SeeingEyeBlog

About two years ago, cinematographer Oliver Stapleton, BSC, was introduced to me on the pilot episode of Numb3rs, which he shot. We spoke for a while and he was very supportive of my desire to become a cinematographer. His best advice was to forget about gear, forget about cameras and get as much knowledge of drama as possible. He said I should just start reading scripts, plays, get hobbies outside the film business. This advice was partly what inspired me to build my brick pizza oven. His essay about getting into movies is here.

I think I’m going to go on a health food kick. At least an unprocessed, cook-it-yourself kick. One reason is because I recently went to Urth Cafe and had some soup and salad and was very surprised at the home-cookedness of the cuisine.

The other reason is this article. If I’m going to live with a body worth living in, I should eat more good food. I declare, this post does seem rather preachy…

UPDATE: The Weston A. Price Foundation website has a wealth of fair information about health. Started by a doctor who studied the health and diets of non-industrialized, primative cultures. Very informative.

I’ve built a brick oven, experienced the increase in flavor of everything that comes out of it, and now I’m trying my hand at creating the perfect bread.

A bit of inspiration came earlier tonight when I stumbled across this site, about how millstones work. I have no idea how I found the page, but it was very interesting reading, especially for people interested in history. Lots of nuggets of history there.

So I found an easy french bread recipe to use as my jumping off point. I tried the recipe verbatim tonight, and right now the dough is rising. I liked the recipe because the page said it was a good starting point for cinnamon rolls and other pastries, as well as french bread.

Updates forthcoming…

The crust was a little hard for my taste, but it tasted great. The preparation was less intensive than I thought it would be, so I’m happy.

I was also using a crappy gas oven (my brick oven is in San Diego). The oven here in LA has a bad temperature dial, so there’s never a way to tell what temperature it’s set to. Next time I’ll use the brick oven and hope for a softer crust.

The Encyclopizza has a lot of information on everything having to do with pizza. Anyone who takes pizza seriously should take a look.

I’m mining the Encyclopizza for insights on how to achieve a soft crust in my dough formulation.