My Word with Douglas E. Welch

{EAV:1139b1428b217d58}

I was part of an ACLU-sponsored panel discussion last night that the UCLA School of Law. Here are some photos from the evening.

My fellow panelists were:

• Heidi Kujawa (Founding Member of Kode Corporation – a company dedicated solely to intellectual property protection)
• Nicole A. Ozer (Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director of the ACLU of Northern California)

If you can’t see the slide show, please view the ACLU Next Digital Privacy Panel Discussion slideshow on Flickr

Video and audio recordings of this panel should be coming soon.

Whenever we make pancakes, we always have leftovers. We usually freeze these up so they can be popped in the toaster on those mornings when we need a quick breakfast before we run out the door.

The trick with freezing pancakes is to freeze them individually on a half sheet pan before bagging them up for storage. My, rather small, freezer will just fit these pans, so I would guess that would be true of all but the smallest fridges.

If they are touching one another as they freeze, they will weld into one lump that you will never break apart. This isn’t very good for grabbing one or two to heat up in the toaster.

Once they are frozen, you can stack them up and store them in a zip-top bags without worry or putting waxed paper between each one. Then you can easily pull out however many you want whenever you want. Simple, but it really makes life a little bit easier.

* This same trick can be used for fruit, cookies or anything you want to be able to pull out of the freezer individually

Here is a selection of free wallpapers for your computer desktop or smartphone. Right-click and select Save Image As… to download them to your own computer.

Desktop Wallpaper – Plain

Desktop Wallpaper with March Calendar

Smartphone (iPhone/Droid) Wallpaper

See this previous post for recipe and more info on Sally Lunn and Bath, UK.

Rosanne got a decent picture of me at today’s Valentine’s Live Reading with our friends, Keri and Michael, so I figured I would share.

Our friends, Keri and Michael, have a great tradition in their family. When special guest come to their house, they are asked to make a design on the family tablecloth in pencil. Then, Keri makes that design permanent by embroidering it into the tablecloth.

Below are pictures of the designs for our Sicilian relatives, Daniela and Marcello, when the visited us on their honeymoon in 2002 and our own design. We are not sure what year our’s is from, but probably after 1998 when Joseph was born.

Click for larger images

I have been using Flickr to share my photos since 2004 and have over 5,300 photos there which have been viewed over 33,000 times. I’ll be re-visiting some of my favorite pictures and also those most popular with other Flickr users.

Malibu Sunset 2004

I think this photo captures the very essence of a California Summer sundown. I used my sunglasses in front of the lens in order to allow me to shoot directly in to the sun. The people on the beach came and went as I shot and produced several excellent silhouette tableaux naturally without any prompting from me. It was all about just being ready to shoot when the scene composed itself.

One of my favorite waffle recipes. I made these for breakfast this morning

These Cornmeal Buttermilk Waffles puff up nicely and have a great crispy crunch.

Buttermilk Cornmeal Waffles
Adapted slightly from Gourmet

Yield: About 16 waffles

1 cup sifted all-purpose flour (sift before measuring)
1 cup yellow cornmeal, preferably stoneground
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
6 tablespoons vegetable oil plus additional oil for brushing waffle iron

Accompaniment: pure maple syrup

Into a large bowl sift together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Repeat sifting 2 more times.

In another large bowl whisk together eggs, buttermilk, and oil. Add flour mixture all at once and whisk just until combined.

Preheat a waffle iron and preheat oven to 200 °F.

Brush waffle iron lightly with additional oil. Spoon batter into waffle iron, using 1/4 cup batter for each 4-inch-square standard waffle and spreading batter evenly, and cook according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer waffle to a baking sheet and keep warm, uncovered, in middle of oven. Make more waffles with remaining batter in same manner, brushing waffle iron with mire oil before adding each batch.

Serve waffles with syrup.

I noticed this recipe for Sally Lunn Bread from favfamilyrecipes.com pass through my Google+ stream today. It quickly reminded me of our trip to the UK back in 2010. We spent 2 days in Bath and had lunch at Sally Lunn’s. The food was very good, especially the buns. I can’t wait to try this one out here at home.

Here is a photo of my wife, Rosanne, outside the Sally Lunn shop, just before we headed in for lunch.

Click for a larger image

We really loved Bath and want to return there as soon as we can, hopefully with more time to explore more of the city and area. We took a 1/2 day out of town to visit Stonehenge and didn’t really have as much time as we wanted to explore. At least the fairly long drive to Stonehenge gave us a chance to see the surrounding countryside.

You can see all our pictures from Bath and Stonehenge in these two Flickr picture sets.

Click to see Bath Day 1 slideshow on Flickr

Click to see Bath Day 2 slideshow on Flickr

This is my homemade vanilla extract after just 1 day of steeping. Wow! This is going to be sooooooooo good!