Smart phone? Nope, I still have the same old stupid phone, and I've never learned how to text and the phone is seldom charged anyway, Elery and I currnetly have 6,000 minutes to use on the account, LOL. However, Elery has an iPod that I bought him for a Christmas/birthday gift, so I'm going to check out that link. When I get home tonight, because the office computer hits the "Sonic Wall" and won't let me access it, of course. Annie

Sue- Is it the wisdom of the ages or science from the experts? This is what I've read from "experts" - I'm just the person sitting behind the keyboard typing after I've gathered a stack of books by my side. According to Shirley Corriher in "Cookwise", salt plays three roles in dough: It enhances flavor, controls bacteria, and strengthens dough by tightening gluten. She even suggests if the water you are using in your breads is soft (low mineral content), you'll want to be sure to add high-mineral salt - which are natural sea salts, not table salt. The minerals in natural sea salt also play into yeast activity. But what is too much salt... As little as 1/3 t. of salt per cup of flour can be enough to noticeably slow yeast growth. Salt can be added intentionally to slow yeast growth. More salt may be added to dough, such as in a bakery setting when you would want to slow down fermentation until the next shift of workers comes on. The small amount of salt we add to yeast and naturally-leavened breads doesn't really give a salty taste, nor does it contribute largely to the daily sodium intake in a normal diet or normal sodium amounts for people who aren't watching sodium intake, but salt helps to bring out the flavor of the fermentation. As anyone who has ever left the salt out of a recipe can attest, bread without salt is somewhat insipid - but that's because our taste is often trained to like salt and salty flavors. Then there's all the hub-bub about when to add salt. I wait to add salt towards the end of the kneading, along with the fat. I only add the fat early if I want a close crumb - or an almost cake-like texture (for sandwich bread as an example - breads that need to hold together when held in your hands and keep spreads from dripping through). The gluten will have an easier time developing, and will develop quicker (meaning you will need to spend less time mixing and kneading) when you wait to add the salt after gluten development. Once you add the salt, the gluten really tightens up. You can actually feel the difference in the dough. Peter Barham in "The Science of Cooking" says "...the salt acts to modify and control the action of the yeast. Harold McGee in "Keys to Good Cooking A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes" and "On Food and Cooking": Salt contributes to a balanced taste and intensifies aroma in bread, but it also affects structure and texture. Salt makes a dough less sticky, and gluten more stretchy, and the finished loaf lighter. In sourdoughs, salt helps control the growth of acid-producing, gluten-weakening bacteria. [So there's that bacteria mentioned by Shirley Corriher as well.] Salt isn't a leavening agent, but it helps control the leavening agent, as you thought. You can make perfectly good bread with very little or no salt at all (other than the naturally occurring salts in water, other ingredients, etc. - there is always a source for some sodium, even without added salt). But as one book pointed out, when it came to taste tests, people liked breads with more salt than less salt. As a person who doesn't use a lot of salt in their diet, I'd choose less salty flavor - so flavor is subjective. When using less salt in breads, you just need to watch the rise because it will be faster than normal. Peter Barham, in his book, intentionally made bread with lower salt amounts to see how little it could actually be, and he came to the conclusion you didn't need salt at all and that the bread tasted fine. "Fine" isn't what most people expect homemade bread to taste like, however. So you can use a long cold rise to develop flavors, instead of adding salt, or as much salt. And there is the old rule of thumb... If you reduce the salt in a bread recipe, be sure to reduce the yeast as well. So if you cut the salt by 50%, reduce the yeast by 50%. I was also taught in cooking and baking classes that a little salt makes sweet things taste sweeter, hence the ever-present "pinch of salt" in things you wonder what difference did that small amount actually make? There are a lot of factors to keeping bread fresh. Choose enriched breads and sourdough, instead of lean doughs. If you want your bread to stay fresh longer add fenugreek or rosemary because these ingredients are antioxidants, "they prevent oxygen in the air from combining with compounds in the dough, thus acting as a preservative by preventing chemical changes in the dough." I add an acid ingredient to whole wheat breads in the form of ascorbic acid, which is another antioxidant you can add to aid keeping bread fresher longer, but also counteracts the effects of Glutathione in wheat germ, which can damage the gluten strands. Yeast also works better in a mildly acidic mixture. But don't add an acid to naturally-leavened breads because they are already acid enough. My personal favorites for keeping bread fresher longer are coconut oil, agave nectar, and chia seeds - and you won't find these ingredients discussed in any books by "experts". Coconut oil was used in commercial baked goods until the mid-20th century because it helped lengthen shelf-life. As a medium-chain fat, coconut oil doesn't go rancid as quickly as polyunsaturated oils. When pressure was put on the market to use hydrogenated fats and polyunsaturated fats, the shelf-life was shortened, foods went rancid quickly, and they had to find new stabilizers and chemicals to use instead of coconut oil. Coconut oil was used for popping corn at the movies and sports stadiums. They popped large amounts long before it was needed and packed into containers to be used later, and using coconut oil in it kept it fresher longer. Nobody likes stale popcorn.... Coconut oil aids in slowing down mold growth as well. Agave nectar does an excellent job of holding moisture in baked goods, as does chia seeds. Both keep moisture in the crumb of breads from migrating through the crust, so they slow staling - which is an interesting read in and of itself. If you are going to freeze your bread, there is a lot of science about using honey in your breads instead of sugar. The honey will aid in keeping the moisture in the crumb, and I suspect agave nectar has a similar quality. Hope the experts have given you the answers you were looking for. -Grainlady

Thanks everyone. To tell you a little more, I no longer have a desktop and use a laptop for everything. My I've had 2 touchscreen laptops, so I have a keyboard for typing and use the touchscreen for navigating, editing and things you might use a mouse or the touchpad for. My son has left his personal laptop with me to use while he's been working, so I am trying the Mac without a touchscreen. I do find it easy to type on and like that. I am not finding myself using the touch bar for the most part. I do find myself touching the screen to try to scroll up or other things I would do so quickly before. I'm not ready to throw it out the window, so I guess I might adjust. I do not like to type on the touchscreen. No. I did that for a day or two on the laptop once the keyboard started dying and I figured I had that end around -- but it drove me crazy. I couldn't even see what I was typing if it was anything more than a short line or two. It was short lived anyway -- it disappeared and now just has a ghost -- just a line to show where the top edge should be. I miss it only because there is a laptop sitting idle over there and I hope I got everything backed up because I don't now that I will have any access to it. My boys both have ipads and use them for a variety of things - a lot of music support. The youngest got his because it was the preferred way to have his college choir sheet music and he could use it for textbooks and class materials in other classes and have so much less to carry around. The oldest got his when he was talking about getting one and I gave him the one I had and just wasn't using. Though I have considered the ipad pro with keyboard as an option now. I think the comment that change is hard sums it up. I will need to make some changes no matter what I decide, but I'm nowhere near as frustrated with this Mac as I was with WIndows 8 when that first came out. That is encouraging.

When I was learning script ( cursive ) we had little bottles of ink and a nib in a holder. I think we'd buy the nib and holder from the teacher. The desk had an ink well in the upper right hand corner for the ink bottle. What a mess that was trying to not only learn the curves and swirls but also how to use that nib without a huge blot happening ! Makes me sound like a real dinosaur ! When I got to junior high it was so very cool to have a fancy refillable ink pen with colored ink. I preferred turquoise ! I learned a lesson when I took the pen on an airplane and the ink leaked all over my purse ! We had a local drugstore that had a beautiful display of Estabrook pens and Shaeffer ink.. It was a special rite of passage to be able to choose my own pen . There were short ladies' pens and the longer mens'. I had a tortoise shell color pen and also a pale peach one and kept those for most of my life, finally selling them for a small fortune on ebay to someone in Japan !