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This post might be better labeled "confession" than "hint." Longtime readers will know that I am that rare person who uses his bread machine regularly, currently a Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme. I still use a recipe from one of my Breadman machines, modfied only with a substitution of 3/4 cup of white whole wheat flour (WWW) for an equal amount of white flour. No one in our family really likes traditional whole wheat flour, but this small substitution adds a little nutrition and actually lends some nice structure to the basic sandwich bread we use all the time.
I've used the same recipe for years and worked out the ratio of using 3/4 cup WWW in a total amount of 3 cups of flour as the maximum amount of WWW without making the yeast fight to rise the loaf reliably. For years, when getting out my ingredients and measuring devices, I would get out a one cup measure, a 1/4 cup measure and a 3/4 cup measure. Now that 3/4 cup measure came from a set we got at the King Arthur Flour store on a pilgrimage to Norwich, VT, a sacred place for bakers. In addition to the traditional 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 and 1 cup measures, our set includes a 2/3 cup and this 3/4 cup. One doesn't know one needs those (or a 3/4 teaspoon) measure until one owns them. Even owning this set for years, I left an opportunity for efficiency on the table (er...counter). See, I would measure 2 cups of white with my 1 cup measure, then 1/4 cup of white, then 3/4 cup of WWW with that measure. Any mathematicians shaking their heads yet?
In the last few months, I figured out that I was replacing one part out of four with WWW. That means I could do all my flour measuring with one measure - the 3/4. Now, I fill that one three times with white flour and once with WWW. There are multiple benefits:
- It's faster to use one measure than three for the actual measuring step.
- It keeps my counter cleaner to not put down two used measures (the other option of plunking them in the sink one by one always made me impatient).
- I wash one cup measure instead of three.
The strongest hint in this post is to acquire more finely-graded cup measures like this awesome-if-not-cheap set. The other one we love is a 1/8 cup measure from another set. While one doesn't see 1/8 cup in recipes much, one sees 2 tablespoons often, and 2 T = 1/8 C. Boom! Then, once you've acquired them, pay more attention than I did and find ways to cut down on the number of measures you have to use.
Again, this somewhat-neglected feature offers a baseball hint, not a household hint. I've gone to enough games at The Best Ballpark in Baseball to know which sections I like to sit in under different conditions - daytime, evening, cool weather, hot weather - but I always wish I knew better which direction the seat numbers go in any given section. After all, Pirates fans are getting more knowledgeable but are still extremely rude in terms of at what (key) points in (close) ballgames they decide they NEED NACHOS RIGHT NOW! If you're sitting next to an aisle that is between you and the field, this means a lot of people in extra large Free Shirt Friday shirts sauntering between you and the action at inopportune times.
The most recent game I attended was the screw-the-kids day game during the first week of school. Not all the kids around here were back in school, but most were. Scheduling a day game right after they go back seems cruel, but I managed to get over that and enjoy the game for myself with one guy friend and zero kids in tow. Having purchased from Stubhub what turned out to be good number seats, I bemoaned my lack of knowledge of seat number order at PNC Park. A neighboring fan apologized for being nebby and then dropped some knowledge on us.
She said that PNC Park's seat numbers ascend in the same direction that the section numbers ascend. So if you're seated in section 127 on the third base line, seat numbers start at 1 next to section 125 and go up toward section 128. Why is there no section 126? Hmm, can't say.
If you notice, looking at the complete seating chart, this means that down the right field line, the higher numbers are closer to home plate, the exact opposite of the order on the third base line. Another caveat is that while knowing this rule of thumb helps, your actual seat preferences may vary based on the number of seats in a particular section. Finally, there might be a twilight zone directly behind home plate in which all bets are off. On the bright side, there should be no one jiggling down an aisle between you and the field there. You only have to worry about those slowly shuffling down the row with their pierogie stacker and two IC Lights.
I would love to hear in the comments a) if this helps you and b) if it's true at your hometown ballpark.
