real sorry about that, they were probably talking to each other too? What a shame, here are the keys to our secret personal ferry boats, come out to the island any time you want to get it all to yourself."

    Or something like that.

    Posted on Mastodon about a year agoon August 24, 2025 - 3:11 PM and archived here at /mastodon/2025/08/24/115084380987749616/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/mastodon/2025/08/24/115084380987749616/ in the Mastodon collection in both HTML and markdown.

  4. haven't been back in over ten years, lovely day for some municipal yachting

    Figure 1. A map of Tiburon, California. The path of a five and a half mile (nine kilometer) walk is indicated. About 11000 steps and 794 feet (242 meters) elevation over three hours, (two hours moving).
    Posted on Strava about a year agoon August 23, 2025 - 5:52 PM and archived here at /strava/2025/08/23/havent-been-back-in-over-ten-years-lovely-day/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/strava/2025/08/23/havent-been-back-in-over-ten-years-lovely-day/ in the Strava collection in both HTML and markdown.

  5. Pretending Bartlett street, the street I walk to get to BART, is named that because it is the street I walk to get to BART.

    an apple maps screen shot in my phone of the two blocks of barlett i walk to get to the 24th street BART stopBARTlett streetnominative determinism strikes again, etci'm very confident i discovered this, sike
    Figure 1. an apple maps screen shot in my phone of the two blocks of barlett i walk to get to the 24th street BART stopBARTlett streetnominative determinism strikes again, etci'm very confident i discovered this, sike.
    Posted on Mastodon about a year agoon August 23, 2025 - 4:48 PM and archived here at /mastodon/2025/08/23/115079097929828705/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/mastodon/2025/08/23/115079097929828705/ in the Mastodon collection in both HTML and markdown.

  6. Morning Walk

    Figure 1. A map of San Francisco, California. The path of a two and a half mile (four kilometer) walk is indicated. About 5000 steps and 446 feet (136 meters) elevation over one and three quarters hours, (three quarters of an hour moving).
    Posted on Strava about a year agoon August 21, 2025 - 2:31 PM and archived here at /strava/2025/08/21/morning-walk/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/strava/2025/08/21/morning-walk/ in the Strava collection in both HTML and markdown.

  7. Tfw San Francisco texts you back

    a screenshot of imessage of a text message from Tacos El Patron down the street, where I’m about to walk to pick up lunch. They have another store that isn’t in SF so this one must be configured in their system as “San Francisco”
    Figure 1. a screenshot of imessage of a text message from Tacos El Patron down the street, where I’m about to walk to pick up lunch. They have another store that isn’t in SF so this one must be configured in their system as “San Francisco”.
    Posted on Mastodon about a year agoon August 16, 2025 - 8:04 PM and archived here at /mastodon/2025/08/16/115040235767396652/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/mastodon/2025/08/16/115040235767396652/ in the Mastodon collection in both HTML and markdown.

  8. Had a bunch of people over yesterday and tried to replicate what we had at Oobatz. I went w/:

    90% zero zero

    10% whole wheat

    65% hydration

    1% sourdough starter

    8 hour warm fermentation with bowl folds between meetings when I remembered

    48 cold fermentation, 4 hour counter warm

    the zucchini pizza was incredible (not Oobatz incredible but, close maybe?), the sweet corn was missing something, maybe simply parsley (I forgot it), unsure.

    Fleur de sel on the crust is a pro move.

    a slice of neapolitan pizza on a fake paper plate made of melamine, drizzled with chili oilthe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz over which are layered the thinly slice zucchini, smoked paprika, and minced flat leaf parsley. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel
    Figure 1. a slice of neapolitan pizza on a fake paper plate made of melamine, drizzled with chili oilthe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz over which are layered the thinly slice zucchini, smoked paprika, and minced flat leaf parsley. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel.
    an uncut whole neapolitan pizza on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz, sweet corn sliced off the cob, and smoked paprika. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel
    Figure 2. an uncut whole neapolitan pizza on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with micro-planed parmesan, smoked mozz, low moisture mozz, and fresh mozz, sweet corn sliced off the cob, and smoked paprika. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel.
    a standard neapolitan margherita on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with san marzano tomato (I open a can, pour off half of the tomato juice down the drain, dump the whole peeled tomatoes in a blender with a pinch of salt and blip it very briefly), smoked mozz, microplaned parmesan, fresh mozz, and a few tears of basil leaf. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel.
    Figure 3. a standard neapolitan margherita on a stainless steel platethe pizza is topped with san marzano tomato (I open a can, pour off half of the tomato juice down the drain, dump the whole peeled tomatoes in a blender with a pinch of salt and blip it very briefly), smoked mozz, microplaned parmesan, fresh mozz, and a few tears of basil leaf. I salted the corniccione with fleur de sel.
    the underside of one of the pizzas which I’ve lifted up off of a steel plate to check the crust, it is speckled with leopard spotting, many with tiny holes in the center, just like you want to see for this style
    Figure 4. the underside of one of the pizzas which I’ve lifted up off of a steel plate to check the crust, it is speckled with leopard spotting, many with tiny holes in the center, just like you want to see for this style.

    Ah, jeeze, I see now that my take on the sweet corn pizza was missing thinly sliced (probably mandolined) red onion, that’ll totally fix it. Welp, I know what I’m doing next Friday!

    Also, I made a batch a chili oil with simple red pepper flakes simmered in olive oil a while back and keep it in a deli container, it’s a big lift for anything it goes on.

    it’s a running joke in chat that we don’t own mandolines and anyone who uses a mandoline needs to be wearing safety gloves the entire time they handle the things and I’m pretty damn accident prone so I simply chose to never own one.

    Well, I really wanted to try take on this zucchini pizza so I bought a safe-design one ( https://bydash.com/products/safe-slice-mandoline) instead of a benriner and gloves.

    Mandoline Slicer | Dash Safe Slice MandolineWhen it comes to safer slicing, this food prep friend will be with you through thick and thin! Utilizing an intuitive, safety-first design, the Ingredient Pusher feeds food for slicing to the stainless-steel blades to keep hands and fingers far away from sharp edges. Slice, dice, julienne, and cut matchsticks & shoDash
    Figure 5. Link preview of https://bydash.com/products/safe-slice-mandoline, "Mandoline Slicer | Dash Safe Slice Mandoline".

    It does the job! You end up with ovals where I guess you could get circles from a benriner. Oh well?

    I also started the night with two 100% cold fermentation 18" NY styles for the kids. Both were supposed to be 90% bread flour, 10% whole wheat, but I forgot the whole wheat in one of the dough balls so I labeled the tub on that side to see what difference it would make. I do the flour split calcs just in time, so they both had the same flour by weight, the only difference is which kind.

    Wheat made a big difference, look how big it is!

    two balls of pizza dough in a plastic tub with a little olive oil. the left dough ball is marked with a tiny pinch on the top which I then figured might get lost in fermentation, so I also wrote “10% whole wheat” on some yellow masking tape and put that next to the right dough ball, which, because it has whole wheat, is noticeably larger than the left.
    Figure 6. two balls of pizza dough in a plastic tub with a little olive oil. the left dough ball is marked with a tiny pinch on the top which I then figured might get lost in fermentation, so I also wrote “10% whole wheat” on some yellow masking tape and put that next to the right dough ball, which, because it has whole wheat, is noticeably larger than the left.
    two dough tubs with the lids off, photographed top downthe top tub has two dough balls for 18” NY style pizzas in itthe bottom has 6 dough balls for neapolitan pizza in it
    Figure 7. two dough tubs with the lids off, photographed top downthe top tub has two dough balls for 18” NY style pizzas in itthe bottom has 6 dough balls for neapolitan pizza in it.
    an 18” NY style pizza on a wooden peel, prior to baking. I make NY style sauce w/ san marzanos, salt, sugar, half a clove of garlic, and a dozen basil leafs in a blender. the pizza is topped with parm and low moisture mozz
    Figure 8. an 18” NY style pizza on a wooden peel, prior to baking. I make NY style sauce w/ san marzanos, salt, sugar, half a clove of garlic, and a dozen basil leafs in a blender. the pizza is topped with parm and low moisture mozz.
    a just-baked 18” NY style pizza on a steel platethe pizza is topped with tomato sauce, parm and low moisture mozz
    Figure 9. a just-baked 18” NY style pizza on a steel platethe pizza is topped with tomato sauce, parm and low moisture mozz.
    Posted on Mastodon about a year agoon August 16, 2025 - 4:16 PM and archived here at /mastodon/2025/08/16/115039337658826744/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/mastodon/2025/08/16/115039337658826744/ in the Mastodon collection in both HTML and markdown.

  9. Afternoon Ride

    Figure 1. A map of San Francisco, California. The path of a three and a quarter mile (five kilometer) ride is indicated. About 72 feet (22 meters) elevation over a quarter hour.
    Posted on Strava about a year agoon August 14, 2025 - 11:44 PM and archived here at /strava/2025/08/14/afternoon-ride/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/strava/2025/08/14/afternoon-ride/ in the Strava collection in both HTML and markdown.

  10. Lunch Ride

    Figure 1. A map of San Francisco, California. The path of a three and a half mile (five and three quarters kilometer) ride is indicated. About 43 feet (13 meters) elevation over a quarter hour.
    Posted on Strava about a year agoon August 14, 2025 - 6:12 PM and archived here at /strava/2025/08/14/lunch-ride/at https://pizza.slow.high.quality.gravely.pizza/strava/2025/08/14/lunch-ride/ in the Strava collection in both HTML and markdown.
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