Does time still exist? Maybe! Kevin, Rob, and Jon chat about some of the top concerns of our current time:

• Sourdough bread
• WordPress and PHP
• No Code development
• Knock knock jokes

Download / Listen: Herding Code 242: The COVID Cabin Fever

Transcript:

Jon: [00:00:07 ] And hello, welcome to Herding Code. It is July 31, 2020 on the one hand. Holy cow. The year is like getting closer to done on the other hand. Will this year ever end?

Rob: [00:00:20 ] Yeah, can the year just be over? Can we just be done?

Jon: [00:00:25 ] Wow. Yes, it is.

Rob: [00:00:29 ] I think I mentioned before the podcast that wasn’t going to be salty. I think I lied.

Jon: [00:00:33 ] Yeah.

Kevin: [00:00:34 ] This is the bad place. The year will never end.

Jon: [00:00:37 ] You know, on the one hand. So it was looking at it with since April, we talked last and we did the, Freaky Friday episode where we talked about the trading trading placces, Mac and Windows and all that. And then I was like, man, on the one hand has much changed. I mean, cause cause it’s like nerds in captivity.

What do we do?

Kevin: [00:00:57 ] It’s not actually that different from nerds, not in captivity, sadly.

Jon: [00:01:00 ] That’s true. That’s true. All right. Has anyone else, w we just, we have to cross this off the list who here has made a loaf of sourdough bread. Okay. I’ve made enough for everybody. I’ve made all the sourdough bread.

Rob: [00:01:12 ] We just…

Kevin: [00:01:13 ] ship it out, man. Send us some!

Rob: [00:01:15 ] Yeah, I know. Wait, where’s my, where’s my bread, man.

Jon: [00:01:18 ] Okay. So it was like after a while, I have three daughters and they’re getting bored too. And so the middle one kind of gets into baking. So I was like, all right, let’s try it out. You know? And then it’s totally the nerd rabbit hole. Once you start it, then you’re like, Oh, I really need a Dutch oven now. And now, now I need this, but it’s pretty fun.

I halfway through, I really there’s this website Breadtopia, and there’s this no knead bread recipe. And it’s actually like, most of the work like you do, maybe about a half hour of work, but it’s spread over two days. So you could like go mix ingredients, you walk away for hours and then you come back and you’d like, flip it around and then you come back and then you put it in the oven and you walk away.

So it’s a lot of walkaway comeback stuff. But the one thing I realized after a while is that. It was not very sour. And then I started reading and there was all these hacks you could do, but then people are like, you know, sourdough, you buy from the store has some sort of acid in it, citric acid or lactic acid, some sort of acid.

So I just started putting white wine vinegar in, and then I had to like, it messed with the chemistry and I had to change around the ingredients and stuff, but that totally worked. Then everyone’s like, this is the best ever. So don’t tell my family, I’m putting. White wine vinegar in the sourdough and we’re all good.

Rob: [00:02:35 ] Yeah. You know, it reminds me of making, cause you know bread and beer are very similar and yeah. And so I used to be a huge, I haven’t brewed beer in a very long time, but I remember going to the store and they’re like, well, you know, if you, if you can’t get that bitterness, you’re looking for here’s some extract, you know, or if you can’t get the aroma here, just drop a few drops of this.

It’s you know, I like, wait, that’s, that’s cheating.

Jon: [00:03:00 ] It’s totally cheating. And yet,

Rob: [00:03:04 ] Yeah. And yet, right. If the beer tastes good and people drink it and they like it. So who cares? I don’t

Jon: [00:03:09 ] that reminds me in a Malcolm Gladwell book. I forget what it was, but it was. One of these things where they’re like, they did these taste tests and they had some kind of beer taste test and they put in, basalmic vinegar into some of them. And people like picked the basalmic vinegar is like much better beer and it like just had a few vinegar in it.

So I don’t even know. Yeah.

Kevin: [00:03:33 ] the most like San Francisco story, I heard. Through this COVID period is some, some dude was like going all over San Francisco, leaving sourdough starter packets, like randomly scattered around the city.

Jon: [00:03:48 ] It’s pretty amazing stuff. It’s like, I’ve, I’ve seen videos. People take like completely like abandoned cultures that have been in the back of their refrigerator for months, you know, and they’ll awaken it. And it’s like, I don’t even know. Yeah.

Kevin: [00:04:04 ] Our version of it is we got an ice cream maker, which is even less healthy than making your own so we’ve been kind of experimenting a little bit, although we haven’t gotten too crazy yet. So.

Jon: [00:04:15 ] So I ran into Nik Molnar in the, before times in Montreal, I was at Node. What was it? Node JS Interactive up there. And, and I forgot that he is like, Crazy like trained chef, like really good. And so I was like, Oh yeah, I’m cooking some stuff for Christmas. He’s like, you know, I told him and it was something like just simple thing, you know?

And he was like visibly disappointed. Okay. And I’m like, what are you doing? He’s like, yeah, I’m just making ice cream. But he had like three different ice creams in each one had like a savory and a sweet component. And I mean, he had like, obviously planned out this very in depth stuff. And I was like, well, I’m sorry. But ice cream ice cream is

Rob: [00:05:00 ] I, I had a really fun experience. I mean, I know this podcast is supposed to be back technical stuff and we’re supposed to get into it, but you know what? This is, this is the human aspect of it. But you know, what, if someone can gain some value from this hooray, So my buddy, my buddy and I we’re going, gonna make some burgers one night.

And I said, well, you know, I’ve always wanted to make a burger on a skillet and he’s got a really good set of skillets, you know, like, Black, you know, just super cured over the last million years. And I’m like, I’m going to make a burger on that. And so I go online and I’m like, I’m going to look at the perfect burger tutorial.

Like, how do you make it? And of course, I find my favorite chef Gordon Ramsey, and he’s got this YouTube video called the perfect burger tutorial. And so I watched it and amazingly for the burger fans out there, he did not make it in a skillet. He made it on a barbecue. And anyway, the reason I’m saying all this is I, I kind of watched this whole thing, what he was doing and the ingredients to use.

And so I’m like, alright, I’m going to take myself to the store and I’m going to buy this beef. I’m going to put an egg in it. Cause he recommends putting an egg in like a, what is it? Two pounds of beef. And then I’m going to like get this cheese and do all the things he did, salt and pepper. That’s all he uses for, for seasoning.

And they did exactly what he recommends doing. And I, I’m not kidding. My friend made this buddy of this guy was making a burger with, he is a huge meat fan. He’s got like a $2,500 smoker. He spends, I mean, hours and hours, ma like making meat every single week seriously. And so I was like, listen, I’m going to make, I’m going to try and make this burger.

I’m just going to go get some stuff from our local market. And don’t beat me up. I’m going to do my best. And he’s like, all right, you know, whatever, you know, little lamb go have a good time. So I did. And he swears to me and it’s the best burger he’s ever had in his life. And I was just like, I was, the funny part is I’m not, I don’t, I’m not big burger person.

You know what I mean? I somehow just stumbled into this. Anyway, I left you a link here in chat. So if you want to put it on the post. It’s it’s literally took me, I want to say 30 minutes from start to finish. And my kid has said this to me, best burger I’ve ever had in my life. My buddy said this to me.

I’m like really? Cause that’s a pretty big thing for someone to say that. So anyway, I thought, since we’re talking about food, I made a damn good hamburger, you know, and I’m proud of myself.

Jon: [00:07:29 ] Well done. It is funny how much, like a lot of these things come down to really simple. Like the bread that I made is like, Three ingredients, you know, and then last week we made mozza