Pub's a bit quiet. I'll have a small hot sake, please. Life Updates Probably moving within the next two months. I'm on a research project until then, so job search had been put on hold. Given project/graduation/lease ends all on the same day, I'm moving some extras down to the 'rents this weekend. Entertainment Review I finished Death Parade last night. The show's short at 12 ep./20 min, sweet, and a hint of dark. The show's a take on how souls are judged upon death. If the first episode is watched without interest in continuing, then I encourage you to power through to the second. Episodes 1 and 2 really should have been combined into a long pilot. Premise: two souls without memory of dying enter a bar to play a game - darts, bowling, cards, etc. The bartender is a non-human who seeks to understand humans while judging the souls' behavior as the games progress (sometimes with distressing twists). Despite the 'heavy' setting, the show does a good job of not making pretentious, sweeping statements on the subject of death. In fact, writing does well to uphold life and living through au devours of others' memories in each episode. The final two episodes drive home the underlying conversations about life through one of the main character's persistent guests. In one of the few sequences that has made me tear up in a long while, no less. More on the topic of pretentiousness, the show feeds just enough information to hint at power structures and levels in the afterlife, but only enough to indicate to the viewer there is considerable thought behind the story without delving further or taking the focus too far from character development/revelation via unnecessary power struggles or blind-sided power creep. All-in-all, Death Parade is a nice drama-esque snacc. It only helps that the animation style is so clean, with a subtle flex of muscles here and there. Not to mention a slick OST. Check out this opening song: Catchy opening for an anime, eh? There was more to speak to in my eyes for how they approached 'judgement' through a dynamic between two people, rather than a dude with a dog head and a banana hammock weighing you against a feather. Erm... read as: 'It's just you, your life's worth and God now, Bucko' vs. expressing who we've become at our core. Moreover, is the core of who we are really that complex to start? Tangent Time Solo quarantine is a downer. I'm looking forward to the excuse to see family irl. Even if socially distanced. [Insert segue to moving possessions that ties into Death Parade and the following media excerpts] This panel from Sandman runs so ridiculously in-line to why Avatar Kyoshi from the Avatar: the Last Airbender universe lived for roughly 230 years. From The Rise of Kyoshi: “Sifu,” she drawled. “Oh, please, impart upon me the mysteries of immortality, for I wish to watch eras pass before my eyes like the grains of an hourglass.” “Of course!” Lao Ge said brightly. “Anything for my dear student. You see, it all comes down to maintaining order. Keeping things neat, clean, and tidy.” “Excuse me?” This was genuinely offensive to Kyoshi, as a former housekeeping servant. She’d let go of her standards for cleanliness the first morning outside of Yokoya, after waking up covered in Pengpeng’s shed fur. But with his drinking and aversion to changing clothes, Lao Ge toed the line of rancidity. What did he know about tidying up? “Aging is really just your body falling apart, on the smallest, most invisible levels, and neglecting to put itself back together,” he said. “With the right mental focus, you could take an inventory of your own body and place each little piece that’s not where it should be back into the correct order.” Kyoshi had to assume he was tailoring his lessons to her background and that the real process was much more complicated. “The way you describe it, you’d have to decide what version of yourself you’d be stuck as, forever.” “Exactly! Those who grow, live and die. The stagnant pool is immortal, while the clear flowing river dies an uncountable number of deaths.” “Is that another proverb of Shoken’s? Because it doesn’t sound like any spiritual lesson I’ve heard.” “It’s my proverb,” Lao Ge whined, his feelings hurt again. “All this fretting about spirits. I’m trying to teach you about the mind. An infinite world that’s been neglected by far too many explorers.” My follow up food for thought would be how to do this (holding on to 'little things' of you) without fossilizing. Anywho, here's to livening up the place around here. Quarantine plus extended not-interacting got me in old isolating habits for the worst. But it feels nice to word-vomit/type it out. Yeah, the U.S. is "re-opening" but FL broke its record for single-day covid19 spike in cases this past Saturday. Otherwise, a night out with the cohort would be a very welcome reprieve. I'm kinda amazed at the friend group I've made here. Take it from me in a post 112 days ago: I'm not looking forward to the prospect of moving to another city, knowing a good chunk are planning on staying here. Which is weird to me. You know for a long ass time I've been good moving about since I generally find detaching as my go-to. This town is actually a great size with residents that give quite a few fux about their home turf. In other words, it'd be a nice place to hang around longer, if only to have more bonding time with those I care about. Pooey. Food Speaking of pooey, here's what I've been cooking: Challah and Jam. Turns out jam is suuuuuper fast AND easy to make. Jam Recipe - I've never bought jam before. My mom always had store-bought around the house. I'm sure as hell not going to buy now, though. Maybe it's the insane amount of sugar needed for the recipe (spoiler: it is), but I'm making it for every bread baked here-after. Tip from a friend: put hot pepper seeds in the jam. The kick is a good twist. Pizza (and its dough) can be made from scratch in under 45 minutes. Pizza Dough Recipe - the story is a nice read for once, too. -- Not pictured b/c I ate it all just now: stuffed cabbage... oops. :-) Recipe. Only used as guidance for cabbage/stuffing prep. Sauce was what I had on-hand. Still came out great. Misc. There have been morning birds singing from 1 AM to 4 AM in the morning around here. It's disorientating. See y'all 'round, and don't forget to eat yer fruits 'n veggies.
First, she didn’t believe he was anywhere near as old as he claimed. And second, desperately grasping for more power and control over life was what people like Jianzhu did. Te too, probably.
3. Leaning on friends is nothing to be ashamed of. All of last semester I went out of my way to help the others in my classes. Not to network, but because I wanted to do grad school different than undergrad. After the second or third flop, I was invited out of the blue for dancing with my cohort. Was able to balance 'a good time' with venting, and was lent an air-mattress for a night over with a friend in the end. Been having movie nights after weekend labs on and off since.
At the start of the pandemic, our managers/leadership at the bank sent us care packages. I think it's always hard to come up with good things to send for these sorts of packages. Anyway, one of the things they sent us was a collection of recipes that are, purportedly, favorites from each of the managers. I'd scanned the packet, seen a few too many recipes that called for things like "ranch flavor packets," and put it in my pile of recipe print-offs. I came back to it while organizing this past week. Here's the thing, recipes can be really personal and honestly the printed package was the most touching part of all the things they sent. Even if there was no way in hell I was making some of these recipes and even if the content of certain people's "favorite recipes" certainly seemed to correlate with, well...their tendencies towards inactivity, shall we say? OK, yes, I mean that the fat person on the leadership team had 3 different recipes for dips among her contribution. What I'm saying is that the recipes and the effort they represented were touching regardless of how much you could snark at them, if you wanted to. So the other night I made "Ronald's Favorite Sheet Pan Chicken With Potatoes, Dill, Arugula and Garlic Yogurt." The garlic yogurt is really a toum,, and the recipe called for harissa -- I've never used harissa in a recipe before, actually, wasn't familiar with it outside of the context that I'd seen harissa flavored olive oil at a speciality shop. For the first time in my life I had reason to shop at the local Middle Eastern/halal grocery store. A small can of harissa goes for $1.49. It was worth it. And besides that, the recipe really was pretty delicious. There are a few more out of that packet I'm going to try to make over the next few days/weeks. And I am gonna let each person know when I've tried one of their contributions. I feel like they tried hard to be real people for us, and I want to acknowledge that and recognize it in return.
Sending a care package with a personal recipe is kinda cute ngl. Hope they sent some snacks with it, too. Placing this on my to-do list. Leaning into more white meats recently, and my dislike of turkey has me looking for more ways to spicy up chicken recipes. Usually, there isn't much value in the stories attached recipes that necessarily make the meal better preparation-wise. BUT, they are nuggets of substance making the end product a little more personal. Respect.So the other night I made "Ronald's Favorite Sheet Pan Chicken With Potatoes, Dill, Arugula and Garlic Yogurt." The garlic yogurt is really a toum,, and the recipe called for harissa -- I've never used harissa in a recipe before, actually, wasn't familiar with it outside of the context that I'd seen harissa flavored olive oil at a speciality shop.
And I am gonna let each person know when I've tried one of their contributions. I feel like they tried hard to be real people for us, and I want to acknowledge that and recognize it in return.
Now that's a Pubski. That pizza reminds me of an old flame used to make. Those were good times, and that was a good pizza. Thin base, I'm guessing? Solid or kinda flexible?
There was a good uptick leading up to and at the start of quarantine. Could be projecting here, but it's calming down a long way, re: pubskis. Thin and solid. It's a vegan crust that has no moisturizing ingredients, nor are you supposed to let the dough rise. Placing cheese, then sauce, then cheese + topping again is a good tip from the recipe.
> nor are you supposed to let the dough rise Pizza dough from the Russian recipes is bread. :P Thin and solid. Yep, those are the memories. When you talk about the order of ingredients: are you saying you're supposed to start with cheese?
It's still bread, no doubt. Flour, yeast, water and all. Just a step removed from matzah somehow. Don't want to learn the difference - lest I can't spare relatives from a homemade batch next Passover. From the chef himself: [After adding the sauce] Cheese, sauce, toppings, then cheese is another variant I'd been doing. At that point, you better have built a nice crust to hold in the lactose lava.When you talk about the order of ingredients: are you saying you're supposed to start with cheese?
Add a little cheese before the toppings. This was a trick I learned working at the pizza place. Starting with a very thin layer of cheese helps the toppings stick. It also creates like a cheese-topping sandwich on top of your pizza, which is just amazing .
Oh, I meant like quarter of the loaf tall, in jest. In reality it's closer to 0.75 inch. Neat, thanks for the tip!