I Want To See Violet

One of my earliest memories is standing in front of My Wonderful Mom as a young lad proclaiming how much I loved the purple and white pants I was wearing.  They were so cool.  They were the best.  There was only one problem: they weren't purple.  They were blue.

It probably came as no great surprise to my parents that I was colorblind (the politically correct name for which these days is "color vision deficient", but I have been and always will be colorblind).  My uncle on my mom's side is red-green colorblind (and how he made a successful living as a farmer is beyond me).  Color blindness is genetic and passed along from your mom.  I have her to thank for my colorblindness, my puny musculature, and 50% of the other things I can blame on my DNA.  Thanks Mom.

But I was young and able to bounce back.  I was accepting of the fact that many of the professions I might otherwise aspire to probably would not work out in the end: interior designer ("What have you done to my beautiful house!?!?"), bomb disposal expert ("Cut the green wire."), and last but not least, professional telephone cable splicer.  I was the butt of these jokes and many others through life.

I Have Nightmares Like This

My chosen profession of Engineering is bad enough.  Geology labs back in University were horrible.  I remember having to identify different types of rocks in an exam, and one of the keys in doing so is going by color.  Worse was the infamous resistor color code. Carbon film resistors are marked with a series of colored bands to indicate their value and tolerance.  To make matters worse, my difficulty in resolving colors is compounded when the colored bit I'm looking at is small.  To this day, I have never bothered to memorize this fundamental code: there's no point in me doing so. 

Pointless

When people think of color-blindness, they think of the whole rods and cones thing, but there is more to it than that.  The best explanation I've come across is this one:

Colour vision is based on an opponent process [1]. There are three kinds of colour receptors called L, M and S (for Long, Medium and Short) and they are receptive to colours centred around the red, green, and blue parts of the visible light spectrum respectively.

Here is a good graph showing how sensitive each receptor is to different wavelengths of light: 

But we don't perceive colour directly from these receptors. Instead, our visual systems combine the output of these receptors to form three channels: black vs. white (L+M+S), red vs. green (L-M) and blue vs. yellow (S-(M+L)). This is why there is no such colour as a reddish-green or a bluish-yellow; our visual systems are not able to perceive these (except under exceptional laboratory conditions). As you can see in the graph, the L, M and S receptors aren't just receptive to pure red, green and blue but to a range of wavelengths centred near these colours, and they all overlap to some degree. But the L (green) and M (red) receptors overlap quite a bit.

In red-green colour blindness, either the L or M are shifted so they're even closer. This means that the red vs. green (L-M) channel is no longer able to distinguish between the two, so this channel is always close to zero and the person no longer sees either red or green just something muddy in between. Blue-yellow colour blindness is similar, but in this case it's the S channel that's shifted towards the L and M. In this case it overlaps with both and this means there's no longer any colours that activate the S without also activating L and M (and vice versa), making it impossible to distinguish blue from yellow.

I stumbled on this when skimming through YCombinator on a lazy Sunday afternoon.  The link above pointed to an article on BoingBoing called "Color for the Colorblind".  I read it and was fascinated.  The article describes sunglasses from a company called EnChroma that promises to correct colorblindness while you are wearing them.  Wow.

First you take a test on their website to determine what kind of colorblindness you have and how bad it is.  The test results told me I was a "strong duotan", and I had no idea initially what that meant.  A little research told me that they were telling me what I already knew: I was red-green colorblind, and I had it bad.

Damned If I Can See Anything but a Bunch of Dots

Then I got to this video on the Press section of their site.  At around 45 seconds into it, I started to cry.

...there is always an "aha" moment.  When they'll turn and look at something and say... "Is that flower... violet?" And they've never seen violet before...

Neither had I.

I pulled myself together, went downstairs, and asked My Lovely Wife to bring up first this video called No Such Thing as Color.  It starts with a guy looking at different houses and trying to guess what color they are.  Thing is, I can't tell if he is getting them right or wrong.  I'm guessing he gets a bunch of them wrong, or he wouldn't be colorblind.

 Skip The Last Half - It Gets Pretty Lame

Then I asked My Lovely Wife to watch the EnChroma video.  At around 45 seconds in, I started crying again.  I think she thought I was laughing until she turned around and saw the tears in my eyes.  I desparately wanted to see violet too.

I put in my order to EnChroma later that night for a pair of EnChroma Cx Receptors.  These are designed to fit over top of my prescription glasses, without which I see nothing but a blur.  The three to five business day wait for shipping turned into three weeks.  Seems a lot of other people had read that same BoingBoing article and wanted to see violet as well.  Oh well.  I had been colorblind all my life.  I could wait a few more weeks.

As I waited for my order to arrive, I didn't tell anyone besides My Lovely Wife, My Wonderful Mom, and My Cool Sister.  I had to tell somebody, but I didn't want to spread the news around too much; I wasn't sure if these things were going to work in the first place.  I did drop the odd hint though, like changing my Facebook profile picture.

I kept a close eye on my UPS tracking number as my precious shipment wound it's way up from California to my home in the Great White North.  When the happy day arrived, I went to the courier to pick them up and got a little more than I bargained for, to the tune of...

• $20.77 in customs fees
• $21.81 in taxes
• $64.60 in UPS brokerage fees (!).  No wonder there have been several class action lawsuits filed against UPS for shipments into Canada.  This is exhorbitant.

Now none of these are Enchroma's fault.  Fees and taxes are inescapable, but I do wish they would offer to ship by US Postal Service to minimize shipping costs to non-US residents.

Anyhoo, they say the glasses work best on a bright sunny day.  I got home late on Friday so decided to wait until Saturday to try them out.  The weather on Saturday was crap so I grudgingly pushed the first try to Sunday.  The crappy weather continued, and it wasn't until we got a small break in the crappiness on Tuesday (with the forecast for extreme crappiness in the days following) that I decided to finally give them a shot.

I wanted to try them first in our backyard.  It has a big flowerbed in the back with several different plants in bloom.  Our backyard also faces a river with farmers fields beyond that, making for quite a sight, colorblind or not.  I also had my wife but on her blouse that she tells me is purple.  I wanted to see violet, after all.

I took a long look around before putting on the EnChromas.  I wanted to get a good sense of "before".  My Lovely Wife got the camera out, started recording, and I put the glasses on for the first time.

The partly-cloudy sky transformed itself into something from an alien world.  I didn't really know if what I was looking at now was accurate or just... different.  Whatever I was looking at had far more "pop" than what I had noticed before.  I just stood there and stared for a while, repeating that it "looked different".  I noticed my mouth was hanging open.

I turned around and our pink stucco house exploded into my view with a vibrancy I could not have imagined.  What I thought had been dull and faded was far from it.  Then I looked down and the chickweed in our lawn blazed in front of my eyes like it had been electrified.  I was taken aback.  I tried to describe it to My Lovely Wife as the recording went on but my voice started to crack and I felt the emotion washing over me like that day from weeks ago.  I am probably the first person ever to be overcome by emotion from a weedy lawn.

I looked over at My Lovely Wife and could see that she was getting choked up as well, her violet blouse shining before my eyes.

I had gotten what I was after.  I signaled to her to stop the recording so we could see how it turned out.  I wanted to share the experience I'd just had with others but, alas, there were technical difficulties and these words will just have to do.

I kept the sunglasses on and took a walk around the yard.  The brown stain on our deck was no longer brown, it was brown, with a richness I had not seen before.  I then noticed how browns stood out so much more from greens than they did before.  A small dead pine tree some distance away that would have been almost invisible to me before in the grassy background was easy to spot.  And was our green truck ever green!  A world that had been hidden from me was starting to reveal itself.

I looked down at myself and the burgundy shirt I was wearing lit up before my eyes.  "WOW!", I shouted.  "LOOK AT MY SHIRT!!!"  My Lovely Wife had always liked the shirt more than I did.  To me, it seemed a bit dull.  I was wrong.  I kept staring back at it thinking I had made some kind of mistake.

It was time to go back into the house.  I kept the glasses on but didn't expect much wearing them inside.  As I thought, I didn't see any real improvement, and the folks at EnChroma caution you about this: they work best out in the open with bright natural light.  They came up empty in early evening on a cloudy day.

I am looking forward to the coming days and weeks.  Apparently, they become more effective as your brain adapts to a new way of seeing the world when the sunglasses are on.  The crappy weather might slow that process down, unfortunately.  On the other hand, I'm really hoping for a nice rainbow sometime.  People with this eyewear rave about rainbows (and fortunately for me, the price on these things has come down since that article as well).

I got into this wanting to see violet, but so far it is the greens that are blowing me away.  The new growth on the tips of spruce trees stand out like the lights on a Christmas tree.  I find myself distracted by the rain soaked, green grass growing brightly in the ditches on the drive in to work.  And I will always remember the first time I saw that chickweed and really saw green.  It is only too bad that these sunglasses aren't a cure for colorblindness.  They only do their magic while being worn.  Once I take them off, I return to my muted, drab world.  But to me, something is a hell of a lot better than nothing.

Now my new Facebook profile picture should make sense to everyone.

Diablo Bread, The Bread of the Devil

I first blogged about bread around three years ago.  I look back at that post discussing my tips and tricks for Tartine bread and it makes me cringe.  What I thought was a good loaf of bread back then is far below what I'm able to come up with these days.  What has made me a better baker?  The same way you get to Carnegie Hall.  Practice.  I make a loaf of bread pretty much every weekend.

Tartine Bread Try #43

And it isn't just Tartine.  I find I am making that recipe ever month or so, while the other weekly bakes will sometimes be a No Knead bread of some kind or another based on Jim Lahey's technique outlined here.  A post back in May 2012 gave a link to another excerpt from "My Bread" that has more recipes you should check out as well.

Now with familiarity comes the courage to strike out on one's own.  I've been on quite a Sriracha kick lately and I got to thinking, what about a Sriracha No Knead Bread?  Put that term into Google and what do you get?

No results found for "Sriracha No Knead Bread".

Not acceptable.  Time to blaze a trail.

I call this bread Diablo Bread, The Bread of the Devil.  The Sriracha in the recipe is amped up by copious amounts of crushed red pepper flakes.  The orange-red color of the baked result is a warning that this is not a bread to be messed with.

Before starting, watch this video from the man himself to get an idea what you'll be doing.

No-Knead Bread From the Master

My recipe is along these lines, but my method is somewhat different from the second rise onward.  I also use a round Lodge Combo Cooker rather than the oval shaped Dutch Oven Jim uses.  You'll have to tweak my procedure a bit if you are using the latter.  But I'll tell ya, the Lodge is pretty great for baking bread.  And it is an awesome abuse of Amazon's free shipping policy.

Lodge LCC3 Combo Cooker

So without further adieu...

Diablo Bread, The Bread of the Devil

Inspired by Jim Lahey's No Knead Breads 

Ingredients

400 grams unbleached all purpose flour
7 grams table salt
⅜ teaspoon instant dry yeast (down from the ½ tsp I originally called for)
1 ½ tablespoons crushed red pepper flakes (Yes.  That is a lot.  Not a typo)
260 grams cool water (55 - 65 °F)
60 grams (4 tablespoons) Sriracha sauce (Don't wimp out!  Not a drop less!)
Wheat bran for dusting

Tools

Cooking spray or oil
Parchment paper
Tin pie plate
Dough scraper
Plastic wrap
Lodge LCC3 Combo Cooker or cast iron Dutch Oven
Serrated knife
Oven mitts
An ice cube

 Procedure

1.  Mix the flour. salt, yeast, and pepper flakes together in a medium sized bowl.  Add in the water and Sriracha sauce.  Mix using a wooden spoon or your hand until all of the flour is incorporated and the dough is sticky.  This should only take 30 seconds or so.  Add more water if the dough seems too dry.
2. Transfer the dough to another bowl lightly oiled or sprayed with cooking spray.  This will help prevent the dough from sticking when you dump it out after the first rise, and this in turn helps to prevent the dough from deflating.  The dough will increase in volume probably by a factor of four at least, so be sure to use a big enough bowl.  Use a bowl that is red on the inside to amp up the viciousness that is this dough.
   
   
3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap so the surface of the dough doesn't dry out during the bulk ferment (a fancy-schmancy baker's term for first rise).  Let it rise at a temperature around 70°F in a spot out of the sun for 18 hours.  Or you could be like me (everybody should be like me) and put the bowl in a water bath maintained by your home-built Sous Vide rig at a rock-solid 21.2°C.  You'll have to shorten the rise or use a little less yeast if rising at temperatures that are a lot warmer, but try not to get into this pickle in the first place.  The long rise time contributes to the flavor of the loaf.
4. While the dough is rising, cut a circular piece of parchment paper to fit the Combo Cooker using the pan as a template.  Cut it wide enough to stick up above the edges of the cooker.  You'll be putting this paper in the pie plate for the dough's second and final rise.
   
5. After the 18 hour bulk ferment (fancy-schmancy!), generously flour your work surface.  The circular piece of parchment paper should be sitting on top of your pie plate.
   
6. Gingerly tip the bowl containing the risen dough over the floured surface, taking care not to deflate the dough.  You don't have to have your dog looking out the window when you do this, but it helps.
   
7. I usually end up with a round blob of dough that I want to shape into a ball.  To do so, I first use a dough scraper (actually a plastic drywall knife, 'cause that's how I roll) or my hands to gently fold two opposite ends of the blob toward the center to make kind of a rectangle.  Then I use my hands and gently grab one long end of the rectangle and roll it up towards the other to get my ball of dough.  Place the ball of dough seam side down in the center of the parchment paper that is sitting on the pie plate.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Dust the top of the dough with some wheat bran.  Cover the whole thing with a clean tea towel or plastic wrap to keep the top of the dough from drying out.  I use a shower cap stolen from a hotel - the loose elastic does a great job of getting around the pie plate without pulling the plastic too tight.
   
9. Place the pie plate containing the dough in a nice warm spot for the second and final rise (around 75 - 80°F).  I put it in the oven with the light on if the house is cool.  I let this rise go for two hours.  It should look something like this when it is done.  Note the little dimples on top.  I was giving this dough the poke test: the idea is that you poke the bread and the dough should hold the indentation when it has properly proofed.  Don't go longer than you need to here, or the dough will be over-proofed and rise poorly in the oven.
   
   
10. Half an hour before the end of the final rise, put the Combo Cooker into your oven with the rack set in the middle.  Set the oven to 475°F.  You want to be using the Combo Cooker with the shallow frypan part as the base and the deep cooker part as the lid.  It is beyond obvious that if you are doing the final rise in the oven with the light bulb on, that you should take the dough out first.
11. After the half hour preheat at 475°F, take the cover off your risen dough and place it next to your oven.  Have your ice cube and serrated knife standing by.  You are going to work quickly here.  Quickly and extremely carefully.
12. Put on your oven mitts and take the smoking hot Combo Cooker out of your oven and on to the top of your stove.  Take off your oven mitts, pick up your pie plate and gently set it about halfway into the pan of the Combo Cooker.  Slide the parchment paper with the dough sitting on top out of the pie plate and onto the pan, using your fingers on the parchment paper to maneuver it into place.
    
13. Once the dough is centered on the pan, use a serrated knife to cut a slash or two onto the top of the dough.  The dough will rise in the oven and expand where you make these cuts.
    
14. Working really fast, put an ice cube between the pan and the parchment paper under the dough.  The idea is to add extra steam inside of your cooking vessel and prevent a crust from prematurely forming on the bread that would inhibit its rise.
    
15. Get you oven mitts back on, flip the deep part of the Combo Cooker upside down, and use it to cover the pan.  You'll hear the ice cube sizzling away even with the cover on.  Put the Combo Cooker into your hot oven.  Keep the oven temperature at 475°F.  Let the bread cook covered for 30 minutes.
    
16. After 30 minutes, take the cover off the bread and gasp at its beauty.  You'll want it to go back into the oven until the top is a nice dark brown.  This usually takes only an extra five to ten minutes.  Keep a close eye on it so it doesn't burn.  I usually set the lid of the Combo Cooker under the pan to serve as a heat shield for the bottom of the bread to prevent it from getting too dark.  If you have a thermometer, you'll want to see around 205°F in the center of the loaf when it is done.
    
17. Once the loaf is a nice dark brown, take it out of the pan and set it on a wire rack to cool for at least an hour.  You'll be rewarded by a lovely crackling sound as the bread cools if everything went well.

Notes

• If you don't have a kitchen scale to measure out these quantities, go buy one.  I'll wait.  Every  baker should have a scale.
• The usual No-Knead recipe calls up ¼ teaspoon of yeast instead of the ⅜ teaspoon I use here.  It seems the spices kick the hell out of the yeast so extra is required.
• A little less salt is used in this recipe vs. the usual because of the salt in the Sriracha.  The liquid volumes were adjusted accordingly as well.

This bread goes great with pretty much everything.  It is a match made in heaven with chili.  Or pop it into the toaster oven with some sliced cheddar on top.  Me?  I often eat it plain without even butter or jam.  I just close my eyes and savor every bite.  If you are thinking there is something that this bread won't go with, you are wrong.

This bread is a favorite of mine, and not just because I invented it.  The Sriracha and crushed red pepper flakes are great in combination but are not overwhelming - the bread naturally moderates the heat and you are left with some pretty fantastic flavor that can stand up well with anything you dare pair it up against.

Go Make Some.  Now.