#i was like lemme get some of my less used spices for my potatoes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

painted-crow · 3 years

Note

Okay this is wildly off topic but I saw that you cook japanese food. Can you recommend some dishes to try or ways to get myself to like it? I want to like Japanese food so bad but I haven't liked anything I've tried aside from super basic stuff like sushi, teriyaki, and gyoza. I've even tried making curry and omurice at home and everyone except me loved it.

Japanese cooking resources

Ah, I have been called upon! Lemme dig some stuff out of my Bird nest for you :D

Disclaimer: I'm not Japanese or an expert on this. I'm just a cooking nerd who thinks Japan has the best food and experimented a whole bunch with Internet recipes and stuff from the Asian market.

Recipes

I learned a lot of what I know from these two foodie blogs:

Just One Cookbook

No Recipes

(the latter site does, in fact, contain recipes, but the blogger would encourage you to build the confidence to cook without them)

Since you're having trouble finding dishes you like, I suggest starting with udon: thick, chewy noodles often served in dashi broth, perhaps with fried toppings. You can prepare udon a bunch of different ways, that's just a classic one--but no matter how you make it, udon is a pretty easy sell. Tonkatsu is another dish that's hard to dislike, and makes a good topping for your udon if you want to make both at once!

Fun travel memoir

There is a fantastic book called Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo.

It's a foodie travel memoir and it's exactly what it sounds like: this guy went to Tokyo for a month with his wife and daughter and they ate a bunch of food, his daughter made friends with half of the entire population of Tokyo, and he wrote about it. He's a really entertaining writer, and it has great descriptions of all kinds of Japanese food, so from there it's easy to go look up recipes.

Shopping

You'll want to go to an actual Asian market if you can find one locally. Use Google, they're often tucked into odd buildings.

Different Asian markets cater to different cultures' cuisines, so there might be one market with a full assortment of Indian MTR spice blends but no kombu or katsuobushi in sight. They usually have a variety though. If you can find an H Mart, you're golden (H Mart is Korean, but will have the stuff you need for Japanese food). Be willing to explore a bit! Last resort, go ahead and use Amazon, but trust me--the Asian markets are cheaper, and I much prefer supporting them to feeding Amazon.

Just One Cookbook also has a list of Japanese pantry essentials, which is really good, but it's also really completionist (I don't even have all of those premade sauces) and stretches the definition of "pantry" a bit, so it seems more intimidating than it should.

Here's my version.

Pantry essentials:

Good soy sauce. Just get something that says "traditionally brewed" and you're fine. If you spot dark soy sauce: it's smokier and less salty, very different, it can't replace normal soy sauce but you might grab it too.

Short grain "sushi" rice. Try not to overpay for it. If you're in an Asian market you're fine. If you're in the fancy organic section of Hy-Vee, you're gonna get ripped off.

Mirin. A seasoned cooking wine. Unfortunately, bad mirin is easy to find and is loaded with corn syrup. Try to find some that isn't; remember, ingredients are listed on the bottle proportionally. It's very worth paying $10 for a good bottle of mirin. I don't *think* you have to be 21 to buy it? Drinking it would probably be unappealing. Mirin is very important, and it's a versatile cooking ingredient; once you know what it does you might find yourself putting it in everything.

Sake. You do have to be of legal drinking age to buy this. Which kind you get for cooking isn't a super big deal, and you can get by with just mirin most of the time.

Kombu and katsuobushi. The former is a kind of seaweed/kelp (it may look dusty with white powder; that's natural MSG and it's a good thing). The latter is shaved dried smoked skipjack tuna and looks a bit like pencil shavings; you might see them labeled "bonito flakes." They're common ingredients for dashi (basic Japanese cooking stock), but you'll see katsuobushi used as a topping on lots of savory dishes. If you can't find these, try looking for dashi powder or tea bag type dealies.

Toasted sesame oil. Not hard to find.

Rice vinegar. Same.

Panko bread crumbs. These are special, lofty, crispy breadcrumbs. They're different because of SCIENCE and are what happens when you electrocute bread dough. I'm not joking.

Cornstarch/potato starch. I slightly prefer potato starch (good texture), but they're not that different.

Nori. These are those pressed algae sheets you use to wrap sushi, but they're used for other stuff too, like onigiri, or shredded as a topping.

Noodles. Obviously, if you want to make udon, you need to buy some. You can easily find dried udon, but if you spot frozen or even fresh udon noodle packs, grab them.

If you can find an Asian market that stocks all this, you should be able to get the whole list for around $50. Asian markets tend not to be expensive, which is yet another good reason to learn to cook Japanese food. (Other reasons: healthy, tasty, easy to cook in a small kitchen...)

Of course, you also don't need to get the whole list at once! It's not cheating to just get what you need for a particular dish.

Fun stuff you can find at Asian markets

With the basics out of the way, here are additional tasty things you might want to look for:

Furikake. Not strictly necessary, but I like it. It's a topping/seasoning blend you can mix into your rice, and it comes in lots of flavors, some fishier than others. Start with a nori or vegetable flavor if you're uncertain. Tamago flavor = egg.

Ramune. If you've never had marble soda before, don't deny yourself the adventure of trying to figure out how to get the bottle open. Lots of flavors.

Good instant ramen. Nongshim's Shin Ramyun is what I usually get, and even Walmart sells it. You'll never buy Maruchan again.

Candy. So, I don't know who's in charge of Japanese fruit flavored candy, but it actually tastes like fruit, which is wild.

Yuzu and/or sudachi juice. If you can find these, grab 'em. They're citrus juices. Yuzu is a bit like lemon but less strongly sour and more... clean? Crisp? while sudachi is a bit like lime but more green and complex. I'm describing these poorly. You might also be able to find candy or drinks with these flavors.

Sugary drinks with nata de coco in them. Nata de coco is a firm jelly-like dessert type... thing. It's made from coconuts and it's got a unique jelly/crunchy texture and is odd but good. You might be able to find nata de coco on its own, but I'll warn you: the kind you get packed in jars will be Very Sugary.

Tapioca pearls. If you like bubble tea, here's the place to get your boba.

Umeboshi plums. These sour/salty pickled plums are a tasty ramen topping.

Ice cream. Those square melon popsicles are delicious, but get them home quickly, their texture is very temperature sensitive! And if you spot individually wrapped ice cream cones, grab one.

Euro cakes. These look kinda like round Twinkies, but Twinkies only dream of being this tasty. I like the pandan flavor best. Don't be put off by the green color.

Soft tofu. So good 🥰 and weirdly hard to find in supermarkets. It's got a texture like custard, and apart from its fairly neutral, fresh flavor, will easily pick up any flavors you put on it. An excellent addition to udon soup; add it last, the tofu is fragile (and doesn't actually require cooking). Silken tofu sometimes comes in shelf stable packages. My experience with those has been fine, but the general consensus is that the tofu you get from the fridge section is better.

Frozen pork buns. They might be labeled "siopao" or "bao" (Chinese names) or "nikuman" (Japanese name). Lil bread buns with bbq pork or other fillings. You steam them in the microwave and they're delicious.

I'd recommend having fun getting a few of the things off this list, rather than being a completionist about the first one, if you find yourself choosing between the two. That said, make sure you get the stuff you need for the thing you want to make!

Okay, now I want a pork bun. I wonder if my brother's eaten them all yet...

#off topic #asks #paint speaks #japanese food

55 notes · View notes

nommy-thoughts · 4 years

Text

Danger Noodles Chapter 5 Dinner Guests (Vore Timeline)

Wordcount: 2.8 K

Summary: Patton invited his new friends over for dinner! Dee-Dee doesn’t approve.

Note: This chapter belongs to the vore timeline. Most of the chapter (the first 2.5 K words) is the same in both timelines, but after the line “Wanna sleep with Remus and me instead?” the timelines diverge for the remainder of the story. (no vore version)

Cowritten with @that-prey-lounge!

[Danger Noodles Masterpost]

~~~~~

Patton hummed happily to himself, checking on the meat one more time. It was coming along nicely, just as it had been all the other times he’d looked at it.

Dee-Dee, coiled loosely around Patton’s neck and draped over his shoulders like a scarf, tasted the air. “It smells really good, Patton,” he said.

“You think so?” Patton asked, still concerned. The little naga tugged on his earlobe in fond exasperation.

“Yes, Patton. You’re a good cook.”

“Thanks. I just— I wanna make a good impression, you know?”

Dee-Dee frowned. “I thought you said they were your friends?” he said. “Don’t they already like you?”

“Yes, but this is the first time they’ve really had anybody cook for them, and the first time they’ve come over instead of us visiting them.” Patton had roasted meat over the fire for them with Virgil’s help the other times they’d visited, but that had been the extent of it. “I want to make sure they enjoy themselves.”

Dee-Dee quietly nuzzled against Patton’s cheek. “I just don’t like Logan and Virgil not being here with you.”

“You know as much as I do that Logan didn’t want to work the late shift, but nobody could cover for him.” Patton would have shrugged, but he had to be careful not to shift his shoulders too much. “They’ll be home after dinner.”

Dee-Dee didn’t voice his concerns on Patton being eaten, as the humans had been out with the nagas several times already, always coming home safely. Instead, Dee-Dee just laid back down on Patton’s shoulders, sighing quietly.

Hopefully everything went okay.

Several minutes ticked by, and then someone knocked on the door. “That might be the twins!” Patton wiped his hands on his pants. Dee-Dee clung tightly to Patton’s shirt while he went to the door.

When Patton opened the door, Dee-Dee’s throat went dry. They were enormous. Dee-Dee had gradually gotten used to their scent, as every time his humans visited the giant nagas, they came back covered with it, so at least the mere smell of them didn’t throw him into a panic, but they were still just so big! Twin red and green nagas smiled, slipping in through the door one after the other. They barely fit through the doorway, and had to wriggle awkwardly to squeeze themselves into the house. Once they were inside, they took up most of the living room, and their tails tangled together as they got settled.

Patton had mentioned once that the giant nagas didn’t seem to have any clothes, but apparently they had decided to dress up for the occasion. Each naga wore a cloth sash running diagonally across his chest, similar in color to their scales, though the green one was somewhat frayed. The red naga wore a belt made of white, intricately knotted rope around his waist, while the green naga had several leather belts where his human-like torso connected to his tail, with bones sewn decoratively onto them.

“You two look really nice.” Patton shut the door after their tails were completely clear, following the giant nagas into the living room. “You didn’t have to dress up.”

“We wanted to.” The red naga put a hand jauntily on his hip. “It’s the first time in a long time that we’ve been out of the woods.”

Dee-Dee softly cleared his throat.

Patton perked up a bit. “Oh, yeah. Dee-Dee, these are my friends, Roman,” He gestured to the red naga, “And his twin brother, Remus.” The green naga smirked, showing off huge teeth. “And this is Dee-Dee,” Patton finished, gently lifting Dee-Dee’s torso with his hand. The little naga clung to Patton’s fingers, staring up at the giant nagas with wide eyes.

They leaned in closer, murmuring their greetings, eyes wide at seeing something so small.

“Oh, he is tiny!” Roman cooed adoringly. He started to reach for the much smaller naga, but Dee-Dee hissed nervously at him, and Roman pulled his finger away again. “Feisty little thing, isn’t he?”

Patton giggled, running a finger down Dee-Dee’s spine. “Yes,” he said. “He’s very protective of me, too.”

“Glad someone is taking care of our little Patton.” Remus softly patted Patton on his head.

Dee-Dee hissed again. “My Patton!” he corrected. “I’m his favorite noodle! He said!”

“I like him.” Remus pulled his hand back. “We’ve got competition, Roman.”

“I’ll enjoy the challenge.” Roman stuck his tongue out briefly. “Mmm. What smells so good?”

Patton beamed. “I made ham!”

“Sounds wonderful, Patton,” Roman said. “What’s ham?”

“It’s the back leg of a pig, but I guess none of you have ever had pig meat before.”

“I have,” Dee-Dee interjected. “I like pork sausages.”

“Yes, I know you do,” Patton said soothingly. He looked up at the giant nagas again. “Have you two had pig before?”

“Can’t say we have.” Roman rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s only so far we can go to hunt in our neck of the woods.”

Patton glanced back at the kitchen. “I should go back in there and make sure nothing’s burning,” he said, uncoiling Dee from around his shoulders. He set the small naga on the end table beside the couch. “Play nice, boys. I’ll be back soon.”

Dee-Dee watched sadly as Patton vanished through the doorway into the kitchen, then looked slowly up at the giant nagas. They gazed back with eyes bigger than Dee-Dee’s entire body. Fear ran down the length of his spine and he was suddenly, violently aware that it wasn’t just his Patton who was in danger. He nervously started to coil himself into a ball.

Remus was the first to break the silence. “D’aaaawww, Roman.” He lowered himself a fair bit to get a better look. “Look at the widdle snakey. He’s adorable!”

Roman nodded, grinning. “I can see why Patton is so attached to him. Cute little thing.”

Dee-Dee swallowed nervously, then raised himself up a little. “I— I’m still a good hunter! I can catch my weight in mice in a day.”

“That so?” Roman asked. “I’m surprised you’re not fatter, then.”

Dee-Dee sank down slightly. “W-well, I ate all the mice, and they’re gone now.”

“I love rats.” Remus licked his lips. “The other day I found a nest in the base of a tree. Tore it open, too. Most of the pups were nearly full grown, so I had a nice handful of the little squeakers.”

Dee-Dee decided it might be best to not speak, instead trying to make himself look less like a mouthful. The giant brothers fell awkwardly silent as well.

Remus was prodding curiously at the furniture, murmuring to himself, when Patton came back a few minutes later, setting a large, heavy tray on the dinner table. “Food’s ready!”

All three nagas perked up. Noting Dee-Dee’s nervous body language, Patton picked the little naga up and draped him around his shoulders again. Dee-Dee settled into place. Tugging on Patton’s ear, he said softly, “I don’t wanna be down. Don’t put me back down.”

“Oh, okay.” Patton carefully stroked his head. “I won’t.”

Patton had already boxed up two plates for the other members of the household for when they got home, knowing that otherwise there probably wouldn’t be any leftovers. He hummed quietly while he served himself a plate, grabbing a slightly larger slice of ham he could share with Dee-Dee.

Once Patton was sitting calmly at the table, he gestured for the twins to get whatever they liked.

The two were extremely hesitant as they slithered closer. Almost none of the food was familiar to them, but they didn’t want to seem rude or ungrateful, especially after all the effort Patton had obviously put into making the meal.

“Everything looks great, Patton,” Roman said diplomatically. “What is it all?”

Patton had been cutting up the ham on his plate, but he paused. “Oh. Geez, I forgot. You’ve both been living off whatever you can hunt in the forest all your lives. You wouldn’t know what all this is.”

He stood up, Dee-Dee tightening his grip ever so slightly for stability. “C’mon kiddos. Lemme tell you what I made.” Patton pointed to the large pile of steaming pink meat. “This is the ham, the main course. Like I mentioned, it’s pig meat, and it’s also got an assortment of special spices. Then here, these are mashed potatoes. You can eat some plant matter, right?”

Remus shrugged. “Yeah, a bit, but it doesn’t taste as good as meat.”

Patton nodded. “Hopefully you’ll like the potatoes anyway!” he said cheerfully. “I have a pretty good recipe, if I dare say so myself.” Moving down the table, he continued, “This is bread. I’d usually make smaller rolls for this kinda meal, but you’re kinda a lot bigger than the people I usually have over, so,” he laughed, “I made full-sized loaves instead.” Finally, he lifted the smaller pot at the end. “This is gravy. It’s like a thick meat juice, and you pour it over your ham or potatoes.”

Roman licked his lips. “It looks delicious, Patton,” he assured the human. “Is all that for us?”

Patton nodded. “I know you two have big appetites. I already put aside enough for the rest of us.” He went back to his chair and sat down again. “Sorry I don’t have plates big enough for you,” he said with a chuckle. “Or silverware. But I got some serving platters out, maybe you can use those?”

The two brothers eyed the food, deciding what to try first, then took the plates that Patton had set aside for them and piled them high. Remus piled his plate so full of meat that he didn’t have room for any bread, so he just put the loaf directly in his mouth as he settled at the table. Roman managed to fit a bit of everything on his plate, but he held an extra bread roll delicately between his front teeth.

Patton set aside a small portion of ham for Dee-Dee, who slowly unwound himself from around Patton’s neck and slithered down his arm. Still keeping his tail looped possessively around Patton’s wrist, Dee-Dee picked up a chunk of ham and nibbled on it.

The twins glanced between Patton and each other, then, after a second, dug into the plates they had prepared.

They didn’t mind getting messy while eating, but tried to contain the mess to their face and hands instead of everywhere else.

Dee-Dee was slightly disgusted as he settled closer to Patton. He always did his best to have manners while he ate around his humans, but these two were acting like savages. However, Patton didn’t seem that upset, so Dee-Dee let it slide.

“Enjoying your food, kiddo?” Patton broke the relative silence.

Dee-Dee swallowed the chunk of ham quickly and nodded. “Mhm! It’s delicious! I’m just… a little distracted by our guests.”

Patton offered the micro naga another piece of ham, but dipped in gravy. Dee-Dee happily took it and started to eat, inching closer to Patton’s plate.

After a few more minutes, Patton glanced up at the giant nagas, who were occupied with eating. Remus had gravy on his face where he’d torn into one of the full hams. Roman was thoughtfully chewing his bread.

“Enjoying everything, kiddos?”

Patton got two enthusiastic nods in return for his question.

Remus licked his fingers. “I really enjoy this pig stuff. Makes me wish we could hunt them.”

“I guess if you lived close enough you could hunt down pigs on a farm, you could, but you both live so far away.” Patton absently twirled his fork. “How was the walk— er, slither down?”

Roman shrugged, swallowing his bread. “A few people ran off if they saw us, but we kept away from roads and away from people until we got here.”

Patton nodded. “Don’t want to cause a panic.”

“Or wind up on the six o’ clock news.” Dee-Dee whispered to himself, taking a sip of water from his rainbow shot glass.

The rest of the meal went smoothly. As Patton had figured, the two giant nagas ate everything else he had prepared, and looked like they still had room for more, though they were polite and didn’t mention it.

Dee-Dee finally relaxed enough to let go of Patton while he collected the empty dishes from the table. He curled up slightly, content with the meal weighing down both his tiny stomachs.

Roman stretched his spine, arms above his head. His loosely folded fists bumped the ceiling, and he looked up, surprise briefly crossing his face before he adjusted, finding a different position so he could stretch without breaking anything. “That was very delicious, Patton,” he complimented.

“Yeah!” Remus agreed. He ruffled Patton’s hair with a single finger. “You’re good at making food. Even the plants tasted good!”

Patton grinned. “I’m glad you thought so.” He got up, carrying the empty dishes back into the kitchen. Dee-Dee remained on the table for the moment, so he had a perfect view of the brothers as they shifted, twisting around each other again and settling down comfortably. With a start, he realized that they didn’t seem to be planning on moving again for quite a while. Remus lay on his back on their coils, and Roman lay on his front, facing in the general direction of the kitchen but with an expression that suggested he wasn’t really seeing much of what was in front of him.

A few minutes later, Patton returned and scooped Dee up. His hands were warm, suggesting that he’d been doing the washing up. “Aww, is everyone sleepy?” he asked.

“Hm?” Roman mumbled. His gaze sharpened slightly, but not much. “Oh.” He yawned. “Yeah.” Remus yawned as well, only shifting slightly to settle further into the nest of coils. Dee-Dee frowned. He had enough experience with post-meal drowsiness to know that they would have trouble getting the brothers to budge before morning. He himself was feeling like settling down for the night, but that was countered somewhat by his concern about the two gigantic nagas now taking up the entire living room, coils strewn about the furniture and pressing against the walls.

“Are you gonna fall asleep?” Patton asked, walking up closer. Dee-Dee squirmed a bit in Patton’s hands, uncomfortable with his favorite human putting himself within easy grabbing reach.

Roman pushed himself up a fraction, then flopped down on the nest of tails again. “Mm.”

“Well, okay,” Patton said, much to Dee-Dee’s dismay. “You’re blocking off my bedroom door, though.”

Roman glanced around the room, seeming to notice the other doors leading off it for the first time. “Sorry,” he said. “Wanna sleep with Remus and me instead?”

Remus finally stirred, but he said the exact thing Dee-Dee least wanted to hear. “Wanna sleep in me?”

“No!” Dee-Dee exclaimed.

“You don’t have to, then,” Roman said, reaching for Patton. Dee-Dee hissed warningly, but the giant naga ignored him, wrapping his hand around Patton’s waist and picking him up. Turning, he passed Patton over to Remus, who’d sat up as well.

“No!” Dee-Dee said again, distressed. Patton wasn’t even squirming!

“It’s okay, Dee-Dee,” Patton assured him, running his hand gently down Dee-Dee’s back in a futile attempt to soothe him. Gently, he pried Dee-Dee’s hands away from his fingers, then unwound his tail from around his arm. Dee-Dee kept trying to grab back on, but Patton soon managed to completely detach him. “His tank is over there,” Patton said, holding Dee-Dee out toward Roman. “Can you put him in?”

“Of course,” Roman said. If Dee-Dee wasn’t so worried about Patton’s safety, he would have been impressed by how gently the huge naga took him in fingers thicker than Dee-Dee’s entire body.

“Patton!” Dee-Dee whined loudly as he saw his favourite human be lifted towards the unhinged jaws of a hungry predator. “Let him go, you brutes!”

Remus slid Patton feet first into his mouth, and a moment later, he was gone. Patton simply vanished down that gaping throat, little more than a lump. Remus’s belly above his tail gently bulged out and he sighed happily, hands grasping the flesh.

“No!” Dee-Dee cried again. Desperate, he bit Roman’s finger, sinking his fangs through the thick flesh. He hadn’t had any reason to use his venom recently, so his sacs were full. He emptied them.

“Youch!” Roman released Dee-Dee immediately, and the micro naga fell into the mess of coils below. He heard a swear from above, and then Roman ordering, “Don’t move. Remus, don’t move a single muscle, if we— he’s so small— if we hurt him, can you imagine how Patton would react? He’d be heartbroken.”

Dee-Dee struggled across the thick coils, trying to head towards where his human was stuffed inside a predator. Distantly, he heard a door open.

Oh no.

~~~~~

Chapter 6: Panic in the Living Room

#original #mine #collab #that prey lounge #writing #my writing #danger noodles #sanders sides

82 notes · View notes

sockparade · 2 years

Text

unintentional, unconscious

For better or worse, there are a lot of Asian immigrant stereotypes that my family didn’t fit into when I was growing up. My parents didn’t ever seem too concerned about my grades and pretty much stopped checking my report cards at some point in middle school. Neither of my parents would ever be described as stoic. In high school, my mom watched a few Dr. Phil episodes and insisted we all started saying “I love you” to one another more regularly. Sadly, I didn’t have a close relationship with either set of grandparents. Happily, my sisters and I never competed with each other for my parents’ approval. And as a family with three daughters, I think we were largely shielded from the patriarchal culture that a family with sons might experience more acutely. And there’s also just little things, like I didn’t know gifting knives or clocks to loved ones was bad juju in Taiwanese culture until I was in my twenties and was brainstorming gifts to give my mother in law.

One stereotypical thing my parents did do was cut a ton of fruit for us. For those who’ve never experienced it, lemme tell you, it’s super luxurious. It’s so nice to open the fridge during the hottest part of the summer and find a watermelon pre-cut for you in little bite sized cubes all neatly stored in tupperware containers. I know people make fun of the pre-cut fruit and vegetables that Whole Foods sells in their produce department but man, I think there are probably worse ways to waste your money.

Okay but the less discussed byproduct of this sweet “immigrant parents who cut fruit for you” stereotype is that for the longest time I couldn’t cut fruit for shit. When I was in elementary school, we owned one of those metal apple slicers. It looked like a small wagon wheel with thin metal spokes. You lined it up on the top of an apple and then just pushed down with all your 3rd grade strength. The slicer would cut the apple core out in this neat little cylinder and then slice the rest of the apple into perfectly consistent wedges. It breaks all the conventional rules about not having a single-use tool in the kitchen but it was super handy! I could eat all the sliced apples I wanted while my parents were at work. That apple slicer went missing during a move right before middle school and I think I stopped eating apples for a few years before I realized I could just bite directly into an apple.

So I hadn’t honestly thought about any of this, my fruit cutting deficiencies, until Lincoln was old enough to start eating solids. I bought no less than 3 books on homemade baby food recipes (why?) and every recipe was like “peel, cut, steam, and blend”. The adventurous ones were like, sprinkle cinnamon so the baby gets used to spices and doesn’t grow up to be a picky eater who coworkers avoid when making lunch plans.

I worked a ton when Lincoln was little and making homemade baby food made me feel really good about doing something extra for him. On weekends, after Lincoln was in bed, I’d make big batches of apples, pears, sweet potatoes, green beans, and carrots, and freeze them into tiny ice cube trays. I didn’t know it at the time but it was also a wonderfully meditative task during a highly stressful time in my career. Cutting the apples and pears was truly the hardest part. The context is that I survived my twenties by eating out and occasionally putting random things in a tortilla and calling it homemade. So I had no knife skills to speak of and I only had a set of dull steak knives that I inherited from my mom’s kitchen after moving out of her house. But it was also kind of nice that I was never in a rush to cut the fruit and I knew it was all going to be steamed and blended so it didn’t have to look good. I just had to make sure I didn’t cut myself in the process.

The other day I was cutting apples for my kids and I was suddenly taken aback at just how good I’ve gotten at it! How many apples have I cut in the last eight years? I marveled at how little thought I needed to put into slicing the apple halves into quarters. I admired the muscle memory in my hands as they completed this mundane but previously difficult task. I smiled at the ease with which I cut the notch in each quartered apple to remove the tough, seeded core– applying just enough pressure to do the job but without any danger of cutting my hand. I was in awe at the way I deftly removed parts of the stem while still preserving as much apple as possible. How pleasurable it was to slice the apples extra thin just for a bit of after-school snack flair.

Okay, in full disclosure, a few years ago I also upgraded my primary fruit cutting knives to these Victorinox Swiss Army serrated steak knives with cheap plastic handles (thanks for the tip Mary H.K. Choi). I love these knives so much I often pack them with me on weekend road trips or to dinner parties because I simply don’t want to cut anything with any other knife. But consider yourself warned, they are sharp AF so be careful!)

But like, my point is, I’ve gotten really really good at cutting apples. When did this even happen? I can’t get over how delighted I am to find this tiny example of unintentional skill building in my life.

As a recovering reformed evangelical Christian and a former social worker (double jeopardy!), I'm heavy into casting visions of the future and setting clear intentions for growth. I probably always will be. I’m a big believer of directly naming things that need to change and I’m equally invested in taking concrete steps towards a defined outcome. But lately, I guess I’m starting to see the limitations of acting like that’s the only way we evolve.

If most of our narratives about growth require intention, discipline, and technique, what does that do to our relationship to change? Being surrounded exclusively by intentional change sets us up for being overwhelmed in the face of big problems and seemingly insurmountable odds. It suggests that change is only worth pursuing if we can prove that we meet an intimidating list of prerequisites. I can’t manage to floss on a daily basis so who am I to think I can make a dent on climate change? etc. It also demands that we have a clear vision before we move. What if the vision stays blurry all the way until you start to move?

What I rarely hear, and maybe this is a real-life algorithm thing, are anecdotes of gradual, mundane proficiency and slow, unmonitored change. I mean, if anything, I feel like maybe we’re taught to have a fear of unintentional change. “You’ve changed!” feels like a timeless, soul-crushing insult. Allowing your environment to change you is framed as a mistake or a failure.

“Something like that happened to me. I saw this pattern… and it was everywhere. We can’t see it, but we’re all trapped inside these strange, repeating loops. Somehow I saw it in the mirror. Just a flicker, but it was like you said. And suddenly I understood.” - Morpheus, The Matrix Resurrections

Watching The Matrix Resurrections (as awful as the fight choreography and dialogue was) sort of made me realize that I’m probably still holding on to an adolescent fear of waking up one day to realize that I’ve become a sell-out. That unwittingly, I’ll become someone who just wants to be comfortable and no longer cares about the truth, love, or justice. Watching the first Matrix in high school, the idea of being rescued from a fake world seemed so damn compelling! Who wants to live a lie? And yet, 22 years later, I think I understand now, more than ever, just how appealing it would be to stay in the Matrix. Or to avoid revolution, hunker down, and grow some hydroponic strawberries in collaboration with the bots, shit, I don’t know.

But like, maybe I’m ready to let go of that adolescent fear. It’s not like I was ever that brave, but I think I always hoped that with age I would become braver and not more scared. What if I am admittedly more scared these days, and feel like I have more to lose, but I am still moving towards truth, love, and justice? That the people around me and the divine are leading me that way, sometimes, maybe often, in spite of myself?

I continue to obsess over Jia Tolentino’s essay, The I in the Internet, and this quote of hers in particular has frequently come to mind these past two COVID years. She reflects on those early years when the internet was really taking off and people were exploring what it meant to have an “online presence”.

“As more people began to register their existence digitally, a pastime turned into an imperative: you had to register yourself digitally to exist.”

As a long-time defender of social media, I smirked when I first read the quote a few years ago. Sure, in my teens and twenties I loved updating AIM away messages, writing blog posts, sharing articles on Google Reader (RIP), and sparking interesting debates on Facebook. In my thirties I enjoyed inviting old friends and family to watch my kids grow up on Instagram even though they were miles away. But I’ve always had a vibrant and busy life offline and many of my close friends either didn’t use social media or were so sporadic in posting that it was hardly representative of their existence.

So it wasn’t until I stopped working and most acutely during the stay-at-home order in 2020 when our family paused all in-person interactions, that for the first time, I kind of understood how posting on social media could feel like sending up an emergency flare into the sky. It felt kind of like shouting into the void, “Hey everybody, I’m still alive! Here’s photographic evidence! I’m over here still washing vegetables, reading books, trying to wrap my head around abolition, looking at my cute kids, and eating lots of snacks…”

“If your phone dies, do you die?” - Jeevan, Station Eleven

In recent years, I’ve made a focused attempt to develop a meditation practice and increase my mindfulness throughout the day. Somewhere along the way, did I start to foolishly believe that if I could minimize the unconscious in my life I would somehow be more human? That I could somehow stop being surprised by pain? When did I start to believe that eradicating unconscious living was a good goal? That it would make me less afraid?

And then, damn, have I been treating my consciousness like the way our society treats the internet? If it’s not conscious, did it happen? Does it matter?

Jia Tolentino is an excellent writer but she’s maybe an even better curator of quotes. In the same essay I mentioned above she quotes the sociologist Erving Goffman who says,

“All the world is not, of course, a stage, but the crucial ways in which it isn’t are not easy to specify.”

What a joy to discover the ways we grow and change without intention.

I am humbled by the reminder that I’m not solely in charge of orchestrating my human experience. I am relieved to remember that I do not dictate my evolution.

I just recently started using a floor lamp when we watch TV at night instead of turning on the overhead light attached to our ceiling fan. The vibe is infinitely cozier and I feel like our lives are probably improved by at least 3%. So needless to say, I will continue to pursue intentional change in my life, both big and small. But I now also have a growing curiosity about the way the world, the people around me, and the divine are shaping me, beneath my consciousness.

As I enter middle age this year, I feel like my goal is no longer to become less afraid– by whatever mental gymnastics, spiritual disciplines, or wellness strategies I might employ. I think what I'm moving towards is less clear but still compelling. I'm becoming, as James Finley says, less afraid of being afraid.

#change #unconscious #unintentional #fear #aging

1 note · View note

whole30problems · 6 years

Text

Day 20: 1/20/18

Soooo... we are considering not finishing this Whole30. I’ll get into why, but let me first just say that I realize this seems like a really lame cop out. And I think it would be if this was the first time I was doing Whole30. But I already did the whole thing once so I know I’m capable of it - so it doesn’t feel like giving up to me, it feels like considering my options knowing how I’ll feel in both scenarios and trying to make the more mature move instead of focusing on the guilt that I think people will be disappointed in me or make fun of me or whatever might happen.

Actually, lemme just tell you about my day because I think then you may understand where I’m coming from.

Breakfast

I woke up at 5am again, sneezing and with a constantly runny nose (I should have taken a picture of how many tissues I used in the next hour; I think it was probably like 30). For some context on this: I have woken up between 4-5am every single day for the last... I think 2 weeks? We finally acknowledged today that it seems like I might be allergic to something in the apartment, because it seems like as soon as I leave home I’m fine, and as soon as I come back (like right now, as I type this, I am sneezing again, and I have not sneezed in hours) it starts up again. So that is stressful thing #1.

So I woke up at 5, put in a few hours of work (stressful thing #2: work is crazy right now for a bunch of reasons and I know someone’s going to yell at me about work/life balance but I work at a very early stage startup that is doing a lot of cool things and this is not the time for me to have a work life balance so just don’t yell at me about it. But yes I basically work 24/7 currently and it’s exhausting), and sat around sneezing and feeling miserable.

Erik woke up eventually and offered to make some of those yummy smashed potatoes out of leftover cooked potatoes we have in the fridge. I said that sounded great. Then he came out of the kitchen with ONE plate with a couple potatoes and a sausage on it. I asked him where my breakfast was and he said he didn’t realize I wanted any. “What made you think,” I asked him, “That I would be making my own breakfast at some time in the future? I’ve been awake for hours and I’m starving. I also literally can’t stop sneezing long enough to even make it into the kitchen, PLUS I’m in the middle of a bunch of work.” (I am a joy to build a life with.) So he made me some breakfast:

Then he went off to skate (his current passion) and was so excited because this is the first day in months where it’s warm enough that he can go do it outside. He came back only an hour later, which is always a bad sign because it means something went wrong. It turns out the skate park was closed (and still full of snow), and he crumbled. The problem is, as I may have described here before, that January removes everything Erik loves. He’s not allowed to have beer. He’s not allowed to eat any comfort foods. He doesn’t have any free time because he’s constantly doing the dishes (or helping with other household chores that I don’t have time to do because I’m cooking every second of the day that I’m home). And he can’t spend any time outdoors, which makes him totally insane.

So on days like this, where he thought he might have something nice to do and then even that got taken away from him, it’s really not easy for him to bounce back. To his credit he tried, but it illuminated for me yet again how miserable this diet is making him. It’s just withholding one more thing that has the potential to make him have a good day. So there’s stressful thing #3.

Lunch

We went to see a couple apartments (as I think I mentioned the other day, we just found out we have to move), and since this was my first time really moving around today I noticed that a subtle lower back pain from yesterday had blossomed into what felt like a full-on muscle sprain. It was bad enough that I was limping a little because it hurt every time I moved my leg (back injury: stressful thing #4). When we got home from looking at the apartments, we did some stretching, which helped a little, but when I stood up from the floor I got really dizzy and that thing happened where I blacked out for a few seconds and couldn’t see anything and had to hold on to Erik until it passed. (Concerned family reading this: I promise I am fine, this is not something that happens often.)

This is when Erik totally lost his mind. He started expressing some concerns that I guess he’s had for a while, which is that I’ve basically been sick the whole time we’ve been doing Whole30 (as he put it, "I’ve never seen you this frail in the entire time I’ve known you”) and he strongly feels I should consider whether or not this makes sense for me to keep doing. I argued that I don’t see how eating less healthy would make me feel any better. What, if I was drinking regularly and eating pasta all my problems would be solved? And I really don’t know the answer to this - I don’t know if these things are a coincidence or if my diet really is hurting me somehow - but I do know that last year at this time I felt great, and for whatever reason I do not feel great now. I do have more energy at work, yes, which is nice, but I think that’s just because I’m not drinking and I’m not eating sugar and I’m going to bed earlier. But I feel sick, and weak, and exhausted at the end of the day, and I can’t sleep. So something certainly doesn’t feel right. Stressful thing #5.

Anyway, we argued about that for a while and then I made us a greek salad, which was really good!

It’s just romaine, hardboiled eggs, tomatoes, and kalamata olives. The dressing is olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, and salt and pepper. While I was making this admittedly very simple and quick salad, I was also heavily guilting my husband about not offering to make it. But the problem is, he hates cooking more than anything in the world, I think maybe even a tiny bit more than he hates seeing me in pain, which is certainly a lot. So I made lunch while I moaned every time I had to move because my back hurt, and constantly blew my nose because it wouldn’t stop running, and generally gave him a hard time. The thing is, I joke about this a lot here, but this kind of intense diet really is tough on a (or at least our) relationship. It’s so much work, and it’s neverending. Erik has done the dishes 3 times today, and somehow there are still dishes in the sink. There’s always groceries to order or something to clean or something to cook. And it is very much not making us enjoy the limited time we have together at home. Stressful thing #6.

I took a nap after lunch and that helped (so did the heating pad I put under my back).

Dinner

We did have one really nice part of our day. Remember that angel Duncan who cooked us a Whole30 dinner last year? He did it again this year, and this time he had help in the form of a second angel, Sarah:

They hosted us for dinner, and made us a delicious salad, a spatchcocked (??) chicken, and a truly amazing slow cooker curry cauliflower korma that you should 100% make. This was the best dinner I’ve had probably all month (half because it was good, and half because I didn’t have to make it). We brought the La Croix. They wouldn’t let us clean up any of the dishes after dinner. Like I said: angels.

They read the blog, so we talked a lot about how it’s going and the pros/cons. And while we were talking about it, I realized... there aren’t really any pros this year. In addition to all the health problems I’ve been having, I also still haven’t dropped more than those original 5 lbs (and I’m convinced that was just from getting rid of alcohol). And we’re just... so... miserable.

Duncan also made us a “second course” (since we’re not allowed to have “dessert”) which was a sort of smoothie made from bananas, coconut milk, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Oh my god it was heavenly.

On our walk home, Erik and I had some real talk about the Whole30. He told me how guilty he felt eating that paleo crack bar the other day because it had raw maple syrup in it, and how it got him thinking that so many of the Whole30 rules seem so silly because we already know (from doing it + reintroduction last year) that a bunch of the forbidden foods don’t make us personally feel bad. I also think I’ve been relying on the Whole30 too much as my sole (theoretical) method of losing weight or staying skinny when really what I should probably be doing is exercising. And, ya know, sleeping.

I think we just don’t... really believe this is the right diet for us. And we actually DO eat relatively healthy (much more than we used to before Whole30). We went down the list:

We almost never eat bread or pasta at home

We almost never order in food

We eat breakfast every day, and it’s usually some variation of the eggs and meat/veggie we’re eating now

We’ve both cut down on our caffeine

We’ve both massively cut down on our sugar (outside of my one vice, Pumpkin Spice Lattes in Nov/Dec)

I eat way less cheese than I used to, and Erik eats way less fast food than he used to

We’re not perfect, but we don’t have any serious dietary reactions to anything we eat, and we’re relatively thin, active people. I just don’t really know what we’re trying to get out of this anymore. It doesn’t really feel like it has a point this year. Last year, we had a goal: finish the Whole30. Prove that we can do it. Now it just feels like a dumb project we’ve finished already.

I feel pretty confident that even if we choose not to continue doing the Whole30, we can still use January as a healthy month (no alcohol, little to no sugar, more veggies, and actual exercise) and get more out of it if we’re not stressed and miserable all the time.

So there you have it. I don’t know what we’re going to do but I can tell you that I’m leaning towards giving up on this. We have enough stress in our lives without a self-imposed diet that seems to be killing both of us slowly. I still super believe in the Whole30 and think it’s worth doing once to learn what works and doesn’t work for your body, but I think what I’ve learned this time around is that rather than doing something extreme like this again, a smarter thing is just to take what you’ve learned and incorporate that into your life in a sustainable way. I’d like to be healthy year round, not just in January.

And Erik would like to eat a pizza.

#blog

0 notes

nommy-thoughts · 4 years

Text

Danger Noodles Chapter 5 Dinner Guests (no vore version)

Wordcount: 2.9 K

Summary: Patton invited his new friends over for dinner! Dee-Dee doesn’t approve.

Note: This chapter belongs to the non-vore timeline. Most of the chapter (the first 2.5 thousand words) is the same in both timelines, but after the line “Wanna sleep with Remus and me instead?” the timelines diverge for the remainder of the story. (vore version)