#Not JUST for this though it's also because I like ketchup and jars and I'm bad with money

[somegrumpynerd]

Bitty update! Or I guess bitties (bittys?) update since there's apparently two of them now.

I didn't expect to see much of them after that last encounter since they seemed pretty unhappy about me getting too close, but I kept leaving out food and keeping my eyes peeled just in case. A lot of people have been saying to leave jerky but I haven't been able to find any so I've been leaving out bread and ham, is this okay for them?

Anyway, the other day when I was on my lunch break I saw the horror bitty scurrying around again. He saw me and disappeared which I expected, but then he came back and just kinda sat across from me and ate?? I didn't want to say anything in case it spooked him so we just sort of ate lunch together in silence, but I did try and take a sneaky picture

Is this good? Is this normal for bitties? When he was finished eating he just got up and walked off and I didn't see where he went, but I assume he's not super scared of me if he sat and ate so close right?

Also I found this cute little ketchup jar, I've been keeping it in the fridge since it's been warm in work and I thought they'd like a cool treat. Well I found it like this the other day so I guess that's a yes lol

[clatterbane]

Getting tonight's delight underway, which is another thing that I was prompted to make with Mr. C gone. I haven't actually had any baked beans in years, living where they're not a thing-- with someone who is not a fan of either beans or that type of sweet-tart-savory flavor profile.

Using this as a starting reference for proportions. Though, I am making a smaller batch and using some of those leftover hillbilly-style pinto beans out of the freezer along with one can of the Heinz-style not-quite-pork and beans. (Saving some for another dish.) My mom liked to mix up the beans a lot, and it's a good use for leftovers.

I also like to add some lightly sautéed fairly chunky onions and peppers. So, I'm getting ready to fry up the onion and mix of green and red sweet pepper in a skillet that I incidentally used to cook a couple of test pieces of the expired pack of bacon that was sitting in the fridge a little while ago. (It smelled and tasted fine, so no need to scrounge in the freezer after other bacon. It was also pretty salty for commercial bacon, so that probably helped.) The rest is waiting in the fridge to go on top of the beans. Bacon does come in small like 150g/5 oz. packs here, so it's just about the right amount for this size dish.

(Exactly which size pan? Idk. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I pulled out a couple, and will mix up the food then evaluate which looks like a better fit. It'll only be like two cans of beans worth, though.)

Also using the also Heinz-style chili sauce in place of ketchup, because that's what I've been doing across the board. It's tangier with a little more complex flavor, and also there was a bottle already open in the fridge.

That mustard was originally in a tube.

But, it fell in the floor and got a hole in the tube. So, I squeezed it out into that jar, and am trying to use it up first. Not nearly as convenient to put on a hot dog, but fine to spoon into bean gloop.

This may or may not get any additional sugary stuff added. I don't like baked beans super sweet myself, and the sauces may already have plenty. Have to taste and see.

[thecurioustale]

Puttanesca Alla Fuck You

A puttanesca without anchovies (or some kind of salted fish) is like a ketchup without tomatoes! Sure, you can physically do it, and it may have started out that way historically (I'm not gonna get into that because it's a rabbit hole), but in the Year of Our Unicorn 2024 it's 100% wrong wrong wrong! 😭😭😭

I didn't even know a version without anchovies was a thing. The whole point of the sauce is its saltiness and pungency. Sure, you can do that with just the olives and garlic, but leaving out the salted fish is a real self-inflicted wound. And while puttanesca is not supposed to be, shall we say, a "seafood dish," there should be enough anchovy in there for you to be able to taste (albeit subtly) not just its depth of umami but its actual flavor. I dunno, I guess reasonable people can disagree on that, but if they did then reasonable people would be 100% wrong wrong wrong! 😭😭😭

I first started noticing adulterated puttanesca a few years ago in jarred form: I always look at the labels of new foods before I try them, and I found a jar of puttanesca (which excited me) whose ingredients list contained no fish of any kind (which outraged me). And once I noticed it the first time, I began noticing that, on the rare occasions I would see jarred puttanesca, it often lacked the anchovies. Okay, whatever. Wouldn't be the first time that food companies try to make more profit by doing something stupid with their food products. Welcome to the wonderful world of the Enshittification of Everything—even food! It makes rich people oodles of money even though we all know it's 100% wrong wrong wrong! 😭😭😭

But then I started noticing it in restaurants. Puttanesca is my favorite type of pasta sauce, so if I see it on a menu I am going to check it out. And, to my horror, I began to realize that this wasn't a one-off. I found more restaurants that also don't use anchovies in their puttanesca! To say that I was shocked to my very core would be the understatement of a thousand years, because in my mind, again, a puttanesca is synonymous with and inseparable from the fish that goes into it, like tomato in ketchup. I wracked my brains trying to come up with an explanation. Jarred pasta sauce manufacturers might leave out the most expensive ingredient, but actual restaurants never would. So what was going on? My best conclusion was that it was another one of these dumbass Pacific Northwest "twists" on food customs. We're really notorious out here for taking good food dishes from around the world and then making them "Pacific Northwest," usually by making them "lighter" fare that cuts protein and starch and fat via omitting some combination meat and dairy and egg and potato. Or, occasionally, you'll see a mammalian meat ingredient replaced by a fish one, or by mushrooms. Whatever; it's all 100% wrong wrong wrong! 😭😭😭

The last straw, and my occasion for writing this jeremiad, was seeing puttanesca on the menu of one of the "fancy" Italian restaurants here in town—you know the type: big prices, fancy digs, located on the waterfront, but not necessarily the best food (that's always a hit or miss with these kinds of places)—and they described their puttanesca like this: "tomatoes, basil, capers, calamata olive, chili flake, lemon juice, garlic, tomato sauce." Oh no you don't. OH NO YOU DON'T!!! That is 100% wrong wrong wrong! 😭😭😭

So I finally went and looked it up to see what the hell is going on. And that's when I learned that—just to peek at the rabbit hole briefly—the Neopolitan version of the dish named "puttanesca" doesn't typically use anchovies, even though there are near-identical versions of the dish, not named "puttanesca," that do. But under the name puttanesca, anchovies are more of a Southern Italy / Sicily thing. And clearly that's the influence that is winning out here in the Pacific Northwest and among the Jarred Pasta Sauce Industry. Which I am capitalizing because it's 100% wrong wrong wrong! 😭😭😭

Look...I get it. Recipes have variations. There's no law that says you can't be stark-raving mad about your culinary choices in life. (Actually there are a number of them, not least the prohibition against cannibalism, but for rhetorical purposes we'll say there aren't.) And just because I grew up knowing one and only one version of a dish doesn't mean that that's the only valid version of that dish. It's just that, in this case, the salted fish is central to the premise. That's what sets apart puttanesca from other Italian pasta sauces. Without it, it becomes essentially an olive sauce, as olives are both the next most distinctive ingredient (flavorfully and aromatically) and also the next most important ingredient in the sauce. I dunno; it just seems to me like missing the point. And I realize that maybe if you squint at it right the heart and soul of puttanesca is actually its convenience. Indeed, the etymology of the word (aside from the obvious) may actually refer to the "use whatever you have" nature of the recipe.

But. If it did...

And if that were how we conceived of it...

It would be 100% Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

😭😭😭

[barry-j-blupjeans]

Weird Q's: 15, 16, 17!

((weird questions for writers: send some in :O!))

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

I don't write in the margins and I don't read in the bath, but I do dog-ear my pages if I own the book! Mainly bc I find something to use as a bookmark sldfsdf. I wouldn't say I judge ppl who do the other two tho! It's just a matter of preference Ig sldfsdf. Friends 🤝

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

Opened ketchup packet (empty, thankfully!) 😔 I didn't realize until I threw my bookmark in the trash that I had switched them up somehow sldfksdf. Luckily, there were minimal ketchup damages!

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

I have so many wips but the one I'm gonna be referring to in this one is one where Kravitz is training Lup and Barry to be reapers, while slowly uncovering his past and learning how to live again, instead of just exist.

I have so much Kravitz lore. Like a wild amount of Kravitz lore. The main one is that he's the only reaper (before Lup and Barry) and one of the only personal helpers for any of the gods. I personally see the gods in this universe taking on a much more distanced role, so they try not to interact with their followers too much. But if they need to, they'll step in. Kravitz wasn't a devout follower in life, but the circumstances of his death made it impossible for him to go into the sea like a normal soul would, so the Raven Queen was just kinda like "ok ur my son now!"

I also imagine that being a reaper is uncomfortable. You can't exist in the astral plane unless you're already dead, but the Raven Queen wouldn't defy her own laws of sending a dead person back into the living planes. Therefore reapers are sort of an in-between. The Raven Queen starts his heart back up again when he's on bounties and then stops it when he goes back to the astral plane. This is why Kravitz can take damage and stuff, bc he's technically alive, just not like anyone else would be. The Raven Queen, quite literally, is his lifeline.

Because of how uncomfortable that all is, Kravitz often spends a lot of time in the astral plane. It takes Taako and everyone to convince him that maybe he should come out a little more. It's not the being alive that's painful, it's the crossing between planes. Though (and I think this will be included) the Raven Queen is not vv happy with him at first for spending so much time "living". Kravitz being torn between the goddess that literally keeps him alive vs the love of his life and his family makes for a vv juicy plot, thank u

Kravitz also has an in with the other gods/goddesses, if only because they convinced the Raven Queen that Kravitz at least was human and he does need to socialize. But it's so jarring and fun for him to discover the difference between socializing with gods and socializing with the birds (who are kinda gods in their own right? but i digress sdlfsd)

I could literally go on about this for ages, but i'll spare u for that sldfsdf