#THE UNIVERSE MADE THEM JUST SO THEY COULD COME TOGETHER LIKE RANCH SAUCE

[sisterdanielmilf]

you think you're finally mentally stable and then you cry over RANCH

[ginger-delight-writes]

For A Long Time Looking at Stars

Pairing: Shane x Farmer Genre: romance, hurt/comfort, slow burn, angst Rating: explicit  Warnings: suicide, self-harm, alcoholism Summary: Taking place in a realistic Stardew Valley universe (no magic), this is a long, serious fic about falling in love while dealing with the ups and downs of mental illness. 

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CHAPTER 1

It was the last one of the night – Shane Daniels was out of money.

He tilted his head back, draining the lukewarm dregs from the bottom of his glass. It clanged loudly when dropped to the sticky wood table and he glanced around to see if the noise had startled anyone – to his surprise the saloon was alive with chatter and laughter, as distant to Shane as he was to it.

It was spring in the valley but the nights were still long, and the air bit with unexpected teeth when he exited the stuffy bar. Tugging his hood higher and shoving his hands in his pockets, he slouched away from the muffled laughter and headed home. When he arrived the lights were off, and pausing at the door he could hear no noise – his aunt was probably already in her room. Those three beers at Gus’s hadn’t been nearly enough, but if he was quiet he could grab the bottle from his sock drawer and sneak back out without having to deal with her.

Sneaking out of the house at twenty-nine years old. Son of a bitch, he thought, tucking it in his pocket with shame.

Twenty-nine going on forty-five, that was. The bags below his eyes, tinted ruby. The five o’clock shadow that darkened his jaw no matter how close the shave. The way if he swept back the hair from his forehead several gray hairs poked through the nearly black ones, and the way, in the last few years, that his face had bloated from drinking. On busy nights the bar swarmed with both the early-twenties crowd and the middle-aged regulars, and while he was closer in age to the former, the latter was closer in spirit.

Weary, cynical spirit.

He reentered the darkness and started along the well-worn path from the ranch to Cindersap forest, and from there to the lake and the dock that had long been his brooding spot.

Son of a bitch, he thought again, seeing the silhouette near the shore.

Should he head back? There was no such thing as welcome company in this piss-water little hamlet, where everyone knew where you worked, where you slept, what groceries you bought or that you’d just seen the town doctor for that rash on your stomach. Shane closed his eyes, wishing it’d disappear into the forest like some shadow creature – somehow that’d be less terrifying. But when he opened them again not only was the figure still there, its upper half was turned toward him.

His eyes adjusted to the dark and he could make out a girl with light blond hair, who, like Shane, was hunched against the cold in a hoodie.

“Thought I heard someone,” she said.

“Yeah, well, not staying,” Shane replied gruffly, already facing to leave.

“Hey, do you know what time it is?”

Time for me to get the fuck out of here.

He pulled up his sleeve to check the watch on his inner wrist, and without turning around called back, “10:45.”

“Cool, thanks.”

He took out the bottle, unscrewing the cap and taking a long swig above his head before walking away again. He’d barely taken his first step when he heard, “Wait!” and turned to see the girl take a few steps toward him.

“What do you want now?” he demanded, patience short.

“You – this is pretty forward of me, but you don’t have a smoke I could bum, do you?”

So she’d seen him drinking straight from the neck and assumed he was a smoker. Natural thing to assume, he guessed, but he wasn’t – not enough money to go around for more than one vice. And who the hell was this chick anyway?

“No."

“Probably for the best,” she murmured, more to herself than Shane. “Thanks anyway.”

The way she scratched the back of her neck while looking around, then turned and anxiously rubbed her arms as she walked away – he could tell she was jonesing. He hesitated, knowing the feeling. For a moment some of his old compassion returned, overriding even his hatred of strangers and idle pleasantries; he heaved a frustrated sigh and walked over to where she stood.

“Here.”

She stared at the bottle of Jack he'd shoved at her, debating, then pushed out a hand that was hiding in her hoodie sleeve and took it. The bottle paused before her lips, she raised an eyebrow. “You know this only makes it worse, right?”

He shrugged. “Don’t have to.”

Closing her eyes she took a rather heroic swig, spine shivering as it hit her. “Thanks,” she said, capping it and offering it back.

“Go ahead.”

“No, that’s enough.” She handed it to him and put her hands in her pockets. “I’m glad you didn’t have a cigarette. I’m supposed to be quitting. And if that’s not hard enough on its own, try being plastered and craving one.”

Shane looked at her curiously; he didn’t often look at people curiously, but that’s because after a few months of living in Pelican Town – total population less than his old middle school – he thought he’d already seen everyone there was to see. Especially this far out: the ranch skirted the edge of town and the lake went out of it completely. He had no idea where this girl had come from. Maybe she was from the city, visiting a friend or relative. She didn’t look rural, what with her high blonde ponytail, and the little stud on one side of her nose that kept catching the moonlight, shimmering like a small star.

“Oh well." She smiled at Shane with one corner of her mouth. “At least there’s no 24/7 convenience store here, right? Forced to ride it out.”

“Right." He wished he could leave again. Was it wrong to just turn and walk away? He could go by the river instead; it wasn’t as private, the ranch being well within sight, but at least he’d be by himself.

The girl was sharp though. She took one glance at Shane and said, “I’m imposing, aren’t I?”

“What?”

“This was supposed to be your dock. Well, not your dock, but you came out here to be alone, right?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled.

She shrugged. “I’ll go. Thanks for not having a smoke, mystery man. Saved me from going back to day zero.”

Then she walked away, and Shane couldn’t remember meeting anyone else in this town who’d offered to leave him alone without having to be told to fuck off first. They learned quickly after that, but still – no one else ever got it right on the first try.

All things considered the taste of unexpected small talk wasn’t as bitter as usual.

Pelican Town was snug deep in the heart of Stardew Valley, miles from the city where Shane had spent his whole life. He’d only been living there a few months – he and Jas, his seven-year-old goddaughter, moved in with Aunt Marnie on her ranch just before winter.The valley was familiar to him: the ranch and its animals, the river and lake, this very dock where he’d started coming as a boy when his parents dropped him off for a few weeks every summer. It was different as an adult and life in the valley didn’t suit him at all, but he’d run out of choices and if he had to be stuck in some hellish small town at least it was one that had places like the lake, places that carried some of his few good memories.

Marnie had always been good to him. In fact, she seemed to like him better than his own parents ever did. When Marnie got tipsy she liked to giggle and fall over herself like a twenty-year-old girl, rather than, say, make Shane dodge projectile beer bottles aimed at his head. She was chattier than he liked in a roommate, and far too interested in his life and goings-on, but she meant well. She never yelled or threw shit at him, and what more could he ask?

It was the same cloistered valley he'd known as a boy, the same too-empty/too-exposed feeling when walking around town, nothing to do and yet feeling like he was under the microscope of every bored housewife and nosy shopkeeper. A few things had changed, though – he'd never been here in spring before, and miserable as the town made him the cherry blossoms were rather pretty. The lake was a few inches lower, the water murkier than it used to be, and there was a wooden sign in front of the dock now, one that hadn’t been there before:

In loving memory of Emmet Wakeshire

Emmet Wakeshire once owned a great expanse of farmland just north of the ranch. Shane had never met the man, who’d died some years ago, but he knew that Emmet built the dock with his own two hands – when he wasn’t much older than Shane, as Marnie told it. The farm was one of the ranch’s closest neighbors and Marnie had been good friends with the old man, speaking of him often and fondly, erecting the sign as a memorial after he passed.

Shane walked to the edge of the dock and sat with his legs dangling, opening the whiskey and drawing out his pocketknife. He absentmindedly opened and closed it while staring at the hushed surface of the water.

Not much older than Shane, she’d said. He tried to think if he’d ever built anything in his whole life. A pyramid of beer cans in his room once, when he was sixteen. Sometimes they asked him to assemble cardboard display cases for holiday chocolate at JojaMart – once even entrusted him with snapping together an extra shelf when they’d ordered too much spaghetti sauce.

A regular architect, really.

A cloud drifted over the moon, Shane drank, and the lake was quiet but for small, pretty sounds: leaves rustling against other leaves, cicadas like cymbal brushes, hissing in the grass. The foam on the water stretched its white fingers out to shore, slinking back when they could stretch no further. He took a long swallow. Once upon a time it burned, like it had for the girl, but those days were gone and these days it went down like tea: warm, smooth, soothing. He laid down with his arms stretched behind his neck, his body heavy.

The stars were so much brighter here than the city. He felt thirteen again, lying on the same dock, staring at the same sky, feeling the same melancholy detachment from everything around him. Wishing just once he could look at the sky and feel wonder or awe instead. One star shone brighter than the rest and he stared at it, until the rest of the stars faded in the background and the bright one was the only thing he could see, pulsing like a beacon.

He felt lonely. Lonely at home, in town, at work, at the bar. Lonely out here too of course, but here it was different – here he was supposed to feel lonely. Insignificant, like everything else in this world. A cluster of atoms, huddled together in the shape of a human as if that meant something.

The universe wasn’t cold and uncaring; quite the opposite. It was telling him that if he didn’t want to be here, it was okay. It would continue to rustle and foam and pulse without him. It was okay if he didn’t want to stay much longer.

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On Monday Shane awoke to the shrill sound of his alarm.

As much as he loathed his job, it at least got him out of bed in the morning – more than he could say for anything else. Without the looming threat of joblessness (and not being able to afford Marnie’s rent, on top of his nights at the saloon) the siren call of those sheets was too strong. Not that he’d never caved, but JojaMart did keep it from becoming a routine.

The bright smell of coffee was the only other incentive to get up. He poured himself some, thankful Marnie was on the phone and couldn’t do more than nod good morning, and headed to the bathroom to shower.

At least there’s hot water, he thought as the steam from it filled the room, fogging the mirror and glass doors. He turned his face to the showerhead, the scorching water pounding his eyelids.

The town had a runty suburbia that Shane had to pass through on his way to work, and that morning he saw Emily, the assistant barkeep, tending to the flowerbeds beneath her window. Scant rays of sun shone on her blue pixie-cut hair, and she smiled kindly when she saw him. Emily smiled kindly at everybody.

“Morning, Shane!” she said. He nodded at her.

Emily was okay. A little out there perhaps, a little too hippie-eccentric for Shane’s tastes, but she wasn’t annoying about it – one of those live and let live types. She and Gus were the only people who'd warmed to Shane since he arrived, though he supposed it worked both ways – they were among the only people he hadn’t told to get bent. Possibly because they saw each other five or six nights a week at the saloon, and miserable as he was he didn’t actually seek to make things awkward. That they were naturally kind and patient people who put up with his moodiness? That was just another enabler.

He passed Dr. Harvey’s clinic next. Harvey was decent as far as the villagers went, nerdy and quiet and with a greater respect for privacy than most of them. But he was also only in his mid-thirties and an MD with his own private practice – a conspicuous reminder each day of Shane’s own stupidity. The doctor sat at his front desk, scribbling notes with his tongue protruding from under his handlebar moustache.

What a fucking moustache too. Shane could’ve ridden it to town.

His head hurt like hell; he’d stayed at the dock far too long, until over half the bottle was gone. May have even passed out for awhile when he was laying down, because it was after two in the morning when he stumbled home for a shitty four hours of sleep.

Next he passed the large front window of Pierre’s General Store, Pierre himself straightening the sign on a bin of potatoes. He avoided Pierre’s if he could help it. Though it was closer to the ranch than JojaMart, the few times he’d swung by on the weekend for a six-pack (or twelve-pack, or twenty-four, depending on his mood and wallet), the shopkeeper’s judgmental eyes said it all – Shane’s habits at the saloon weren’t exactly a secret.

And so, hands in pockets and head down as he tried to quickly pass the little grocer, he didn’t notice the front door swing open until he was almost hit squarely in the face.

“Shit! I’m sorry!” cried a voice, and Shane, trying to still his beating heart, realized with annoyance that it was the same girl as the previous night.

Must be on a morning cigarette run.

He’d been several beers in when they met last night, and apparently in a bizarrely social mood because seeing her today – with throbbing head and bloodshot eyes – he wanted to snap his fingers and make her fucking disappear. This. This was what he hated about small towns. No anonymity, anywhere. Not even with strangers.

She wore the same hoodie as the evening before, along with jeans dusted with dirt, and for the few seconds before opening the door she’d been as deeply lost in her own thoughts as Shane had been in his.

“I didn’t see you!” she said quickly. “I’m sorry if – oh.” Her face shifted in recognition. “It’s you. Hi.”

“Yeah,” he grunted, trying to sidestep her, but she stepped back in front of him with eyes searching his face.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Like it’s any of her business. Probably thinks we’re friends now or something.

“I’m late,” he said angrily.

“I didn’t hit you with the door, did I?”

“Just fuck off.”

This time he successfully stepped around her, leaving the stunned girl staring after him on the sidewalk. She didn’t know who he was yet. Perhaps she’d just think him bipolar.

He really didn’t care.

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Hey guys, if you enjoyed this, there is LOTS more - 45 chapters, to be exact. You can find them here:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/9634940/chapters/21766157

Thanks for reading!

[musecat-ca]

We have two little furbabies.  Teo is 9 and he is a long haired chihuahua and Chica is 5 and she is a mini-dachshund and smooth coat chihuahua.  They make up our little pack of four with my husband and me.  When we got Chica as a puppy from a kennel in Saskatchewan, she had Giardia (Beaver Fever) and her poop has never been good, it took two full rounds of antibiotics to get it to be just okay.  Our little German-Mexican girl is also extremely high strung, over excitable and in many ways acts like children who have ADHD or even little ones on the autism spectrum.  Many times we have to sit and calm her down after any exciting encounter and afterwards she always has watery tummy.  It has become evident that she has IBS or Irritable Bowl Syndrome.  We were using very expensive dog food from the vet, but then it wasn’t making her better anyway.

I have been considering making their food for several years and over the last 6 years (approximately the time we have had her, our lives have changed considerably.  My husband’s position in an IT firm as a Web Developer was phased out after 5 years without notice and just over a year later, my job in Government at Supervisory level was axed after 14 years without notice.  My husband decided to become an Electrician, and after 5 years of school and only working a few months per year, Calgary again went through its 3 recession in 6 years (shouldn’t we call that a depression? – it was damn depressing,  let me tell you!) and once he had his ticket as a Journeyman, he couldn’t get a job for 6 months.

In the meantime, I couldn’t get a job in my field, not because there weren’t any or because I wasn’t fully qualified, but because my profession now requires a University Degree, even though I had several certifications and 24 years of experience.  So, off I went to university at the age of 45.  Flash forward 4 years and I will be getting my degree in the spring, but our lives are going in a different direction and I won’t be getting a nine to five job.

We are going to become Homesteaders.  Part of wanting to make by puppies food from scratch is the desire to make everything from scratch, go back to a simpler time when the food we ate, the clothes that we wore, the feed we gave to the animals we raised; didn’t come from a factory in a form that doesn’t look like any kind of food I’ve ever seen and is loaded with chemicals.  We watched a documentary on Netflix called “In Defense of Food; An Eater’s Manifesto” by a food critic and writer Michael Pollan (www.michaelpollan.com) it really made both my husband and I see food differently.

One thing that I have learned in university (and it is worth the $70,000+ is cost me to go) is that we are brainwashed.  We, in North America specifically, are brainwashed and we don’t even realize it.  How could we?  The USA is still considered to be the most powerful purchaser in the world and has huge corporations that have their hands in everything. From funding university research, to creation of chemicals in our agriculture production, to creations of pharmaceuticals to keep us healthy, make us healthy and to fight diseases like cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease that are all caused by the way we live consuming all of the other products that they produce.  Now before you ask me where my tinfoil hat is… what do we have to do if we know that we have been brainwashed?

Never stop asking why?  Remember our 3 year old self? Why?  It is the best first thing to do in any situation.  Why do we feed our dogs food that is in hard pellet format? Because that is what we have been told is the best thing for our dogs.  Why?  Good question.  I highly recommend watching “In Defense of Food”, it will give you dozens of reasons to ask why. Now and for the rest of your healthier lives.

On to my recipe.  You were wondering, right?  After seeing Michael’s movie I started researching and boy – it took me easily 40 to 80 hours of reading and researching.  Online, at my local library and having books sent over from other libraries.  There is tons of misinformation and contradictory information about what dogs should eat, what is poisonous to them and what they require.  I cut through all of the fad crap, vegan, vegetarian, microbotic, raw doggie yoggies out there and tried to stick to vets and holistic or naturaopathic vets.  I learned that there are three rules to feeding healthy dogs.

Dogs need protein from animals – protein from other sources is not processed as well and will not give your furbaby the protein that their system’s require

Dogs need calcium from bones – this is true and is actually the reason for some of the scariest stories of animal illness from dog food eating trends, dogs who snapped their legs while running from calcium deficiency, just awful.  Dogs require calcium in large quantities, but not from plants or synthetic sources.  Dogs require calcium from their primary sources of protein.  I now buy my little guys bones from the butcher and cook them up.  I also buy tendons, thoraxes, and other parts of the animal from my natural pet store… they love the thorax! To supplement their calcium, I keep all of my egg shells, boil them, dry them in the oven and grind them in a coffee grinder to powder and add 1 tsp of powder to 1 lb of food.

Dogs need fat from animals – I think that this one is just as important.  As humans, we have been bombarded with how bad fat is for us and we have superimposed that on our dogs.  They do not get plaque build up in their arteries.  They do not process fat the same way that we do.  They need fat from animals.  Easiest way to ensure this is in the meat that you make their food out of.  Don’t get extra lean ground beef or turkey breast.  Good for you, sure, but the dog needs more natural animal fat in his diet than that.  Although I do use olive oil, I put butter, heavy cream and cottage cheese in my guys’ food.  Careful on the cheese as it has high salt content.  Cottage cheese is the lowest salt content for the amount of animal fat and calcium.

Dogs Breakfast

6 Large Whole Eggs (free range and nest laid are best)

6 Tbsp of Whipping Cream

1 Cup of Large Flake or Steel Cut Oats

1 Large Apple (diced)

1 Cup of Carrots (diced)

1/4 Cup of 2% Cottage Cheese

3/4 Cup of Fresh Parsley and Mint Leaves (fine chop)

1 Tsp of Egg Shell Powder (instructions to make above)

1 Tbsp of Butter

In a bowl, whisk together Eggs and Cream until thick and yellow.  Place butter (and a tsp of Olive Oil if desired) in large frying pan and once melted and sizzling, pour the egg mixture.

In a medium sized sauce pan cook oatmeal according to the package instructions.  Ensure you put a bit of salt in the water when bringing it to a boil.  Dogs need salt just like humans and if you’ve grown up on a ranch (like me) you will have seen dogs go out to the cows ‘salt lick’ on a hot day.  Once the water has come to a boil, add the cup of Oatmeal to the water (watch it cuz it likes to boil over).

Once the Oatmeal is happily bubbling, you can add your chopped apple and carrot to the pot.  Carrot, one of our puppies favourite things, however they are very hard to digest raw (who knew) so giving them a little cook while still keeping them in a bit of a chunk gives some texture to the dish.

Keep your eye on your eggs and I flip mine once or twice with a rubber spatula (heat resistant) and then break it into scrambled eggs, just like mommy and daddy eat.  Now it is time to get our herbs on!  Mint and parsley are both great for dogs.  I grow some in pots outside in the summer and then I also take the leaves and freeze them in baggies to use during the winter months (which there are a LOT of in Canada).  Mint and parsley aid digestion and make their breath and poop smell better – really.

Grab your Cottage Cheese, chopped Herbs, and Egg Shell Powder and we are ready to combine all the ingredients on a cookie sheet (I put parchment paper on mine for easy clean up).  I lay out the Oatmeal mixture and spread evenly, then the Egg mixture and spread evenly.  I sprinkle the Herbs, Egg Shell Powder, and the Cottage Cheese and then give it a good mix and spread it out again to cool.

I do this mainly because I have these two looking at me, like this.  When all is said and done and the dogs are fed and happy, I put it in two containers, which I label with the date and main ingredients.  I should note that I put some leftover chicken breast in as well but this is not part of the main recipe.  Feel free to experiment.  When raspberries were in season I put some in and peas.  Just write on the top and don’t introduce too many new things at once.  Just like when feeding a toddler.

I put one in the fridge and the other in the freezer and then when I am super busy or tired from canning or painting or something, I can bring the frozen one out the night before and put it in the fridge.  Hope this is helpful.  Hope I am not too long winded for y’all.  Have a great day and love your puppies!

Look for my follow up blog which will be “Dog’s Dinner”

The Dogs Breakfast… Literally. We have two little furbabies.  Teo is 9 and he is a long haired chihuahua and Chica is 5 and she is a mini-dachshund and smooth coat chihuahua.  

[bitchninthekitchnnn]

BITCHN’ BUFFALO BITES

I have a habit of spewing apologies and saying sorry for everything in my life. I apologize for ridiculous things, most of which involve events out of my control and faults that I needn’t take responsibility for. I can say with almost certainty that the people and inanimate objects I say sorry to, could care less—it’s probably rather annoying. Why and what am I apologizing for all the time?

“It’s like we’re apologizing for our very existence,” my coworker Suzie said when I brought it up at work.

She nailed it. If there’s an absence of fault that we’re claiming than it must be the space we occupy. Right? It was comforting to encounter another manic apologetic person. In fact when I brought it up at work I realized how many people around me could relate— I happen to work with all women. As much as I detest the argument of it’s because you’re a woman, it seems inevitable that myself and the women around me feel more apt to apologize than men do.

Being over apologetic is unintentionally a play of power, both internally and externally. An apology relies on the power dynamic between the person apologizing and the person accepting it. Ideally an apology is in place as a way to take responsibility for doing wrong. It’s a way of fixing a fault, but by giving an absent apology, it’s a consent of power—something men don’t do easily and that women have been attempting to break the cycle of for centuries. I say this because it’s a product of our culture that men are taught to strive for authority, but women are raised to be polite.

Although it may not be the worst problem to have, there are two distinct things plaguing me about it. One, I’m bothered by the idea that being overly apologetic means being weak and even dumb and two, I think that’s exactly what being overly apologetic means to me.

I fear that being overly apologetic is rhetoric for the air-headed. That is my own opinion and I don’t feel too good saying it. When I make mistakes and immediately follow them up with a good rambling of I’m sorry, I’m squandering myself. It’s ok to make mistakes and making mistakes doesn’t mean that I’m dumb, but saying sorry every time I mess up just exaggerates my mistakes into something ridiculous and unmanageable. The use of I’m sorry instead of I’ll note that for next time, feels like I can’t do any better. It doesn’t leave any room for growth after the mistakes and so I might as well just apologize for the mistakes I know I’m going to make. The irony is that I know I can do better, but my overuse of excuses say otherwise. It’s my verbal acquittance that’s holding me back. I know that I’m smart, confident, and fully capable of common place daily activities, but it’s some hardwiring that’s riddled me to feel weak.  

It’s also in part that I’m uncomfortable with the thought of confrontation so much so that I would rather shuck out a trail of apologies for absent problems rather than have issues arise. It’s easier to just do everything outrageously possible to avoid problems even if it means betraying my own well-being.

I value myself as being empathetic, but shit is getting out of hand. Besides I’m beginning to wonder, can an apology coming from an overly apologetic person be sincere? I have had my fair share of whole-hearted apologies, but after noting the amount of sorry’s I say in a day, I wonder how much I’ve drained the meaning. Apologizing is defined as expressing regret for something that one has done wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong, but my will to please others has me accepting faults outside of my own. It’s a cringingly hard habit to break.

In seeking solutions of how to be more unapologetic I took to the internet. This filled my browsers with reasons why one shouldn’t apologize—a list my anxious self didn’t want to read—but I did uncover a few tips that I want to start with.

Melody Wilding a teacher of Behavioral Science at The City University of New York and a contributor to Forbes magazine for Psychology outlines a three step quit plan for those addicted to the comforts of saying sorry. She suggests individuals should identify early childhood tendencies, observe situations when unnecessary apologies are used, and begin replacing unwarranted apologies with accurate statements to better communicate a point.

This last step, making accurate statements, comes across as a manageable approach. One of which I can practice with simple situations and people outside of work and then integrate it into all aspects of my life. I’ve challenged myself when I’m shopping or out in public to not apologize unnecessarily. I’ve also tried to identify some of the things I’m never sorry for or about. Things such as travel, my family, friends, writing, and delicious food. Grounding myself in these factors, may allow me to give less about the little things and start appreciating the rarity in which I actually need to apologize.

One thing I’m never sorry for is the healthy relationship I have with my friends and the time we share enjoying food. Among the countless things I’ve learned from my best friend Elle, the amazing host of this site, is how to make amazing food out of minimal supplies. As long as I’ve known her she’s been whipping up crazy bites in the kitchen even when our kitchen was a sandwich maker and a microwave in college. I’m addicted to krautcakes and I dream about her brown sugar bacon. She even turned me on to spicy foods with her skills and affection for flavor. Our friendship has often times flourished in the kitchen and even as we live half a world away from one another, FaceTime takes place in the kitchen.

She’s given me the confidence to be myself, be out of control, and be goofy. She’s always filled my belly and upon evaluation she’s the one that could absolve me of the need to always apologize. I say sorry the least around her and one thing I know I’m not sorry for is all the time we’ve had bitchin in the kitchen. So in salute to the launch of a good site and good food, my recipe is Bitchin Buffalo Bites, a delicious combination of cheese and chicken all bountifully deep-fried and drenched in hot sauce.  So here’e to not being sorry about the food we eat and the company we keep!

THE FOOD

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups shredded chicken *Chicken should already be prepared either by boiling, baking, or cooking chicken on the stove and then shredded. You can substitute chicken for other types of meat or load these wraps up with veggies*

¼ cup Frank’s Red Hot or any Buffalo Sauce

2 tbs of Ranch dressing (optional)

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

20 wonton wrappers (one package found in produce at the store)

Vegetable oil for cooking

DIRECTIONS:

Combine chicken, Frank’s and Ranch in a medium sized bowl.

Taking out individual wonton wrappers, place a spoonful of chicken mixture in one of the upper corners of your wrapper leaving a border. Add mozzarella cheese evenly.

Fill a small bowl or glass with water that you will use to dip your fingers in and wet the edges of your wonton wrapper in order to create a seal when you roll it together. Roll the wrapper, starting from the top where your stuffing is and continue to roll while tucking in the edges.

Fill a cooking pan with vegetable oil and begin to heat on a medium setting.

Place egg rolls face down in the hot oil with caution. Facedown meaning so the pointed part of your wrap is emerged in the oil and won’t unwrap.

Cook and crisp for 1-2minutes and then flip to crisp the other side.

Remove golden brown wraps from the heat and let cool on a plate.

Stuff your face

For a healthier option use the oven by heating to 400 degrees and baking for 10-12 minutes on a non-stick pan. Consider brushing wonton wrappers with butter in order to give them the golden brown crunch that makes them so good.

*Original recipe and idea found on Buzzfeed*

Note from the “Editor”: 

If you haven’t heard of Scratch My Pack- you should. Rose and her amazing Fiancee, Tom are traveling the world (and breaking my heart) for such a long time. They have a great collection of travel tips and tricks, stories and photographs that will make you want to quit your day job and travel the world like these badasses. 

Rose is really too nice to me. There is no way that I’m this nice. Anyone that really knows me knows that I am a complete ass hat. She’s my best friend and she gets the full brunt of all my weird humor, honesty, and a perpetual need to eat every two hours. I think I like to challenge everyone I care about. With Rose, it was always food. She used to ogle me when I ate bowls of hot sauce, and whine when I made dinner too spicy. Now, she’s been trained in the ways of maybe being able to survive some spicy food in Asia if she’s brave. I couldn’t be prouder. She’s amazing, and should never have to apologize for anything. Like I tell her every time she needs to rant to me or say something on her mind. Try not to apologize for your life. You’re here, everyone else can deal with it. 

Also: something that helps me in emails is this cool extension for chrome.