Made some bagels a week or two ago, and didn't get a chance to post anything about them until now. They turned out pretty good – the best so far. I've been using this recipe I found online with a few modifications. First, I don't use any cornmeal as I don't like that taste nor texture. Second, I use a baking stone for a lot longer than just finishing the bagels.
Also, I don't usually (except this time) make the bagel shape in the way they suggest – rolling out long strips is not as effective, I've found. I usually start with a round piece of dough, and push my finger through the middle, then make the whole larger by spinning the dough around my finger. It always has made good consistent bagel shape.
This time around I tried the rolling out strips method and although the bagel hole was bigger, I didn't like how you could see where the dough connected to itself. I tried making this as transparent as possible, but it still didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted.
The texture and chewiness this time around was good – so I am worried the only way to get that is to use the roll out method – I will have to try again soon to see if I can replicate it with the other way.
Regardless, they were good to eat!
Bagels
Goodbye Palm Pre and Sprint
After only a few weeks, I've found a number of things wrong with the Palm Pre I posted about back in September. I know, I know, I switch phones a lot and have been pretty impatient the last few years with these sorts of things, but I really made a bad choice with the Pre.
Initially I was OK with how cheap the phone appeared to be because of all of the webOS features, and the speed that I got from Sprint's network over AT&T. But that waned quickly with the other things that started cropping up. Sure, the Sprint network was better than AT&T, but it still sucked at home much of the time, and at work as well. When it worked, it worked very fast – the fastest download times I've ever seen on any phone or aircard.
webOS was initially very exciting – being able to have multiple running apps, and the whole card concept. But the lack of apps available, and the quality of the apps really made the phone only useful for a few things. It also was extremely slow to do basic things, especially the calendar. On top of that, the basic PIM apps were missing key features – most notably the Tasks functionality for my use case. It was very basic, and didn't have any of the features that tasks in Outlook has. Being able to create tasks on the phone when I'm out and about or in a meeting, and then having them on my PC is important so I don't forget something.
The most irritating thing was how poorly the phone was made. Initially I thought it was something I would be able to live with, but it became a big problem. The phone would shut off randomly at different times. There were a lot of posts on the 'net about the battery being loose, and how to fix it. It never worked for me. Additionally, the power on/off/sleep button fell off on the first phone I had. The second phone had the same problem as the first with randomly shutting off. It also had keys that would occasionally stick, and the slider would never open or close completely.
webOS still looks very intriguing to me, and I'm sure in a year or two it will be developed enough that it will be a reliable alternative to the iPhone and Andriod, but for now, it's just not ready for prime-time, and especially on a network that has a lot of issues, and on hardware that is buggy.
So where did I go? Off to Verizon and the Motorola Droid…but more on that later.
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