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16ruedelaverrerie · 4 years

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I have a question. How do you come up with ideas for dishes for Les Mignardises? Especially Gavin's ones? I can't get that fish from last chapter out of my head! I enjoy this fic a lot, you are a great writer.

What an actual goddamn DREAM of a question, I’m so happy to discuss this that I wonder if I hypnotized myself and sent in an anon ask just so that I could go on about it. But NO! I am very sad but I am not quite that sad in quite that way. And I am sorry for insinuating that you are a figment of my imagination, anon! That’s how much I appreciate this ask, thank you so much! HERE IS A REALLY LONG ANSWER THAT TUMBLR HAS KINDLY PLACED BEHIND A DASHBOARD CUT.

The salmon and steak tartare from the pop-up flashback has to pull a significant amount of weight since it’s what undergirds Nines’s relationship with Gavin -- the curiosity (what made me chase you) and the tenderness (what made me stay) both -- so it was very much a thing I had to think about a lot. In terms of the triaxial way that I like to conceptualize fics, it’s a dish that has to not only imbue the story with flavor, but address its core. Which means that the foremost consideration I have to keep in mind is:

This dish needs to echo its role in the narrative.

Here, the dish is what alerts Nines to the possibility that the things which most seem out of place may be able to contribute great value and beauty nonetheless; so this has to be a dish that chafes, in what it is and does. It has to sit uneasily with the occasion, the genteel safety of a pop-up showcase for chefs who don’t yet have the status or clout to be public contrarians.

Something that a lot of people still find distasteful is being confronted with where animal protein comes from. Because reminders of this often hinge around the use of odds-and-ends parts -- head, foot, organs -- at this stage, I’m pretty sure that the dish needs to include some part of some animal that a lot of (American, at least) diners would find to be aggressively visceral. Head, I decide, because the drama of it delights me.

This dish includes an animal head.

A pig’s head, maybe? A sheep’s head? At the same time, the dish is also Gavin’s general middle finger to the way that things are done, and an expression of how he sits uneasily within the tradition of fine dining. I want the dish to be angry at certain conventions within restaurant culture that Gavin might disagree with.

In its most conservative incarnations, “surf and turf” is a disgusting bourgeois display of food as symbol of wealth, as opposed to its myriad other potential purposes such as nourishment, community cohesion, artistic innovation, or cultural expression. You take two grossly overrated and overpriced cuts -- filet mignon and lobster tail -- and you plop them down on a plate next to each other because WHY? They don’t do anything FOR each other! It’s just a PLATTER OF TRASH FOR BANKERS TO IMPRESS EACH OTHER WITH. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Anyway, I figure that this kind of surf and turf might infuriate a chef whose M.O. is to make the most out of the least, to leave nothing behind. Also that was a little unfair to lobster tail, which is a fine piece of protein, if overhyped at the expense of the rest of the lobster. But filet mignon as steak can go fuck itself.

This dish is a fuck-you to classic surf and turf.

Now I need to decide on an animal head that might belong in a hot take on surf and turf! Another factor at play in the pop-up flashback is that it’s being hosted by a Japanese chef at a Japanese restaurant, where Gavin has been working and learning for a while now. Is that because a huge part of what I know and enjoy about food is East Asian? YES! LET ME LIVE!

The benefit of going with salmon head for the surf portion of the dish -- as opposed to using a head for the turf -- is that salmon head is easier and cheaper to source (even though ones as huge as described in the story can only really come from some kinds of salmon). It’s also an ingredient that Zabuton is likely to use on a regular basis, since it’s an established part of Japanese cuisine, giving Gavin familiarity with it and a starting point for building his dish. Also also, it’s really fatty, and since Gavin in this story is the kind of chef who gravitates towards blisteringly high heat, I like the thought of what burning the shit out of that head would do.

This dish includes salmon head.

What do I do about the turf? If the surf element and the turf element of the dish are to interact with each other in mutually beneficial ways, the turf can’t be too assertive; it shouldn’t overpower the salmon. Like, grilled flank steak? Great, yes, please, but maybe not the right choice for this.

Fortunately, steak tartare simultaneously tastes subtle enough and looks brutal enough to be a good counterpoint. In a lot of ways, it’s a productive mirror image of the salmon; it’s raw whereas the salmon is charred, it’s lean whereas the salmon is fatty. Nice!

This dish includes steak tartare.

I also do know -- again, from East Asian cooking -- that raw beef works well with salmon roe. Ikura echoes the salmon head that’s in the dish already, so in it goes. Some egg yolk to bind the tartare might not go amiss, especially since I want it to be a scoop-and-eat party-platter dish.

There’s brininess in the ikura and salt throughout, but because it’s essentially an ANIMAL PROTEIN BOMB dish, it needs something sharp to cut all the richness. In addition, everything so far has also been pretty soft; let’s add some elements of acidity and textural interest. Tartare loves a little mustard! Toss in the crackle of a puffed grain (why not millet, rice feels too fragile), the fiber of the chives, and the crunch of rakkyo (doing double duty with its vinegar).

This dish includes ikura, egg yolk, pickled mustard seed, puffed millet, chives, and rakkyo.

For a while I thought that the scoop on the side would be shrimp senbei, because that’s what “chips, but Zabuton” made me think. But I didn’t really love how delicate the senbei would be in this particular dish. It felt like the tartare and salmon would turn the senbei into, like, a thick paste in your mouth?? I was looking for something thinner, a lateral move from a potato chip-- so I tried to think of other ingredients on the root-tuber-rhizome continuum. What can be sliced thin and baked brittle?

I liked lotus root as a choice because it has the right snap, it’s light -- visually as well, with all its perforations! -- and it has more of a pronounced earthy flavor than potatoes, which seemed like a fun way to mix in some plant quality to offset all the animal. Lotus root it is!

This dish includes lotus root chips.

THE END, STEAK TARTARE ON A BED OF CHARGRILLED SALMON HEAD, GARNISHED WITH EGGS TWO WAYS, SERVED WITH LOTUS ROOT CHIPS ON THE SIDE

lmao WHAT A SELF-INDULGENT POST THIS IS, thank you anon for allowing me to talk shop, you are too sweet and I hope you regret what you have done. Additional thanks to tumblr for read-more cuts. Anon I love you! I can’t believe I’ve rambled on at this length about THE PROCESS OF COMING UP WITH A FAKE DISH FOR A FIC but also, I mean, I can believe it, in the sense that it is something I would jump at the chance to do. Thanks for giving me the chance to do it anon! May the wind be ever at your back and the sun shine upon your path!

#askbox #les mignardises #let me hear your fandom talk #detroit become human

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robinrunsfiction · 5 years

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We Own The Night

Pairing: Frank Iero x Female Reader Rating: General Requested By: @icantemo Word Count: ~2,000 Author’s Note: I had a request from @icantemo for a Frank fic inspired by his song Blood Infections, I hope I accurately captured the mood you were looking for! I’ve been in such a Frank mood lately, so this was fun to write, it’s kinda fluffy, so enjoy!

I wanna try I wanna live all night And burn out bright I want you to know What I can't show the outside It's why I hide But your friends say I'm no good for you What do they know? Please don't listen to a goddamn thing they say Frank watched as (YN) crossed the street with her friends. He was on a smoke break between sets playing at a small dive bar, leaning against the exterior of the old brick building. His heart rate shot up as he saw (YN) look his way, smile and wave.

Frank had been desperately in love with (YN) for ages, but he still hadn't worked up the courage to say anything. He was completely certain she was way out his league and even though he flirted with her, he didn’t really believe she was flirting back at him. He had convinced himself she was just being nice.

He watched as (YN) stopped her friends before they went into the loud, bustling bar a few doors down and motioned toward where he was. The others shook their heads and tried to pull her inside, but he could see her shake her head back and held up a finger, as if to say ‘just one second’.

"Hey," she said with a smile as she hurried down the street to him.

"Hey back, are you gonna come in and catch the rest of my set?"

She glanced back at the other bar where her friends went, as people stumbled in and out the door.

"Don't worry about them," he said, sensing her hesitation. "I'll take care of you," he said as he reached out and rubbed her arm.

(YN) smiled. "I don't doubt you could."

"Please come in. I guarantee the beer is gonna be cheaper here, and a lot less gross dudes are gonna try to flirt with you."

"But you're still gonna flirt with me, aren't you?"

Frank blushed a little and tried to hide it by putting on a look of offense. "Are you calling me gross?" He laughed.

"Definitely not," she laughed back.

He put out his cigarette under his shoe and threw his arm around her shoulder guiding her into the grungy bar. Tonight's our night Just don't hurt me, don't hurt me I'll give you my heart Tonight's our night Just don't hate me, don't hate me For taking your light (YN) found a spot at the bar and ordered a beer as Frank made his way back to the stage. Frank had invited her to this performance after she had already made plans with her friends. She suggested they all go to his show, but no one was interested. When she saw him outside the bar, she knew she couldn’t let him down. Frank was who she wanted to spend her night with. If she was being completely honest with herself, Frank was who she wanted to spend all her nights with.

"Ok, the next one is for a girl who I hope will maybe one day take a chance with a guy like me. It's by ABBA," the crowd groaned and booed, and Frank laughed. "I'm just fuckin with you, it's called 'Blood Infections'."

As he started playing the song, his words reverberated around (YN)'s mind. She and Frank had been friends for a while and flirted less than subtly with each other, but whenever she thought about maybe asking him out, she wondered what her friends would think of the punk that she had feelings for. They'd never give him a chance, they'd never look past the tattoos and get to know the sweet, dog loving musician she knew.

Then she heard the words to the song. The desperation. The longing. The vulnerability. When the song was over, she was on her feet cheering for Frank. His eyes met hers and she grinned at him again, her heart fluttering. It was time to make a change. I need a love I want enough to keep my thirst satisfied I wanna take your hand Make you understand my side Our kind But I know it’s hard for you to let go of the world that you knew Please just close your eyes We’re better off this way When he finished his last song of the night and came off stage, Frank found (YN) at the bar.

"So, what did you think?"

"Frank, you're incredible, your music, the lyrics, all of it."

"What did you think of 'Blood Infections'?" He asked apprehensively

Before (YN) could answer, the door of the bar banged open and a couple of her very intoxicated friends tumbled in.

"(YN), oh my God there you are! We thought that dude you were talking to kidnapped you or something!"

"You mean my friend Frank, who is literally right here?" She snapped back.

One of them came up to (YN) and pulled her away from Frank and whispered loudly in her ear "He's all greasy and gross, you don't like him, do you? Like just wink and I'll lie and say there's an emergency to get you out."

"No," (YN) said shaking her head. "I don't want to go back out with you guys. You're a mess and I like Frank. Just go away, leave me alone."

"But (YN)," her other friend whined. "We wanted to get drunk with you! And see if we could find some cute guys!"

"I found one, good luck to you guys," (YN) replied turning her back on her friends and facing Frank. The scorned women left the bar, whining and huffing the whole way about how lame and weird (YN) had become lately.

"You think I'm cute?" Frank asked with a smirk.

(YN) tried to look casual, but she was blushing. "I mean, that’s what I said, didn’t I? So, umm, since I told my friends to get lost, can you help me get home safe?"

"Are you sure you wanna go home now? Because I think the night has only just begun," he replied looking at (YN) hopefully.

"What do you have in mind, Iero?" Tonight's our night So don't hate me, trust in me I'll show you my world Tonight's our night So don't hurt me, don't hurt me I'm so scared of what's to come Frank put his guitar in his car and then offered (YN) his hand. "Our next stop awaits."

(YN) took his hand and he led the way up the street. "And where exactly is the next stop?"

"You'll see."

After a few blocks, they arrived outside a tattoo parlor.

"I already had an appointment tonight, you don't mind, do you?"

"Not at all," she said intrigued as she followed him into the shop. The tattoo artist named Aaron greeted Frank warmly and asked what he wanted to get done.

"I dunno, I was jonesing to get something done, but I dunno what.” He paused and thought for a moment. “(YN), what's your favorite flower?"

"Oh, umm, I don't even know what they're called. Hang on," she replied as she started searching online. "These," she said holding up her phone. "White anemone, with the black in the middle."

"There we go," Frank said to Aaron.

"Alright, I'll sketch it out and be right back."

"Wait," (YN) said. Both men turned to look at her. "I want it too."

"Sure, I got time," Aaron said. "I'll be right back."

Frank turned to (YN), eyes lit up. "You want to get matching tattoos?"

"Yea, I do. Let’s do this.” In the dark, in the dark, no one hides but me In the dark, in the dark, no one gets away We own the night

Frank went first, finding a small space on his arm for the flower. It was quick and easy, and he didn’t even flinch. (YN) had been considering her own tattoo since she set her eyes on Frank’s, but when she got in the chair, Frank could tell she was nervous. Frank took her hand and kept her distracted.

“Oh wow, its beautiful,” she murmured softly when it was complete.

“You guys are all set.” Aaron said and you went back up to the front of the store. (YN) reached for her purse.

“Don’t worry, I got them both,” Frank said.

“No, you don’t have to, it was my idea-"

“Nope,” he insisted taking out his wallet.

(YN) decided to stop arguing and let him pay. They walked out of the tattoo parlor, hand in hand.and Frank suggested getting a midnight snack.

“Ok, but I’m buying,” (YN) insisted.

Frank lead the way to a late-night food truck that was parked nearby and they each got a burrito and sat down on the edge of a fountain that was lit up as the water bubbled through it, a pale glow cast across them as they ate.

“Frank, I just want you to know how much fun I’m having tonight. Like this is so much better than watching my friends get wasted in an awful bar with awful music again.”

“I’m glad,” he said with a warm, genuine smile. “so uh, you never told me what you thought of Blood Infections',” he replied distracting himself with his food.

“It was great. The passion and the desire, it was incredible. And any girl who you write a song for is incredibly lucky and should realize what’s been in front of her all along,” she said looking up at Frank.

“(YN), I-” he started quietly.

“Frank I really like you. Like a lot. And I was too scared what others might say before and now I’m not. I’d pick you over anyone, any day, Frank. I hope you feel the same way.”

“Yea, yea I really do,” he said nodding emphatically, almost feeling like he could cry tears of joy. He reached out and ran his hand over her cheek and she leaned in. He met her halfway as their lips pressed together.

Everything else melted away, nothing and no one else mattered. All either of them cared about was the other and they didn’t care who knew. When they pulled apart, they were both grinning and blushing like kids. They finished their food and then headed hand in hand back to Frank’s car.

Every night's our night So stay with me, be with me 'Til the end of this world Every night's our night So stay with me, be with me Until the end of this world

Frank parked in front of (YN)’s building and turned to face her. “I’m really glad you decided to come to my show tonight.”

“I’m really glad too, probably the best decision I’ve made in a long time. You wanna come up?” She asked, motioning to her apartment.

Frank stammered for a moment, wondering how to respond. “Yea, sure,” finally escaped his mouth.

They made their way up to her apartment and she let them in. She had was glad she had cleaned up recently, as she had not foreseen bringing Frank over when she left for the night.

She sat down on the couch and pulled her shoes off her aching feet as Frank sat down next to her. They fell back into their conversation about bands they wanted to see live and restaurants that they recommended to each other, and how soon (YN) could get her next tattoo. The conversation only interrupted by moments of making out with each other.

(YN) couldn’t believe that this night had changed her whole life for the better, but she was ecstatic. Frank couldn’t believe his luck, that he took a chance inviting her to his show, in writing that song, and performing it and now she was his.

As the sun began to rise, they were asleep on the couch, wrapped in each other’s arms, exactly where they each wanted to be.

We own the night

Masterlist

#we own the night #frank iero x reader #frank iero fanfic #frank iero fan fic #frank iero imagine #my chemical romance fan fic #my chemical romance fan fiction #frank iero fan fiction

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beatriceinmessina · 5 years

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Halloween Terrorfest, Day VIII: ‘Call in the spirits’

(A note: This one is one of my favorites that I’ve written. I hope you get a laugh or two from it.)

“This is the stupidest idea you have ever had.”

“No, that was when he talked us into eating from those cans and we all got food poisoning for a month.”

“I still think that wasn’t veal in mine. Goldner’s is people. It’s people and we’re cannibals.”

“It’s not people, George, enough with the Soylent Green bullshit,” Edward sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe I agreed to this.”

“You agreed to it because we need your house and you haven’t got any other friends,” Henry said. He frowned and leaned closer. “No wonder you don’t. You’ve got like, the worst case of Resting Sad Face. How can you go around all day looking like a kicked puppy?”

“I agreed to it because Sol’s in Gloucestershire visiting his aunt. If he were here I would have said no and spent the evening at his place.”

“And then you would have died,” said Henry, “because you would have fucked and then a murderer would have gotten you. Rules of horror, remember?”

“Like that hasn’t stopped you from--”

“We’re going to die for this,” John interrupted nervously. “We’re not supposed to mess with spirits.”

“Please,” Edward snorted. “The odds of ghosts showing up are zero.”

“I don’t know about that,” Henry said, apparently deep in thought. “Didn’t you say your parents got this because it was way cheaper than it should have been? Property value dropped because ghosts. You practically live in the Murder House.”

“I hate that season.”

“I still don’t understand why you think Hotel is the greatest thing ever,” grumbled John, who thought the entire show was too ridiculous to be any fun.

“Because James Patrick March is hilarious, that’s why.”

“I thought it was because you think Evan Peters with a mustache and a weird accent is hot,” George said, and Edward whirled on him.

“I told you that in confidence!”

“Well, we all know that I’ve got a thing for Sister Mary Eunice when she’s possessed, so I don’t know why you get to keep yours a secret.”

“Wait,” Henry said, an evil grin spreading across his face, “he told me he wished John Lowe was real so he could, and I quote, ‘rail me until--’”

“ENOUGH!” Edward shouted. “One more word about this and the only ghosts in my house will be you three!”

“Alright, alright,” sighed Henry, throwing up his hands in defeat. “Lead the way, Violet Harmon.” Edward gave him a death glare and unlocked the door.

“If I’m Violet, you’re Dandy Mott.”

“I look like Finn Wittrock? Thanks.”

“No, you’re really fucking annoying and sometimes I want to strangle you.” Edward walked through the door and the others followed. As much as he hated to admit it, Henry was right--his house was exactly the type to have ghosts. 47 Franklin Street was a gothic Victorian mansion in all but size, built of stone with one part of the building sectioned off into an honest-to-god tower with a balcony on its roof. His parents had loved the aesthetic and decorated the interior accordingly, and now he spent half his time at home wondering if he was supposed to inherit the place, marry some wealthy American heiress, and poison her for her money. Except he didn’t have an insane sister to screw, so he’d have to push his wife off the upstairs railing himself. Great.

“Wow,” John said as he came into the entrance hall. “Feels like the House of Usher.”

“Blame my mum and dad. They love that kind of stuff.”

“You hiding any vampire brides in this place?” Henry asked. “Sol will be furious.”

“No,” Edward ground out from between clenched teeth and wondering why he was ever friends with Henry in the first place.

“Where are we going?” George asked as Edward led them up the winding staircase. Edward didn’t answer and continued on his way until they reached his mum’s office, which had a door in the ceiling. Wheeling her chair over its general area, he climbed atop it (which was a bad idea of the highest order because it was a swivel chair and wouldn’t stop twisting this way and that) and, struggling to keep his balance, managed to get a hold on the door-handle and pull it open so he could retrieve the ladder which folded out downwards from it. John’s jaw dropped.

“The attic? You want us to go… the bloody attic? There’ll be rats -- and cockroaches!”

“We got an exterminator the week we moved in, it’s fine up there,” Edward said. “Come on. You wanted a seance and the attic’s the best place for one.”

“Sounds good to me!” Henry chirped, and began his ascent. Edward followed, then George, and finally a reluctant John, muttering about how they would all die of rabies if the rats didn’t bite them to death first. Once they were all safely inside Edward turned on the light and pulled up the door. The attic was spacious and his parents had decided to use it as a storage space for everything they didn’t need all the time, so boxes were stacked up against the wall. Henry looked disappointed, and Edward rolled his eyes.

“What were you expecting? The bodies of my dead wives? Dracula in his coffin? Sorry.”

“Jesus Christ, we’re feeling feisty today. Let’s do this thing.” Henry sat down and pulled out his phone. “I’ve got the instructions right… here…” He looked up. “Come on, sit down.” They all followed his suit and looked to him for further instruction. “Okay, now we join hands.”

“If any of you jerked off before this and didn’t wash your hands after,” George said, “you have to tell me.” John gaped at him, aghast.

“You’re… it’s a school day! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Just a precaution.”

“I hate all of you right now.”

“Join hands already!” Henry barked, suddenly impatient, and, with much groaning and grunting, they did. “Close your eyes.”

“You better not be using this as an excuse to put a spider on my face,” John muttered.

“That was one time and it was the tiniest spider ever. Now shut up, we have to concentrate.” Henry shut his eyes and began to hum off-key. Edward resisted the increasingly strong urge to get up, open the door, and throw him down to the office. Maybe he should have cut class and taken a bus to Cheltenham so he could let Sol fuck him into oblivion. Or fuck Sol into oblivion, whichever. Either way would be incredibly preferable to Henry’s horrible scale-climbing.

“Should we have turned the lights off?” George asked. “I think the lights are supposed to be off for stuff like this.”

“Too late now, fuck you very much,” Henry singsonged, and resumed humming at a somewhat earsplitting pitch. He opened his eyes. “Spirits of this dwelling! We would speak to you!” he intoned, and Edward snorted. Henry glared at him and resumed. “We only need a few minutes of your time. Please grace us with your presence.”

“What if one’s a school shooter?” John whispered. “What if they’re all serial killers? Will we--”

“For the last time, I do not live in the Murder House!” hissed Edward, ready to drop his hands and throw himself down the ladder.

“John, you’re scaring them away!” Henry hissed in succession.

“He can’t scare them away because they don’t fucking exist!”

And then the lights went out.

“The fuck?” Henry whispered delightedly.

“This is how I die,” George moaned. “Tell my dad I’m sorry about the time he found Billy Gibson about to blow Cornelius in my closet.” Despite the darkness, Edward turned to him.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“We were playing Seven Minutes in Heaven and it got out of hand. All I did was make out with Charlie Des Voeux a little,” he added quickly. “And it sucked. He bit my tongue. I have a scar, if you wanna see-”

“No one wants to see your tongue scar, George; why are we talking about this when there’s a ghost?” Henry squealed. “Just listen! I can hear it!”

Sure enough, there was a moaning from somewhere in the house, faint but creeping closer. John squeezed Edward’s hand tight enough to cut off the blood-flow, earning himself what sounded like a feral snap of the teeth at his ear. “Ned, did you just try and bite me?!”

“Well, I can’t think properly when you’re murdering my hand!”

“Who could it be?” Henry wondered aloud, seemingly oblivious to the distress surrounding him. “A man whose wife murdered him when she found out he cheated? A girl who was smothered by her father so she wouldn’t run away? A boy who fell off the roof? Candyman?”

“Candyman’s in America,” Edward grunted, trying to extract his hand from John’s death grip.

“Yeah, but he’s English in the short story. What if he moved back?”

“He didn’t because he’s not real -- ugh. John, let me go!”

“Oh god, I hope he is,” whispered Henry, and shivered.

Edward finally pulled his hand free, groaning and flexing his fingers. “Please tell me you’re not into him.”

“You want James Patrick March to shove his tongue down your throat, I want Daniel Robitaille to tell me he wants me right here and right now in that sexy deep voice of his. We’re all a little weird. Now be quiet!”

“You were the one who started theorizing--”

“Shut up!”

“I hope it’s Betelgeuse,” said George. “He’s fun.”

“Why would Betelgeuse moan like that?” asked Edward, but John had already started singing.

“Panic and stress, oh, ain’t it the best? The sound of a heart exploding inside a chest--”

“SHUT. THE FUCK. UP!” Henry bellowed. “I can’t hear it anymore. You scared the ghost away.”

But there the moaning was again, now coming right up through the floor. On and on it went as they all fell silent, until a few minutes had passed with the source still unrevealed.

“Maybe we need to open the door for it,” John whispered, now positively strangling a white-faced George’s hand. Henry shook his head.

“It’s a ghost. It can just, like, float up or teleport.”

“Maybe real ghosts are different than fictional ones,” George wheezed, tugging his arm away from John fruitlessly. “Open the door.”

“No.”

“Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte,” Edward hissed, bled dry of every single drop of patience, “open the goddamn door so we can get this over with or I will honest-to-gods strangle you!”

“Fine, Dad.” Henry rolled his eyes and got up, walking over to the attic door and pulling it open. (The lights were, disappointingly, still working in the rest of the house.) A second of silence, and then he sucked in a terrified breath. “Oh, no. Oh, shit.”

“What is it?” Edward rose and went over to him. “If you’re screwing with me I swear -- fuck!” he yelped, seeing the source of the moaning.

It was no ghost that stared back at them. It was an enormous fluffy white cat, evidently lost.

Tuunbaq.

“No,” Henry whispered, backing away. “No, no, no. Oh shit, we’re stuck up here!”

“What is it?” George asked, dangerously pale. John made a nervous squeaking noise.

“The cat,” Edward said grimly. “Silna’s cat.”

“Silna’s cat?” John repeated.

“You know. Her cat who hates every single one of us.”

“Oh,” George mumbled, looking rather dizzy. “Her cat who… tried to chew off my arm…”

“John, let him go,” Edward snapped, still hanging over the edge of the open door. “Okay. Maybe we wait for him to leave?”

“He’ll still be in the house, he could maul us the second we think we’re safe,” John said, finally letting go of George’s hand, who flopped over onto the floor. “We should find stuff to throw at him.”

“Yeah, and if we kill him Silna and Harry never talk to us again.”

“That’s a small price to pay,” George squeaked from the floor. “I’m with John.”

Tuunbaq mewed and padded forward, climbing nimbly up the ladder and, before Edward could move, leapt onto his chest, knocking him down and meowing triumphantly, quite pleased with himself.

“Stupid… fucking… cat… get off me…”

“I mean…” Henry grinned. “This is actually kind of cute.”

“Cute? Cute? CUTE?! I have a demon cat on my chest!”

“Yeah, but look at him! He’s all curled up and purring. Like a big fuzzy snowball.”

“I don’t care. Get him off me.”

“Just give me a sec.” Henry already had his phone out and was snapping pictures. “Everyone’s gotta see the latest installment in the Murdering Cat saga.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Edward hissed, flipping Henry off with both hands.

“Ooh, sorry, I’m not willing to be a homewrecker unless you take me out a few times first. Now Fairholme from maths class? There’s a homewrecker. He broke up James Ross and Ann Coulman last month.”

“How?” George asked. “Who’d he screw?”

“Neither. He told Ann he saw James making out with Eleanor Porden in the Tesco car park and she broke up with him.”

“Was James doing that?”

“I don’t know. Fairholme’s a bit weird, I think he just likes destroying people’s happiness.”

“Hello? Demon cat!” Edward shouted. “Get him off me!”

“He’s sleeping now,” John said, leaning over cautiously. “Awwww. He’s not so bad when he’s sleeping.”

“Again, I don’t care. GET. HIM. OFF. ME.”

“Fine, jeez. Maybe we can just, like… push him off you, or something. If we’re careful he might stay asleep.” John cocked his head to the side, observing Tuunbaq carefully.

“Yes, great. Do that before he crushes my ribcage.”

Henry was the first to try, leaning over and cautiously prodding Tuunbaq with a finger. When the cat didn’t respond, he tried pushing him across Edward’s chest towards the floor. Still the cat slumbered. Another push. Another--

Tuunbaq was almost completely on the floor when his eyes snapped open and he launched himself into the air. “MOVE!” George roared with the sudden, thunderous force of a drill sergeant, and they all scrambled backwards from the flying white blur, who landed in the middle of the floor with his head held high.

If cats could smirk, Tuunbaq was doing just that. With another pleased mew he descended the ladder and disappeared from their sight. One by one they crept forth from the corners and peered over the edge. Tuunbaq seemed to be gone.

“We have to look for him,” Edward said, and the others looked at him, utterly astonished. “I am not living for who knows how long in fear of being mauled in my own house.”

“It’s your parents’ own house, technically,” John began, and Henry elbowed him. “Ow! Fine, let’s go. I hate this attic anyway.”

They climbed down the ladder, and, since they knew that splitting up always led to inevitable death in these kinds of situations, stuck closely together as they searched each room on the second floor, and then on the first. Even the basement and the tower yielded no sign of the cat, and once they came up from the former John pointed out an open window.

“He probably jumped out there,” he said. Edward blinked and stared at the window.

“That was closed. I know that was closed.”

“Magic,” Henry whispered, doing jazz hands. “Ghosts. Witches.”

“For the last goddamn time, my house is not haunted, and your stupid seance just proved it.”

“But that window--”

“Can I play a little?” George interrupted, gesturing to the grand piano in the living room. (For some reason it had been gathering dust in the basement when they’d moved in. No one played it, but Edward’s dad thought it pulled the room together.) “We’ve just got the upright at home.”

“Go ahead.” No sooner had George settled at the piano than the requests came flooding in.

“The Beatles--”

“Florence and the Machine--”

“Cabaret--”

“Stevie Nicks--” At the last one George nodded and started to play, picking out some notes on the lower keys before beginning a familiar tune on the higher ones. Edward promptly burst into song.

“Just like the white-winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singin’ whoo, whoo, whoo. Just like the white-winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singin’ whoo, baby, whoo, said whoo. And the days go by like a strand in the wind, in the web that is my own I begin again--”

“Jesus Christ,” said Henry. “Stevie you are not.”

“Yeah, and you can’t sing that well either. And none of us can dance. Do I have to sing this by myself? But that moment when I first laid eyes on him, all alone on the edge of seventeen -- just like the white-winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singin’ whoo, baby, whoo, whoo--”

George, John, and Henry joined in the singing, and, if they hadn’t been so busy only slightly butchering those immortal lyrics, they might have noticed the yellow cat’s eyes staring at them from behind the grandfather clock.

They had spoiled his nap. Tuunbaq would have his revenge.

#halloweenterrorfest #day 8 #the terror #the terror amc #edward little #henry le vesconte #george hodgson #john irving #tuunbaq #my lieutenant sons #(this is dumb and i'm proud of it)#(it's also way too long because i just kept adding to it)#akh's writing #akh.txt

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official-portugal · 7 years

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A (long ass) guide to become a Friendly Tourist ™ in Lisbon

You know, I complain a lot about tourists and all and last night it got me thinking that there might be people out there reading these and wanting to visit Lisbon but feel self-conscious so I want to make one thing clear: we don’t hate tourists, we hate tourism as a phenomenon and the way it’s being dealt with. We also don’t hate tourists, we hate assholes. So I decided to put together a guide on how to become a friendly tourist in Lisbon.

- If you can, avoid AirBnB, although I understand for you guys it might be cheaper that way. But if you pick an Air BnB, chances are the home you’re staying in belonged to someone who got kicked out so you could stay there. So be fucking respectful. Don’t come home drunk at 3AM, don’t make any fucking noise at night. There might be children right upstairs and old people downstairs, so don’t do anything you wouldn’t want others to do to you. There are neighbors in that fucking building, people who have to go to work, so be fucking respectful.

- Be fucking nice to every worker you come across. In Portugal, whether you’re at the checkout or having your order being taken by the waitress, when these workers approach you, you’re supposed to greet them. Say “good morning”, “good evening”, or just plain “hello”. Also, finish with please, always. If you don’t, I guarantee you, you won’t be treated differently because these people can’t risk their jobs, but you’ll be labeled a cunt. Like, it costs zero. You don’t just come up to someone and say “TWO COFFEES PLEASE”. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT SAY GRACIAS.

- Don’t fucking expect people to speak your language, but they will fucking try, so don’t be a cunt about it. Here’s the thing: in the public schooling system, the average portuguese learns two languages. We are taught french and english and the majority of kids even takes a third language in high school. We understand spanish and italian enough to communicate. So we understand what you’re saying, but it doesn’t mean we can speak it. But are you really demanding that we, who already speak 3 languages, speak yours as well you fucking dildo? Also, by “we” I mean naturally the youngest generation. Older people? Not so much. People working in tourism offices are making an effort, they know way more than you and they’re not there to cater to your needs. If you see them struggling with your language, help them. Also, if you disrespect them while you’re asking for directions, I can assure you they’ll give you the wrong advice out of spite, and you deserved it.

- We’re not a tipping kind of country but: we appreciate tips. What I am saying is, any tip is extra money, so it’s welcomed, but we are not culturally taught to monetarily award someone for their good services, instead we praise them. If you do come from a country that tips a lot, you should know we don’t have a “tipping rule”. Even if you leave just a couple of coins, it’s appreciated. But if you don’t come from a tipping kind of country, don’t feel obligated to do it. What you can do is praise their work. Thank them for their kind service. Tell them they’ve made your experience better. That means a fucking lot when you work in tourism because usually yall just see us as punching bags.

- There’s a difference between Pastel de Natal and Pastel de Belém. Both are custard tarts, both have different recipes. The first one, the Nata, can be found in literally any café. The second, the Pastel de Belém, can only be found in their official factory in Belém, across the street from Jerónimos. When you get there, you will see that the queue is super fucking long but don’t worry, they’re used to it and they have an efficient system. I promise you won’t be there for longer then like, 7 minutes.

- Canned sardines are not traditional. I don’t know who came up with this bullshit but I can guarantee you it’s just marketing. Sardines ARE traditional, just NOT canned. Canned sardines were the cheap, canned food the poorest of the poor ate back during the dictatorship. Usually, a whole can was shared by a family. So it kinda makes me offended that a symbol of poverty is trending, but aigh. The sardines we do eat traditionally are roasted outside on a cooker, sort of like a barbecue. THOSE are traditional. (By the way, you want to eat THE ABSOLUTE BEST, take the ferry across the river and pick a restaurant in Cacilhas, I guarantee you that’s the best place to eat sardines).

- Just because you can see the fucking Christ right across the river, it doesn’t mean it’s right there and that you can just get there. I can’t believe I had to explain this several times to tourists, but that Christ is standing on a fucking cliff. You can take the ferry, sure, but it won’t take you there, like, this is basic knowledge, I’d assume. There’s a service that cost 20€ and lasts for 2h and it stops there for a long time, if you’re one to complain about it a lot, take that. If you don’t mind grabbing your own ass and going there yourself, take the ferry and then take the 101 Bus, last stop.

- There are three ways to get to Belém: tram, train and bus. And yes, by foot is too fucking far. Like, 1h walk far. All of them will be super fucking crowded. You might get luckier with the buses, since for some reason tourists seem to avoid them. The queue in Cais do Sodré is going to be too fucking long, and I honestly do not care one fucking second that it’s an inconvenience for your vacation because we, who depend on it to go to work, take 2h for it as well. The tram is going to be crowded and it's going to take you some 45 minutes to get there on a very bad day. Live with it. That’s the reality of the city, and this is a reality YOU created by coming here en masse, not us. So don’t fucking complain that we don’t cater to your needs because, remember, your inconvenienced holiday means hundreds of portuguese people are getting late for work and taking 4h a day in public transportation. So again, I do not give one flying fuck.

- Tram 28 is a public transportation not meant for you. You, as a tourist, fucked it up, keep that in mind. If you want to ride the traditional trams, there’s a touristic service made specifically for you that works as a hop on hop off and it does a wider route than 28. My advice is take that one, it has no thieves and you can sit down, and it’s two different routes (green tram and red tram). But if you do want to take the public one, then my advice is: take the 12 instead. If you want to get on 28, begin the route from the starting point at Estrela. It will be calmer there. If you want to go to the castle, then no, the tram isn’t the only way. Bus number 727 stops right at its door and it’s usually super empty. Take that one.

- Saint Geroge’s Castle is completely fake. Not a fucking stone in there is real. There are real ruins there, of course, but they aren’t even of a castle, they’re of an “Alcazaba”, an administrative center back when the moors were in portugal. That’s why the neighborhood next to it is called “mouraria” - the moorish neighborhood. Yes, there was a castle there from the 14th century onwards, but very little was left of that. The whole thing you’re seeing? Completely rebuilt in the 20th century. It’s even fascist propaganda in a way.

- Tuk Tuk drivers don’t know shit of what they’re talking about. The chances of them making shit up for you are like, way higher than you can imagine. You can’t comprehend the bullshit I’ve caught them telling tourists, like the Lisbon Cathedral is from the 19th century. They’re not tour guides, they’re fucking drivers. The info they’re giving you is generic and easily obtained. they’re speaking to you as a portuguese person who knows their traditions, but they don’t usually know shit about history and art because they’re not required to. So if you get on a Tuk Tuk, keep that in mind and don’t demand too much from the driver. And also, chances are they’re bullshitting you. I know one Tuk Tuk driver who is an Art History graduate and masters degree and is a great tour guide, since he’s someone I trust a lot with the history of the city, so if you really want to get on one and be real about it, hit me up and I’ll hook you up with him.

- Don’t make a fuss about the supposed “drug dealers” selling weed in broad daylight in Baixa. First of all, literally everyone in the city except you, tourists, know that what they’re selling is not drugs, it’s bay leaf squished into a powder, and I have to give it to them, their scheme is pretty fucking brilliant because it’s prompted tourists to go to the police and complain that “the drugs this guy sold me aren’t real” lmao. But this is a situation that again partly resulted out of mass tourism. So shut the fuck up because I know damn well it would take me one day to find out where I could get high in your country. And also, me as a citizen can’t do shit about it (BECAUSE THOSE AREN’T DRUGS LOL).

- Don’t be fucking unpleasant about the homeless and the beggars. Fucking really? There’s a high level of poverty in here. We’ve been saying for years but if you choose to believe your Time Out articles, then that’s not my fault. But be fucking respectful. Life isn’t cheap here, and we’re having it hard.

- Please understand, once and for all, that Fado is pretty normalized. Like, it’s fucking everywhere. Every goddamn souvenir shop you’ll walk into, it’s gonna be playing fado. Restaurants, cafés, a fucking cab, same thing. I know it’s been sold as the traditional song of the people, poor and desolate living in the streets of Alfama, but that’s not it anymore. It’s been classified as World Intangible Heritage which means an incredible effort is being made to preserve it, WHICH MEANS the amount of Fado singers has increased incredibly. So there is no “real fado experience” anymore. The real fado experience is either a) a concert, or b) a dimly lit restaurant with a guitar player and a lesser known singer.

- Be careful how much you’re being charged by the taxi drivers. If possible, don’t take a cab at the airport. If you’re moving from point A to point B WITHIN the city, you shouldn’t be paying over 10€. The starting fee is NOT 20€, it’s 3,90€. There’s a little extra added if you call a cab (instead of finding one on the streets) or take it at night. If you can, install the app My TaxiApp, the drivers there are pretty honest. Or use Uber.

- Don’t get on the Hop On Hop Off buses. Personally, I can’t see what’s so appealing about these, but there are a lot of reasons why in Lisbon they don’t particularly work: 1) traffic. You’re gonna be stuck in traffic, it doesn’t matter what time of the day you got on. 2) The waiting period. It shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes for a new bus to come by, but with traffic, we don’t know, and I certainly can’t predict it, since I don’t have a fucking GPS in me. 3) The bus that goes to the Castle is much, much smaller and it fills up way quicker because double-decker buses don’t fucking fit those narrow streets. So chances are you’re gonna be there for a while waiting because they’ll keep coming full. Not my fucking problem. Take a walk instead. There’s a touristic bus called Caravel on Wheels which would be my advice for you. I worked for them, it’s a 1h45 long video tour. The audio is very well put together and explains the history of Lisbon incredibly well, and it has a shit ton of languages, and you can just ignore the goddamn video, trust me. The assistants are super nice and sweet and the driver is amazing. We made a huge effort to make sure you wouldn’t forget that experience, trust me. Also, it allows you to see the most important parts of the city and then decide what you want to see by yourself.

- Don’t disrespect the monuments. Don’t paint on walls. Don’t spit on fountains. Don’t lean on statues, don’t get close to statues, don’t even breathe on statues. Don’t fucking touch the paintings, the artworks, any fucking thing you find inside a museum. It sounds ludicrous that I have to point this out but you wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen.

- Mouraria, Alfama and Martim Moniz aren’t just the most traditional parts of Lisbon, they’re some of the most multicultural and poorest too. So don’t be a fucking racist asshole. There are indian, chinese, and sikh, among others, communities in there, including “illegal” mosques and chinese restaurants. Don’t be unpleasant to the locals. Don’t be disrespectful to the people who live there. The thing about the portuguese is we love tourists, we’re welcoming like that, IF you are nice. These people are happy to welcome you to their neighborhood, trust me, they are, but you gotta be respectful.

- Avoid eating at Rua dos Correeiros. If you don’t know what street that is, it’s the only one in the entire fucking Lisbon where every fucking restaurant will have a guy holding a menu approaching you and BEGGING you to eat there, and I mean every single one. Most of those restaurants are most likely schemes and one in particular, Made in Correeiros, has made the news for convincing tourists to come in while holding a menu where they show prices ranging from 10 to 20€ and then inside suggest something that is at the end of the menu (but they will make sure you won’t see it) and it turns out a dish of salmon costs 500€. That whole street is made of shit like that and not a single one of them is traditional in the least, don’t let them convince you they are because they have a bitoque and bacalhau à brás, those are dishes that any portuguese with half a brain can cook, so walk away.

- Don’t be fucking rude to the bus drivers, and I mean every bus driver, whether it’s touristic bus or city bus, cause they are not required to speak your fucking language. There are a million different tourist offices where you can ask for help. Have your money ready when you enter the bus or recharge your Viva card at the subway. A bus fare is 1,80€ within any point in the city.

- And don’t be fucking rude to the vendors. They don’t control traffic. Especially resellers who don’t represent one company but rather sell several companies, don’t yell at them. They don’t control traffic and they don’t control the bus routes. Explain to them you are disappointed by the service and they will take a note and I can guarantee you they will inform the company about the delay/problem and will exchange your money. They don’t think any less of you and they understand you, as long as you’re nice about it.

- And don’t complain to them the city is disappointing! I don’t give a rat’s ass that Barcelona was more beautiful, go to fucking Barcelona and shut up.

- Don’t walk around with 100€ bills. Use 50€ bills for large purchases only. Most vendors aren’t even allowed to accept 100€ due to couterfit problems. Exchange your money at the appropriate place. Don’t fucking buy 3€ worth of fridge magnets with a 100€ bill like I’ve witnissed, come on. That’s common sense.

- Things that ARE good, traditional souvenirs: porcelain magnets with sardines, tiles, bits of history and the black swallows you see everywhere. Bottles of wine, especially Port, too. Tawny being the best brand. Make sure it’s from Porto/Douro. The bags of salt if they come from Aveiro, otherwise I wouldn’t trust it. The famous red, green, blue or black scarves you see with floral motifs and fringes I guess can be considered traditional too, but be aware that 1) they’re mostly cheap imitations (the realest ones are really expensive) and 2) they’re traditional from way up north like, above Porto even. That’s a part of a very traditional outfit of a very specific region, linked to very specific traditions. Small portuguese guitars are pretty cute. Avoid the cork shit. Cork used to be our main export, now it isn’t and most of that crap I don’t even think it’s made here, it’s just a brand, but someone correct me if I’m wrong. Although the cork postcards are cute. Little stuff like notebooks, postcards and bookmarkers with Fado on it is cute too. A Vida Portuguesa is a store you’ll come across in Baixa that sells shit that looks cute and Art Neauveu-sy that recreates old stuff from the 40s and 50s.

- Things that aren’t traditional at all: canned sardines. Anything being sold on the streets. Certainly not the peruvian CDs on Terreiro do Passo.

- No, you won’t find random postmarks on the streets where you can slip in your postcards. There are a few, but are very scarce. There’s a post office in Restauradores, use that. You can usually buy stamps at any souvenir-looking shop or anything store that says “Casa da Sorte”.

- The green card you use for transportation is good for everything but you need to charge it either with money for all or in the appropriate machines that will give you the specific ticket you’re looking for.

- If you walk inside ANY restaurant or whatever and ask for a cup of coffee, this is what you’ll get. If you want a larger coffee a bit watered down, ask for an abatanado. Or go to Starbucks. A garoto is a strong espresso with a bit of milk, served in an espresso cup. A galão is basically the same, but in a taller glass that will, for 99% of the time, look like this, and the milk is stirred until it forms foam, like a cappuccino without the chocolate. So be specific about what you want. Our coffee is very strong. Ask the waiters, they’re used to the confusion, don’t worry.

- Here’s an important thing to you if you’re stopping by during a cruise: no, you can’t fucking visit the whole city in one day. The city is way bigger than you’re thinking it is. You can’t see it all in 5h. So pick wisely. Here’s how to pick it: Oriente is the modern part of the city, the main attraction is the Aquarium (Oceanário). Belém is the historical part, where most of the main monuments are. Downtown Lisbon is the place you can walk to and discover by foot. If you’re strict on mobility, a Tuk Tuk is the perfect choice.

- Maybe this is kind of asking too much out of a tourist, but it would be great if you had any fucking clue what Lisbon even has. Don’t just stand in Rossio looking puzzled and ask me where the famous tiles are. You should at least know you’re thinking of fucking Porto, which is some 300km away. The worst question you can ask touristic vendors is “so what can you do in this city?” bitch I don’t know. Make your goddamn research. You like art? Here’s a list: Berardo Museum (contemporary). Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (from 14th to the 18th century and colonial art). Azulejo museum (those famous blue tiles). MAAT (contemporary art, also a nice overview of the city). Gulbenkian (antiquity to the 19th century and also a modern art center, a beautiful museum with amazing gardens). The Fado Museum. You want history? Here’s another list: anything in Belém, you don’t have to pay for the tickets even, the tower is not that interesting anyway and you can visit the church of Jerónimos for free, it’s the whole monastery complex you have to pay for. Church of São Roque for the prime example of baroque. The Lisbon cathedral. The Church of Saint Vincent. Estrela Basilica. Ajuda Palace. I don’t know what else, at the top of my head, these are probably the most important.

- The train to Sintra is in Rossio train station, which is NOT physically connected to the subway station. Stop asking me.

- Sintra, Cabo da Roca and Queluz are outside of Lisbon. Yes, you have to get on a train. I don’t care if it’s an inconvenience, I didn’t fucking build it.

- No, the beaches are not exactly in Lisbon. The ones that kinda are, you go to Cais do Sodré, you get on a train and get off at Oeiras or something. Ask someone there. The other ones are around Sintra or across the river. If you want to go across the river to Caparica, there’s a service that costs 10€, picks you up in the morning, takes you back in the afternoon. If you think that’s expensive and decide to go there on your own, then be prepared to pay a lot more and have the worst bus ride of your life. I’ve been riding TST buses my whole life, you have no idea the shit hole they are. Pay for quality, it’s worth it.

- No, you can’t get to Freeport by bus. It will take you too long and cost you a fortune. Pay 10€ for the shuttle. It’s way less than any other means.

- No, you can’t take a cab to Fátima. It’s 127km. Also, don’t take the train there. The train station is 30km away from the city. Take a bus. Rede Expresso is your friend. You can charge your fucking phone in that bus! Also you have wifi.

- Yes, you can walk around holding a cup or a bottle of beer on the streets, nobody cares. Just don’t litter. Throw that fucking thing in the garbage, don’t be a pig.

- No, the guys wearing a black outfit with a cape are not celebrating Hogwarts. That’s a joke someone started that caught on. I never actually thought people would believe it, yet here we are. They’re just university students getting drunk lmao. If you want cheap booze, follow them.

- Just overall be kind, don’t bump into people on the streets, don’t stall, smile and say thank you and good morning/evening/whatever. Remember: say obrigado if you’re a man, obrigada if you’re a woman. We don’t care that your portuguese is shit, we love that you tried and that you ask how we say things. We also don’t care that you’re actually speaking brasilian portuguese. We love that you went through the effort.

- Portuguese people greet with a kiss on each cheek. A handshake is something more business-like. If you don’t like being touched, stay away and wave, we’ll get the message. But if you happen to meet an old lady, then you’re on your own, your cheeks are getting pinched, I can’t save you.

- We’re also incredibly loud. No, we’re not constantly fighting, we’re brutes towards each other. That’s how we show love. Don’t make a point of it.

- But remember: this city isn’t the hip, cheap, hot-spot you’ve been sold. It will look like that if you just wander around Baixa and Alfama and Mouraria, where mostly students and foreigners are. But that is not the reality. The “tradition” you’ve been sold, that supposedly lives in Alfama, practically doesn’t exist anymore. Any story that says “traditional” in it, I can guarantee you is not. The best restaurants are the corner tascas that smell of cooked potatoes and grilled beef. If the owner of a restaurant is fat, the restaurant is good, trust me this is a mnemonic that works. ‘

- Don’t act superior, don’t act like you know this city better because you’ve been here before or because you have portuguese friends. Or because you read this post lmao. Certainly, don’t walk up to tourist vendors and try to convince them YOU know more about traditions in their country than they do, like I’ve had people do with me. Cause you don’t lmao.

Add anything you might think is necessary and sorry for the long ass post

#long post

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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KIDS DIDN'T ADMIRE IT OR DESPISE IT

But if they don't, you're hosed. NYC, and when I asked them about their trip.1 VCs' money? When we started Viaweb, all the time? But I'm willing to let people see an early draft if it will be easy, and common, to try Web-based applications, there is not much going on, and why this company is going to beat them. You're just looking for something to spark a thought. When they can, for example, the idea was discovered during the Renaissance. There have probably been other people who did this as well as its results. What little original thought there was took place in the rankings.

And yet does anyone who was there have any expectation those days will ever return? The danger of symmetry, repetition and recursion. The really dramatic growth happens when a startup only has three or four people, so only three or four people see that, whereas tens of thousands see business as it's practiced by Boeing or Philip Morris. So why isn't he on the list, and indeed, no one will know. If you get someone really good, really early, it might be wise to give him as much stock as the founders.2 That would be a lot more eager to close—and not just because the returns are high but also because such investments are so easy to get distracted working on small stuff to work on big stuff. In fact the second step can propagate back into the first: if something is hard to appreciate is that it has started to be driven mostly by people's identities. Result: this revolution, if it is one, will be unusually localized. The biggest difference is that you focus more on marketing? So they're going to raise $200,000 worth of new shares to the angel; if there were 1000 shares before the deal, this means 200 additional shares.3 When you're riding a Segway is that you get instant feedback from changes: the number of toys my nephews have. Barring some cataclysm, it will work at any college.

Why? As long as things are going smoothly, boards don't interfere much. No one would dispute that he's one of the people who just make exactly what the customers tell them to stop. That one is easy: don't hire too fast. Till you feel comfortable investing, don't invest more than that.4 So you spread rapidly through all the colleges.5 That's an interesting idea.

We are still very suspect of this idea; it forced itself upon them gradually. Often users have second thoughts and delete such comments. But reading Austen is like reading nonfiction. Calder's sculptures never get boring. What do you do differently when you treat programming languages as a design problem instead of a research topic?6 You're not limited to small, artificial focus groups. Good design is suggestive. Maybe mostly in one hub.

The reason it pays to put off the second kind of errand. I didn't, not enough. Particularly the sort written by the architect. That's what I thought before Viaweb, to the extent I thought about the question at all.7 Hackers can be abrupt even in person. The danger of an idea, how do you choose between ideas?8 In a way. Benchmarks are simulated users.9

Sh And so good writers just you wait and see who's still in print in 300 years are less likely to depend on such tricks. The reason is that investors need to get their capital back, ideally after the startup IPOs, or failing that when it's acquired.10 It can be hard to understand, you could succeed this way. Hiring too fast is by far the biggest killer of startups that end up in it are ones you thought of while writing it? Risk and reward are usually proportionate, however: you should be eating fruit. Bad founders seem hapless. Design doesn't have to be created without any meaningful criteria. Maybe the alarm bells it sets off will counteract the forces that push you to overhire.11 So what does Hardy mean when he says there is no such thing as beauty, we need to be software for making them, so we are now three months into the life of a few carefully observed and solidly modelled objects will tend to seem very positive about your company. For the rest of the class, I just skimmed the Cliff's Notes, it turned out. If you get inspired by some project, I can work in noisy places. The designer is human too.

When you use the organic method is the example of the organic method, you don't need the narrowness of the well per se. You can at least use yourself as a good investor in the startups they funded. Odds are it will be easy to tell apart. The only way to get things right the first time. It's a live thing, running on your servers right now. You may be thinking, it's a mistake to conclude that because a question tends to provoke religious wars, it must a make something lots of people want and how to reach those people, there's a period of rapid growth. Most programmers wish they could start a startup. The less you spend, but as long as you have a beachhead. Like any war, it's damaging even to the degree it isn't, it's a bug. This article explains why much of the next generation of software will be easier, cheaper, more mobile, more reliable, and often more powerful than desktop software.

And for many if not most of the advantages of seed firms is the advice they offer. The suburbs of Pittsburgh in the 1970s before they figured out how to make the company good. His class was a constant adventure. Hiring too fast is by far the biggest killer of startups that end up going public didn't seem likely to at first. They can't dilute you without diluting themselves just as much. In my case they were effectively QA and to some extent the unsexy filter is to ask what you wish someone else would build, so that you could not, if asked, explain why one ought to write about it. A lot of them wrote software for them.12

Notes

So it may be a big effect on social ones. Why go to work your way up. When we got to targeting when I first met him, but there has to be a source of food.

The current Bush, for example, to drive the old one. 43. Obviously this is a way to see it in the most valuable aspects of startups is a bad idea, period.

Org Worrying that Y Combinator only got 38 cents on the relative weights? The point of view: either an IPO, or a blog on the grounds that a their applicants come from meditating in an absolute sense, if you're a YC startup and you have to sweat whether startups have elements of both.

The shares set aside an option to maintain their percentage. If only one restaurant left on the way up into the heads of would-be poets were mistaken to be most attractive when it's their own company. Currently, when they talked about convergence.

Philadelphia is a lot lobbying for harsh sentencing laws, they said, and a back seat to philology, which a seemed more serious and b made brand the dominant factor in deciding what to do good work and thereby subconsciously seeing wealth as something you need. With the good groups, you may as well, since they're an existing investor, and this tends to be about 200 to send a million spams. August 2002. And intimidate the NBA into letting him play.

So it's hard to pick up a take out your anti-dilution protections. The question to ask permission to go to college somewhere with real research professors. Though most founders start out excited about the qualities of these groups, which means you're being asked to choose between great people. The only people who should quit their day job, or some vague thing like that.

35 billion for the future. As a rule of thumb, the startup. The second biggest regret was caring so much in the sense of the world, and we don't have to say, but it is more important.

For example, if you are unimportant.

They also generally provide a better user experience. But that is a good grade you had small children pointed out by a factor of 20.

The Sub-Zero 690, one of them could as accurately be called acting Japanese. They have the.

If you want to approach a specific firm, get an intro to a car dealer. Look at those goddamn fleas, they tended to be important ones. But you can discriminate on the basis of intelligence.

There's not much to hope for, but suburbs are so much a great hacker. The best case. Indiana University Publications.

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azzyfree · 7 years

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The best thing I’ve ever done is stop caring about my appearance.

When I was 2 years old a cyst was found growing on my intestines. This may have been the start of my appearance problems. Because even if you are overweight or hairy, at least you could show off your belly button at the pool and no one would care, because it's a fucking normal inny or outty belly button. But of course that wasn’t an option for me. I have a 4 inch long scar that goes from my belly button down from the surgery. When I was little other kids had a tendency of poking it and the thing is- it's not even like normal skin where you can touch it and you feel it as being outside of yourself. When you touch the scar it feels like you are touching my guts. It’s GROSS , incredibly disgusting and painful, and it kind of makes my belly look like a butt and I HATED it. Here I am, going to a babysitters at maybe 4 years old and already I am DIFFERENT from the other kids VISIBLY. besides also speaking spanish instead of english in an english speaking nation. Thing’s got worse in elementary school. Back then I had a square face, chubby cheeks, besides being very much overweight. I was often made fun of by being called a boy or generally ignored in the playground but the worst of it was these pair of girl’s I was friends with throughout much of elementary school. The first one (I’ll call Girl A) I knew since kindergarten and she was fine,but the other (I’ll call Girl B) moved to my school. Since she was new she tried to force herself into every friend ship possible, and since we lived on the same street we were just friends by default. Now I should have you know that Girl A, didn’t come from a wealthy family, but she wasn’t poor either. Her family was on the higher end of the middle class spectrum and always dressed rather well, and got to go to all the cool sports things, and always got the brand newest of things all the time. I remember she got a gamecube first and we would all go over to her place to play it. Girl B was middle, middle class but her mother dressed her like she was born to some rich-ass family and she acted the part. Now me, back then my parent��s were just scraping by. My mother was an immigrant taking classes at the university and didn’t work, while my dad had a full time job in the government that JUST BARELY paid for the house and food. What clothing I got were usually made by my mother or my grandmother, or bought from thrift stores and the like, so very rarely I got a BRAND NEW thing. Now I don’t know if this was a fad everywhere but in my school when I was around 8 years old and it was the early 2000s, EVERY girl in my school wore a fuzzy white jacket. I don’t know how this fad started or why but for some reason it was a thing, and they were fucking ugly but it didn’t matter because that was the fad, that all the cool kids were wearing.GIRL A got her fuzzy white jacket first and I remember her coming to school and showing it off and us saying that we should all get fuzzy white jackets too. I think we thought we looked like bunnies in it or something and it was adorable. I remember going home and asking my parent’s for one but of course it was the start of the school year and we had JUST gotten me a purple sweater that I had wanted. So of course I didn’t get one. It took only a day, I swear to you, 24 hours for Girl B to get one too. I remember being so jealous. Like my family could barely afford to put food on the table but here I was wanting a fuzzy white jacket. It wasn’t till christmas till I was able to get a fuzzy white jacket. I think it was from a thrift store and just a bit too small from me. But I didn’t care cause finally I could join the cool people.I remember being so excited to show them it. I got dressed up and everything. They were going to come to my place to play with the barbie doll house my dad got me for christmas that was handcrafted from this little shop in my city. It was actually the only doll house my dad could afford as a toy for me. Apparently it was cheaper than the plastic ‘Barbie houses’ mattel sold. But I had loved that doll house. everything in it was hand painted and carved. There were picture frames on the walls that were made from beer bottles caps, and dish detergent caps. the house was three stories tall and crafted from what must have been used or old lumber laying about. I loved this doll house and Girl A and B loved to come over to play with it too.So you can imagine the excitement I must have had to show them, I too finally had a fuzzy white jacket. They came over and hurried into my room so we could start playing with the doll house. We were like a half hour playing. I remembered I had THE jacket. So I ran off to put it on and came back to show them, thinking we could finally be a squad, all wearing matching jackets.Sure I couldn’t close mine but that didn’t matter, I had gotten one! But nope. to this day I can remember their laugh and Girl B saying that I was too fat to wear the jacket. I don’t remember the rest of the night. I just remember hiding the jacket at the back of my closet and never speaking about it again. I started getting clothing that was bigger than what I would normally wear just to hide my fat. Things didn’t get much better when middle school rolled around. I had long stopped talking to both Girl A, and Girl B. But I still worried about my appearance particularly since I was the first of my friends to go through puberty cause, my body fucking hated me. It was not an easy puberty either. I would and still do get cramps that are so painful I will/have passed out from simply standing. But for appearance it did worse. I got zits EVERYWHERE. there was no down time, it was like an oprah show, any patch of skin I had would inevitably get covered in zits. At this time I tried everything to get rid of them, the doctor prescribed medication that did nothing. I remember my mom buying every brand of zit remover from oxy clear to that one that you would get mailed in the my cousin’s sore by. AND THEY ALL DID FUCK ALL. My Body would simply never rest when it came to how fucking disgusting could it make me. Not to mention I got hairy too. My legs grew thick black hair almost overnight and at that point I stopped wearing shorts all together. Cause FUCK showing off my yeti legs. I’ll die of heat stroke before people start talking about the pimple face’s yeti legs. But my legs weren’t the only thing that got hairy, so did my arms and my face, and now at this point the ‘you look like a boy’ was fucking accurate because I could so very easily give up on being a girl at this point being a boy would have been so goddamn easy. I could probably have grown a beard and a mustache. I could have done it and no one would have talked about it in a negative light. Cause when you are a boy its okay if you are hairy or pimple faced, its pretty much the ‘norm’ I was trying my best to ‘fit in’ to be ‘relatively normal’. To just pass by. That's all I fucking wanted I didn’t even care about being pretty I just wanted their words to stop. I remember hearing a conversation between some guys in one of my classes and a few girls I had known since elementary school. I was just passing by the door, where I overheard them talking about me and I quote , “Date Azzy? she’s she looks like an ape.” and can still remember their fucking laughter. One of them tried to ask me out later. I wasn’t stupid or desperate. I told them I’d never date asshole. I remember some time in grade 8 one of the girls I had known since elementary but I wasn’t friends with(I’ll call Girl D for rightful reasons) , told me I should come over for a makeover. But I’d heard her talking with the boys that other day. Again I wasn’t stupid or desperate. I could see how this would go. She would be like Girl A and Girl B, she would be like that fucking asshole in the other class. I remember I tried out for the arts highschool in my city cause I just wanted to get away from the people I had known since elementary school. Look, I was NOT good at art at this time. There were far better people in the school that could accurately depict shapes and lighting and people. Yet to my surprise I got accepted. The day I got my acceptance letter I was SO happy. Finally I could get away from these assholes and get a clean start! I remember that, that same day I was taking the bus and one of the girls from school that I was sort of friends with (I’ll call girl C) was sitting at the back of the bus in front of Girl B and Girl D. The bus starts and things were quiet except every so often Girl C would turn around and yell at them to stop. After this going on for a few more times I pull out my headphones and looked over and saw that GIRL B and D were writing ‘ fat-so’, ‘fag’, ‘slut’ and a number of other things onto tape and sticking it to her back. At this point I had nothing left at this school. It was the last two weeks of school. I was already approved to go to another school, even if I got expelled it didn’t matter. I was SO sick of their words. I put my headphones away, Got up, turned around to them and fucking yelled at them like a beast. I picked up the tape that they had stuck onto girl C’s back, and just shoved it into their faces. SHOVED. I smacked them on their foreheads with it. I told them that If I ever heard them do this to Girl C or anyone else again, I’d hurt them, and if they had any intelligence they would keep their mouths shut and arms to themselves for the rest of the ride or I’d straight up murder them. If being pretty meant being an asshole, I didn’t need it. High School is where things got weird. Since gym wasn’t mandatory I only took it the first year and then never again. I hated exercising. Elementary and middle school did that to me. I hated being hot and sweaty because I never wore shorts. I hated being in the heat. Being outside or anything that would require I take off any of my clothes. And it was some time between when I was dying of a heat stroke and paying for a SECOND try at laser hair removal that DID NOT WORK. That I realized- This is a fucking lot of money and time to look like a human being and not a ape. Such a lot of wasted time and energy that I could have been using going swimming, hanging out with actual good friends or getting better at drawing or playing tales of symphonia again. College came and that's when it started to REALLY began to sink in. Sure I may have never dated anyone through high school. But when college came I was done with ever trying to look pretty. It was a waste of time. Then I actually started to look better, My zit’s started to go away, my hair didn’t grow as thick. Everything that had stressed me out throughout the rest of my school life like just stopped. Because mentally it finally kicked in that it really didn’t fucking matter. Good looks didn’t equal you getting treated well. Good looks didn’t get you a promotion. Good looks didn’t make you feel happy. Good looks didn’t give you better grades. People will still treat you like shit when you're pretty. People will still say things about you and make fun of the things you wear. Not to mention the many passing fads. Being pretty is always changing. So then it doesn’t matter if you are skinny or fat, Have black or blonde hair, are tall or short, hairy or bald. Being beautiful is a choice and all you have to do is say you are. And you know what? I actually am happy now.

#rambles

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elvespartyofcanada · 7 years

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Are Dads Too Cool For Bread?

by Ele

Man, I literally just got a degree and this is what I'm doing with my life.

Cooking for Dads, whom one of our Elves Party guest writers, Ben, has written about already, has been posting some new content lately. Our pal(? maybe?) Rob Barrett has a slightly bizarre new interest: replacing carbs in meals with...chicken. Most notably, he's now made multiple videos about what he calls “chicken paper,” which is chicken breast pounded incredibly thin, with the intent of using it to replace bread products.

My curiosity became too much. I took it upon myself to try one of these recipes: Chicken Paper Pizza. And oh my, what a trial it was.

Cooking for Dads has three videos of chicken paper so far: preparation of the paper, making pizza with it, and making Taco Bell-style chalupas with it. I doubt I'll make the chalupas, it was enough of an effort to make one sheet of chicken paper.

WARNING: This post will contain pictures of raw meat. If you’re not down with that, you might want to skip to the third part (”The Verdict”). I've tried not to add the particularly gross-looking pictures (because oh boy, it sure did look interesting), but since a lot of this involved raw meat, I did take some pictures.

Part One: The Chicken Paper

Video

Ingredients: chicken lol

This step had to happen yesterday, because the chicken paper needs to be cooked from frozen or else it will be too fragile. I went to the store and bought some chicken breasts, and set to work. Now, I'm not stranger to flattening meat. Half my family's German, we do schnitzel sometimes. But they never get quite this thin, and that invariably leads to preparation problems.

This part was actually pretty frustrating as a whole, and touched on one of the things that genuinely annoys me about Cooking for Dads. Rob likes to promote or condemn specific brands based on what works for him, but I'm in Canada, not Mississippi. I've never even heard of most of the brands he uses for his cooking.

In this case, Rob claims that Tyson chicken is no good for chicken paper, as it disintegrates easily when it's pounded too thinly. Gold'n Plump is ideal for chicken paper as it holds its shape more readily. I have access to neither of these. My choices were President's Choice (one of the in-store brands for Canadian grocer Loblaws and its subsidiaries) and Maple Leaf.

At first I thought maybe Maple Leaf would be the better option since it's touted as being higher quality than store-brand, but...what part of the chicken makes it flatten without breaking up? It's not something really advertised on the package (“SQUISHES INTO A THINNER MEAT PANCAKE THAN THE LEADING BRAND!!!”). I really wouldn't be able to tell without trying them both, and I'm not interested in spending that much time on this. President's Choice was the cheaper option, and so I used it.

THE BEAST IS SEALED, THE TRANSFORMATION SOON BEGINS

The chicken went on a sheet of parchment paper and got covered in plastic wrap. Honestly, Rob Barrett and his fast-forwarding in the video made it look so easy. It was a lot of work, especially at first, to get it to really flatten, and I couldn't for the life of me get it to flatten into much of a circle. I used a pounder and a rolling pin as was suggested, but the rolling pin didn't really do much.

It did, in fact, start to break apart just a little, which Cooking for Dads said was fine, just push it back together. However, given that I had to put toppings on it, I didn't want it to disintegrate entirely, so I probably left it a little thicker than I should have.

Fun fact: that’s my rolling pin from when I was 5, because the alternative is a huge marble one that would destroy the chicken

I think Rob must have thicker parchment paper than me, too. It kept crinkling under the chicken, making it hard to keep things flat and even, and I had to transfer it to another sheet of paper before freezing because the one I'd started with had gotten so damp and wrinkled.

I'm not even going to share a picture of it without the plastic wrap on it because honestly it looked so...concerning. Like a piece of skin or something. Which doesn't really elicit thoughts of pizza. But oh well, I'd gotten this far, I wanted to see this through.

It was the most disappointing thing, though: last night, I kept thinking “oh boy! We have such tasty leftovers in the fridge, I can't wait for lunch tomorrow!” and then remembering that no, lunch tomorrow is chicken paper pizza. Sigh.

Part Two: The Pizza

Video

Rob's ingredients: chicken paper, salt and pepper, tomato, olive oil, sausage, cheese, red onion, fresh basil.

My ingredients: chicken paper, salt and pepper, tomato, canola/olive oil blend, dried oregano, dried basil, cheese, turkey pepperoni

I didn't make my pizza with the exact same toppings as Rob. For one thing, due to food sensitivities I actually can't eat red onion. We also don't use fresh basil in my house basically ever, so I figured it'd be a bit of a waste to get some just to use a little.

As for the sausage, it's interesting that in the video he cuts open the casing and squeezes some sausage out to fry. I mean, it makes sense, sausage on pizza usually isn't in rounds like pepperoni, it's in little clumps like that. It still looked kind of weird to me though! I'd never thought of doing that.

I'm a little picky about my sausage, though, so my chicken paper pizza was just a good 'ol pepperoni and cheese pizza. I tried turkey pepperoni, to go with the poultry theme (the turkey pepperoni was actually pretty good!).

Ready for action

Now, the concept of chicken paper pizza is odd enough, but when you think about it it's not THAT bad culinarily – think chicken parmesan but with pizza toppings on top. However, the Cooking for Dads replacement for sauce is kind of upsetting.

If you don't have any tomato sauce on hand, Rob suggests taking a chopped tomato, adding olive oil, salt, and pepper, and pulverizing it in a mortar and pestle (SILENT T IN PESTLE, ROB). Elves Party friend Seth described the result as “mashed up tomato boogers,” and I think he's pretty on the mark.

Frankly, it's minimal effort and much better flavour to just go buy a damn jar of pizza sauce. But, since it's another part of the recipe, I did this too. However, if we have a mortar and pestle, I don't know where it is. Rob's suggestion? Put it in a plastic bag and squish it with your hands. I'll admit, squishing stuff with my hands is my kinda cooking.

Chopped Judges, this is my Tomato Sauce Deconstruction with a Versatile Rustic Presentation

I put just a splash of oil in (a canola and olive oil mix cuz it's what we have right now), pepper, and I added dried basil because I wasn't adding fresh basil on top. I also added a bit of oregano for flavour, because I'm not a goddamn monster. I know what even the saddest of pizzas deserves.

I ended up using the meat pounder again to smash it all up, because it was too tough to really squish well with my hands. The funny thing is...I think I ended up with a better consistency than the Cooking for Dads version. It looked much more like a chunky but thick salsa than just partially-mushed runny tomato. Score one for me, I guess???

I mean it still looks weird, but not as weird as it could look? maybe???

With the sauce ready, it came time to assemble the whole behemoth.

Unlike Rob Barrett, I do not have a cast-iron pan. Unfortunately, his preparation method involves first frying the chicken to begin cooking it, and then popping it in the oven to broil. You can't exactly pop a Teflon pan in the oven without making a huge mess and ruining your pan.

This is another annoyance I have particularly with this video: if this is a channel intended for people who are new to cooking (like the allegedly-gender-role-adhering titular “dads” who've somehow made few proper meals before), will they even have, and know how to look after, a cast-iron pan? He doesn't even mention that you can't put every kind of pan in the oven.

Some of the other tools, like the meat pounder and the mortar and pestle, have alternatives suggested in the videos (a rubber mallet and the plastic bag method). But there's nothing for if you don't have a cast-iron skillet. We don't even have one, and everyone in my family actually does cook regularly.

I decided to try the stove-top part of the cooking in a Teflon pan and then sliding it onto a cookie sheet to broil in the oven. I also tried to preheat the pan in the oven as it preheated, because the video mentions that the residual heat of the pan will help finish cooking the chicken as the top broils in the oven. Sigh.

Beginning the cooking process also brings another issue: the Cooking for Dads video never actually says how hot your stove top should be. Like, at all. He just kind of says “hot.” If you're trying to teach people how to cook, you need to add basic instructions like that!? I started with medium-high and adjusted as need be depending on how the chicken was cooking and how violently the oil was trying to evict itself from the pan.

Anyway, I put oil in the pan once it was hot, put the chicken in, and put a bit more oil and some salt and pepper on top as per the video instructions. It was at this point it became especially clear to me that my chicken paper wasn't thin enough, because it didn't cook as quickly as Rob's did.

Magical Girl chicken

It was kind of neat, though, that the oil on top of the chicken kept doing this oil-slick thing and putting rainbows on the top of the meat. I mean, it's not generally a thing food should probably really be doing, but it was pretty and made it look kind of magical. Well, as magical as literal raw meat gets, anyway.

After I saw more white around the edges and seeping through to the top of the chicken, I added my toppings. Rob put his cheese on last, but I like a bit of broiling on my pepperoni too, so that went on last for me. It was a little tricky because even though I hadn't added that much, there ended up being a lot of oil and juices in the pan and it splattered my arm just a little. Not only does this take some work to prepare, it fights back!!!

The still-raw meat on the edges just really makes this look appetizing

I really felt like it still looked more raw on top than it does in the video, by the time I felt I was probably ready to move it into the oven. I had to be real careful about slipping it into the pan, which meant that the pan lost most of the heat it had (which wasn't much because it was only on broil setting). There was just so much oil and drippings and grease, even though I'd been more sparing with the oil than the Cooking for Dads video had, and I didn't wanna just dump it all onto the tray.

After some careful moving, I managed to slip it onto the tray and into the oven. I ended up turning on the full oven (to 400F) at first, because I really was worried about the chicken not cooking enough. I switched it back to broil when it looked like the meat was white all over, in order to get the cheese and pepperoni to darken a little more.

INTO THE FIRE WHERE YOU BELONG

It took a bit longer than it probably should have, and I would have liked it a bit darker still, but I was worried about overcooking the chicken and so I pulled it out and gave it a chance to cool while I tidied up the kitchen a little.

Part Three: The Verdict

Tah-daaaah!!!...???

The first thing about this pizza, which is also what I've been saying in the previous section is that it was SO oily and greasy. Like, I'm one of those people that blots their pizza a bit (I heard it does actually cut down on calories just a smidge!), but even if you didn't do that, you'd have to do it for this one. A lot.

When you're making it, there's oil in the pan, a bit of oil on the cookie sheet that I probably didn't need to add, oil on top of the chicken, oil in the sauce (although I was very sparing with that), and grease/fat from the chicken, pepperoni, and cheese. I got rid of as much of it as I could but it was still pretty gross to deal with, and it was impossible to totally get rid of it.

nothin’ quite like soggy chickenpizza

I would say that the oil put on top of the chicken, at least, is totally unnecessary. After getting rid of as much wetness as I could, I cut it open and was so glad to find that the chicken was cooked. Raw meat after all this effort was honestly the last thing I needed.

Time to eat. Unlike Rob, confidently picking it up like the world's floppiest pizza, I found it was just easier to eat with a knife and fork, although not for lack of trying to use my hands. It was just too hot and oily and floppy. Sturdiness is one thing a chicken crust could really never imitate.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about what went on in my mouth. It wasn't...bad, per se. It was not actually that bad in taste. I think that the pepperoni carried a lot of the flavour, though, giving it that Classic Pizza™ taste. The chicken actually probably overcooked a little, which isn't surprising given how long it took the cheese to brown, but it wasn't inedible, just a bit dry in texture.

My biggest problem was, unsurprisingly, the sauce. Because it had never properly cooked on its own, the oregano and basil flavours didn't really meld with it, although it still helped that they were there. As well, because there was still chunks of tomato skin, I'd get this taste of mostly-raw tomato every few bites, and honestly I'm not really a big tomato fan. It's frankly just easier and tastier to buy tomato sauce, and if you want to get better at cooking by making your own pizza sauce, all the better. This isn't a good replacement! It's really not! Don't do it!

this meal also doesn’t make very appealing cut-up crust shots

As a whole, it was a passable meal. I didn't want to puke (except maybe toward the very end because I ate the whole thing for lunch and it was kind of a lot, whoops), but I won't be rushing to make this again either. With all the oil and grease, it didn't really feel healthier either. Maybe Cooking for Dads is secretly sponsored by Big Vegetable Oil??? Conspiracy??!?

I feel like if you're really trying to eat healthier but still want pizza, moderation and home cooking are gonna be your best bets. Even if you use premade pizza dough, you can still control how much of everything else goes into it. Even having whole-wheat dough would give it a little more dietary benefit! Just pace yourself. The body does need some carbs anyway. This is far too much effort and finickiness for a frankly lacklustre result.

Also, just, like, pizza crusts are tasty.

#pizza #chicken #cooking for dads #ele's posts #misc posts

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inadeepanddarkdecember · 7 years

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[[ this is kinda rambly and piecemeal and out of order since its an edited convo off of discord from before cy’s heart got replaced, but i decided i wanted this Extra Large thalassemia infodump on my blog. go read this primer first for basic info on thal; cyrus’s form is beta thalassemia major. ]]

even with a perfectly healthy and functional heart, cy'd still have a too fast pulse and likely have arrhythmias; that comes with the territory of his anemia, and he could still develop heart failure again later in life. the problem with cy's current heart is that its been scarred to shit by the extra iron in his body from his blood transfusions and hes developed cardiomyopathy as a result, which at this point is virtually guaranteed to kill him before he turns 30, even if he takes perfect care of himself and never develops any other complications from his thalassemia ever (which aint fuckin likely). this failing heart just deals worse with arrhythmias he already has, especially under stress, and already struggles to keep up enough blood pressure.

bone marrow transplants are currently the closest thing to a cure for thalassemia we have and hellll no he has not had that done i doubt hes even on a waiting list. with his shit in the state hes in, its questionable if he'd even survive the process its pretty intense, nevermind the finances and healing and finding a match and even so much as qualifying to have it done.

cyrus goes in for a blood transfusion every three weeks. when transfusion dates get close, within a few days, hes more tired; he doesnt go out; he can be moodier; he can get headaches and dizzy spells. he feels best after a transfusion, then its just a slow decline till the date rolls around again. i tend to rp him within a week or two of being transfused most of the time simply bc its easier to get him out there interacting with people.

sometimes they coincide with transfusion dates, sometimes they don't, but he has longer appointments to check up on his other bodily functions every so often. theres general stuff, looking at his counts, then more specialized appointments to keep an eye specifically on his heart or check up on his liver and other organs as needed.

thalassemia by itself kills a person through not having enough blood to get oxygen around the body; this is solved through blood transfusions. chronic anemia means chronic transfusions. which would be fine! except chronic transfusions cause a build-up of iron in the body, and that shit is toxic and where the more fatal complications tend to stem from for thalassemia patients. also, being anemic means your body thinks it needs iron, so it's prone to absorb more from food than the average person, an added bonus. consequently, there are certain foods cyrus avoids. legumes, dark leafy greens, etc. look up any list of iron-rich foods, and thats a list of shit cyrus ought to be avoiding or indulging rarely. (funnily enough, these lists also are often advertised towards anemic people because those who arent transfused have the opposite problem.) part of his tea drinking habit is because tea inhibits iron absorption, along with he just likes it. coffee works too and he doesnt object to it, but he prefers tea.

another consequence of chronic transfusions is that you end up with a lot of old shitty dead blood cells in your system, and your spleen is left to clean it up. unfortunately, when faced with that much to clean, it can enlarge (splenomegaly) and become overactive (hypersplenism). so it starts removing healthy blood cells too quickly and too early, which can cause the anemic patient to need more blood when being transfused, which risks more iron, and not to mention its generally uncomfortable for the patient with the enlarged spleen. in short, this happened to cyrus, so his spleen has been removed. spleens, however, also play an important role in the immune system, so he was already kinda vulnerable as an anemic, but having no spleen makes him doubly at risk of infections. he takes antibiotics as part of his daily pharmaceutical regime.

during cold and flu season, docs tend to strongly suggest he wear surgical masks during school and whenever hes around a lot of people in public places, but he almost never does. he doesnt like the attention it gets him esp in school, but sometimes he'll do it when hes on public transit or anything. he does carry hand sanitizer with him a lot of the time tho

bc his immune system is fragile, he often goes in-patient for what would be minor sicknesses for us, esp if theres a fever. he tends to be hit hard by them, and being sick can make his counts plummet as his body tries to fight off the disease.

coming back around to iron related bullshit, iron overload is treated by iron chelation, for which there are mainly two medicines, deferoxamine and deferasirox, and cyrus uses the latter because i have never been able to find out enough goddamn information about deferoxamine. deferoxamine is the more common and cheaper of the two medicines; its injected subcutaneously over the course of 8-12 hours and has its own list of side effects and the process itself tends to be kinda painful from the accounts ive read. its done at home, often while the patient sleeps bc... well, when else are you gonna get a child to sit still for 8-12 hours. its definitely the one cyrus was on for a while, when he was younger. bc ive had a hellish time finding info on the pump used for deferoxamine and more about that medicine generally, cy’s currently on deferasirox. slightly different side effects, but otherwise does the same job in pill form.

thalassemia patients who've been cared for properly should be healthier than cyrus is. most patients his age havent had a heart attack already and arent dealing with heart failure, not yet. his parents have always struggled financially to keep up with his medical bills, but there was a time when he was still young that they still thought they could manage if they just worked hard enough. they were too proud to accept help, and he suffered for it. they eventually gave in but even then still struggled to keep up. sometimes a sudden unexpected change in insurance policy would fuck em for a while finanacially. so sometimes they'd not fill a perscription for a while or wait longer than they should to take him in-patient, hoping he might just tough out a cold or smth. sometimes he'd manage to do that and have abysmal blood counts next time he went in, and a couple of times he got so sick he was legit on death's doorstep by the time he got to the hospital and needed way longer to recover. sometimes cyrus would be too fussy about the deferoxamine and they didnt have the energy that night to force him to accept it or he'd turn off the machine himself after they left. not too often, he was pretty good about just accepting it and did most of the time, but it def happened more than a few times. and if it had already been activated, they couldnt reuse it and had to throw the dose out, in which case that was it he skips it no replacement they cant afford it not in the budget.

and because the effects of iron overload are long-term ones for the most part, it was easy to be like "ehh he seems fine for now". like, they knew the risks, but it was hard to see them as anything but so far in the distance as to be irrelevant. cyrus himself isnt great about the whole self-care thing either; his depression has helped nothing. he's been known to just flush or toss pills in a small spiteful act of rebellion, all his parents care about is that hes still alive and their money, and medicine's expensive, so wouldnt it just piss em off to throw it all away. he'll eat foods he shouldnt for similar reasons, along with just the pleasure of it. and sometimes he hits the sort of suicidal low where he just.... doesnt see the point. each dose he takes is a choice to keep living, and sometimes that choice isnt one he wants to make.

no one quite realized how bad he was tho till his first heart attack. he was so young; the docs dont rly know when hes skipping, so they werent watching too closely for the effects of it. and the damage his body took over time was amplified by his frequent stress. the heart and liver are the ones most affected by iron overload; his liver is somewhat damaged too, but thats not too bad yet, not as bad as his heart.

other little thal things: hormone levels can get super fucked. cy's puberty was a bit delayed, and his testosterone levels remain kinda low compared to average, so hes not as hairy as his genetics might otherwise dictate. he will never be able to grow a proper beard; it'll always be way too patchy and uneven. and despite what his touch aversion and other factors like stress and said low testosterone might lead you to believe, hes got a pretty strong sex drive, though he suppresses the hell out of it.

he was homeschooled for his first few years of elementary bc health concerns, but that couldnt be sustained bc of cost. so he rejoined public school since then. i wouldnt be surprised if his peers used his puberty delays against him, but i'd expect they were making fun of him less bc he was a late bloomer and more at his general girlishness, esp since this would also be around the time he was growing out his hair.

he has had people do the "lookit me ive befriended the sad disabled kid arent i good <3" schtick (which esp pisses him off bc its similar to shit melinda pulls) and hes met the people who try to be nice to him for three days then turn a 180 on him when he doesnt immediately cheer up and get all buddy buddy with them. and hence he now treats kindness from strangers with extreme skepticism, suspicion, and aggression. (thomas also feeds into this but ye) it scares off plenty of legitimately nice people who he could have befriended, buuut.

Oh, a couple Fun Facts I forgot to mention. bc anemia, he bruises easy and injuries generally take longer than normal to heal. And in part bc depression and in part bc meds are prone to fucking with his appetite, either killing it entirely or just making him nauseated, he tends to not eat enough and is kind of underweight. Melinda put him in charge of dinner most nights as part of a genuine good faith effort to ensure he's getting at least one good meal and get him home when he's supposed to be.

#meta #fun fact #medical #there are so many little ways his disorder has shaped his life #even if they dont appear too obviously when im writing him in actual threads #suicide mention #thalassemia

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samanthasroberts · 6 years

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5 Weird Questions With Surprisingly Interesting Answers

Ever had a weird, dumb question pop into your head for no reason? You know there’s an answer out there somewhere, but it’s not so important that you have to drop what you’re doing and research it right goddamn now. Well, I’m one of those weirdos who has to have these questions answered right goddamn now, or they will gnaw at my brain until it catches on fire from eat-friction. Unfortunately, I get those all the time. Fortunately, I can at least weave them into my career and educate the world in a way they never asked for in the process. For example …

Why Is The McFlurry Machine Always Broken?

A little over half of my attempts to get a McFlurry have been denied. If the McDonald’s employee had squeezed my love handles and made pig sounds, then this wouldn’t be such a mystery. But instead they give an explanation that perfectly tows the line between useless and substantive, forcing me to give up and screech away from the drive-thru in a huff. They say the McFlurry machine is “down.” The damn thing breaks more often than a former child actor with a heroin addiction. I guess McFlurry machines are planks of balsa wood barely held together by the faint hope of being able to actually dispense a McFlurry one day. They’re piles of substandard materials and glue and dreams.

Turns out McFlurry machines aren’t so much poorly built hunks of shit as they are filthy, disgusting vats of bacteria which require daily cleanings so vigorous and time-consuming that it probably isn’t even worth keeping them on the menu. We should’ve known that coming into this, though. Of course the machine that distributes the tastiest things in the world would be literal swamps.

Every day, the machines have to go through a four-hour heat-cleaning cycle that’s broken down into 11 parts. The process involves, among many other steps, “combining a sanitizing mix with warm water, removing and rinsing seven parts, brushing clean two fixed parts for 60 seconds and wiping down the machine with a sanitized towel.” When your entire business is based around “We get you your food before you’re even done saying your order,” this is definitely a McFlurry wrench in the Value Meal gears.

They have to strip the entire machine down to its atoms, scrub each nucleus with a fine sasquatch-hair brush, then jigsaw puzzle that shit back together like a soldier reassembling a rifle to rebuild a device nearly as deadly. The cleaning process is usually triggered during off-peak hours, or whenever the drive-thru employee sees me pull in.

But none of this is to say that McFlurry machines aren’t poorly built hunks of shit, because they are. One McDonald’s franchise consultant conducted a study which showed that there’s a 25 percent chance that if a McDonald’s isn’t serving ice cream or ice-cream-related menu items, it’s because the machines just stopped working like they’re also getting paid minimum wage.

There is some good news: McDonald’s has heard the complaints, and they’re finally going to replace the old, busted-ass McFlurry machines with ones that don’t come with self-destruct buttons.

Can Insects Get Fat?

I’ve seen mosquitoes get fat off my blood and then had it turn into a crime scene when my delicious juices exploded everywhere with a smack. I can see their asses get plump with every gulp. But that’s not the mosquito technically getting “fat” — it’s the equivalent of having a distended belly after a big meal. But are there flies out there having trouble dragging their saggy bug tits and double chins around after munching on discarded pastries? Are there ants feeling shame as they look at their expanding thorax in the mirror after eating a dropped French fry? Where are the fat insects? Can they even get fat?

Depends on the insect.

Diamondback moth caterpillars can alter their metabolism over generations to adjust to high-carb diets, turning their bodies into fat-burning furnaces. If a dragonfly is infected with a certain type of parasite, it’ll start storing more fat around the muscles they use to fly. Struggling to fly means they can’t defend themselves using their deadly “bumping enemies with their eyes” attack. Researchers also found that fat male dragonflies have less dragonfly sex, just in case you were super-duper curious about that.

And I was wrong, mosquitoes can get fat. They suck blood when they need protein to produce eggs. They normally eat plant nectar. One scientist / bored suburban nine-year-old hand-fed mosquitoes ’til half their dry weight was made up of fat. And then he made them dance.

The weight gain on some insects is hidden by their tough chitin exoskeletons. The fatter they get, the more their insides squeeze up against their own outsides. Imagine you get so fat that your pants don’t fit anymore, but you can’t take them off. You’re forever stuck feeling like the Hulk’s ten-foot-around thighs squeezed into Bruce Banners’ size-32 jeans.

Do The Blind Need Ad Blockers?

At first, you’d think that blind people wouldn’t use ad blockers, because they don’t see the ads in the first place. But it turns out they have the exact opposite problem. If you saw the rough drafts of my columns, you could tell which ones I’ve run through text-to-speech software by counting the lack of egregious grammatical errors. Hearing my writing out loud lets me catch those errors, because if I just try to proofread them, I become word-blind. Sometimes I’ll copy the text off the preview page set up to look exactly like the text on the page you’re reading now, ads and all. I’ll inelegantly CRTL+A the whole thing and have the software read all the whales and seals that get caught in the fishing net of my highlight. So in the middle of my own writing, I’ll hear about “17 Actors You Didn’t Know Were Loaves of Wheat Bread — #8 Will Get A Rise Out of You” or “She Had No Idea Why Men Kept Cheering Her On (Her Vagina Was Out).”

What isn’t that big a deal for me must be a nightmare for the blind. Text-to-speech programs are one of the tools blind people use to peruse the internet. But what happens when there’s an ad? Does the program indiscriminately read everything, ads included? Can it distinguish between an ad and article text? Nope. They read everything. Here’s a video of a vision-impaired woman demoing a screen reader program called JAWS:

Not everyone with a vision impairment likes the reader’s voice to be speaking in tongues while dancing with venomous snakes. But even at normal speeds, reading The New York Times can be a pain in the ass:

Auto-playing videos are also a problem. You try listing to one voice at Formula One speeds and have a loud video cut in without shitting your pants. Sighted people can ignore the text of an ad, to the point where it might as well not even be there at all. But the visually impaired have to sit through it all, even random web trash like “Sign Up / Log in” and “Join Our Mailing List.”

So it makes sense that the guy who created AdBlock has blind people thanking him for making their internet surfing experience less cacophonous.

Why Are Donut Boxes In Movies Always Pink?

I’m always disappointed that I haven’t eaten donuts out of a bright pink box like in every movie and show that I’ve ever seen a box of donuts in. I just assumed the box was a generic Hollywood prop that was used all the time, like those fake newspapers or bottles of Heisler Beer, the favorite beer of every TV character. Some stingy producer who blew the last of his production expenses on a tall nonfat latte with a caramel drizzle enema didn’t want to pay Dunkin’ Donuts the licensing fee to show their logo on an empty box of donuts. He used a pink box once, it did its job of portraying the role of a tough-as-nails but big-hearted donut box, and every producer in history followed suit.

GaryAlvis/iStock

Pink donut boxes are a regional trend in Southern California, the birth canal from which most movies and shows slide, and they wouldn’t exist if not for the Khmer Rouge, the regime responsible for orchestrating the Cambodian genocide in the mid-1970s. Oh. Oh my. I thought it was just going to be a “They showed up once in Godfather Part II and people just liked how they looked” kind of thing. That is … umm … oh my.

When the Khmer Rouge was exterminating everyone in sight, Cambodians hauled ass out of there. Many made Los Angeles their new home, where they opened donut shops, of all things. One of them was named Ted Ngoy. He was an immigrant, an astoundingly good businessman, and a gambling addict who lost a bunch of his donut stores in bad bets. And holy shit, did he own a lot of donut shops. He had shops all over Los Angeles County, each staffed with fellow Cambodian immigrants.

Before Ted, donuts in LA came in standard white, no-frills boxes. When he decided to save some money without getting skimping on ingredients, he asked his supplier, Westco, if they had cheaper boxes. They had a bunch of cheap pink card stock lying around that could perfectly house a dozen donuts. Word of how cheap the bright pink boxes were quickly spread from one Cambodian-owned donut shop to another throughout LA, and then into Texas and Arizona.

So whenever a film production needed their characters to be from New York but they’re filming in LA, to hold a box of donuts, Prop Masters would hand actors the bright pink boxes Ted popularized, not realizing New Yorkers don’t eat donuts from pink boxes. They have to wrestle them away from big rats off of taxi cab floors, because everything’s tougher in New Yaw’k.

How Do Movies And Shows Get Newborn Babies For Delivery Scenes?

There’s a very specific shriveled and red newborn baby look. Wailing infant chic, if you will. When a woman in a movie gives birth and the kid doesn’t look like a dried chili, you know it’s a one-month-old unconvincingly playing a one-second-old. But how does getting a newborn on screen even happen? What parents are going directly from the hospital to set? “I know that we just had this thing, like, 30 minutes ago, but could someone make it a star real quick?”

Putting newborns in entertainment is surreal. The baby has to be no younger than 15 days old to be in a movie. That’s when doctors say babies have developed enough to not be floppy lumps of flesh that can fall apart at any second. If that authentic newborn look is absolutely required, they’ll use twins or triplets, which aren’t just useful because child labor laws in Californian only allow a baby onset for four hours and to only work for 20 minutes at a time. Twins and triplets are often born premature, which keeps them looking like newborns even after the 15-day barrier. Filming with premature babies is illegal in California, but it’s cool in 18 other states.

Parents, I know you’ve just experienced the trauma of wondering if your babes will survive their stint in incubators, but if by the grace of God they survive, they can be movie stars before their fontanelles fully harden. Ka-ching. That’s the sound of your preemie payday.

In the movie Knocked Up, they wanted to film a real woman giving birth to a real baby during the delivery scene, but legally couldn’t for the best reason for anything I’ve ever heard: Since the baby would be in the process of being born at the time of filming, it wouldn’t be a member of the Screen Actors Guild. People can’t get their SAG cards in utero. Not to mention it violates the “must be at least 15 days old” rule.

And then there’s the matter of all that vaginal slime newborns are coated in during birthing scenes, which I’m sure has a more delicate, technical name, but “vaginal slime” is more colorful, so I’m going with that. I imagined it would be a special goop whipped up by visual effects masters in a fit of creative inspiration, like chefs in a kitchen going with the flow to create an exemplary new dish. It’s not. Vaginal slime is sometimes a combination of grape jelly and cream cheese. Instead of going to makeup, they hand the baby over to the craft services people so that they can prepare the baby like a bagel.

Luis is hard at work getting his preemie casting agency off the ground. In the meantime, you can find him on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

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Source: http://allofbeer.com/5-weird-questions-with-surprisingly-interesting-answers/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/5-weird-questions-with-surprisingly-interesting-answers/

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