#Top Recipes 2015

[cherribombart]

Top 10 Recipes of 2015

[jaicourtneyfan]

The Top 10 Recipes of 2015

[dagonborn]

TOP 10 RECIPES FROM 2015

[jokeroutsubs]

SLOVENIAN CUISINE: EXPLAINED

Extremely confused by Joker Out’s recent post? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

KRANJSKA KLOBASA:

Carniolan sausage is one of the most recognisable Slovenian culinary products. Since January 2015 it has been protected with geographical indication by the European Union. It originates from the historical region of Kranjska, once the Duchy of Carniola, a crown land of the Austrian Empire. The sausage is a reddish brown colour on the surface and bears a faint scent of smoke. Each pair is held together with a wooden skewer.

Preparation: It contains at least 75 to 80% pork (aside from bacon) and at most, 20% bacon. It may contain up to 5% water, sea salt from the Sečovlje salt pans, a little garlic, saltpetre and black pepper. No other ingredients are permitted. It has to be cooked before consumption. It is usually eaten hot, together with sour or cooked cabbage or sour turnip.

Perfect for: folk village parties called ‘veselice’, where they are a common choice alongside wine or beer. For that occasion, bread, mustard, and sliced onion are mandatory accompaniments.

IDRIJSKI ŽLIKROFI:

Žlikrofi is a traditional Slovenian dish, originating from Idrija a small town in the east of Slovenia. Idrija is mostly known for its lace and now-closed mercury mines. Žlikrofi were the first Slovenian dish registered as a Traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG).

Preparation: Žlikrofi are made using pasta, filled with a mixture of potatoes, onion, pig lard, chives and other spices. They are best served with ‘bakalca’ (a sauce made out of lamb and vegetables).

Perfect for: Žlikrofi are eaten all year round and can be served either as a starter, side dish or a main course. Alongside restaurants in Idrija, tourists can also try them at the Idrija Lace Festival or at the Idrija Žlikrofi Festival, where žlikrofi are prepared in more than 35 different ways. The žlikrofi festival is held at the end of August, this year it is taking place on the 24th of August.

POTICA:

Potica (a Slovenian nut roll) is the number one traditional holiday pastry in Slovenia. It has been registered as a Traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG) in the European Union since April 2021.

Preparation: It consists of a rolled pastry made from sweet yeast dough, most commonly filled with walnuts, but there are variations with hazelnuts, tarragon, poppy, cottage cheese and others. Its ingredients are quite basic, but achieving the right balance of filling and dough is challenging. Traditionally it is ring-shaped, baked always in the special shaped potica baking mould (ceramic, glass or tin one), called ‘potičnik’, which has a conical protrusion in the middle.

Perfect for: All holidays, especially Christmas and Easter. Slovenian housekeepers are happy to bake it even outside the holiday season to pamper their loved ones.

PREKMURKSA GIBANICA:

Prekmurje layer cake (literal translation: Over-Mura moving cake 😂) is a special cake originating in eastern region of Slovenia, Prekmurje. The name ‘gibanica’ comes from the dialect expression güba and refers to a fold. Since March 2010, prekmurska gibanica is protected in the EU as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed.

Fun fact: If you are visiting Prekmurje, you can swing by The House of Gibanica, where you can enjoy the full gibanica experience which includes tasting handmade gibanica, made in the traditional way using a protected recipe.

Preparation: The preparation of this layered cake is quite complex and expensive, which is why it is only served on special occasions. Each layer is topped with plenty of sweet cream, eggs and butter. The dessert requires crumbly and rolled dough and four types of filling, made up of cottage cheese, poppy seeds, walnuts and apples.

Perfect for: special occasions like Christmas and Easter. As it is very filling, it’s not ideal to eat (or prepare) in hot weather.

BOGRAČ

Bograč is a hearty dish, consisting of many meats. It is typical of the Prekmurje region. It is a festive dish, as it is never cooked for just one person. It is best when cooked in a kettle over an open fire. In Hungarian this kettle is called 'bogrács' , hence the name of the dish.

Preparation: Sweat onions in lard, then add a different type of meat to the dish at the end of each hour of simmering: first the beef, then the venison, and finally the pork. Season with paprika and add a splash of white wine. Finally, add the potatoes and cook until they are done.

Perfect for: large family gatherings.

Fun fact: Every year, Lendava* organises the international 'bograč' cooking competition called ‘Bogračfest.’ The municipality of Lendava also holds the Guinness World Record for the largest bograč ever prepared (1,801 kg) since 2021.

* A Slovenian town near the Hungarian border.

Content prepared by: @kurooscoffee, @weolucbasu, drumbeat

Graphic design by: X pastellibianchi, anonymous JOS member

English proofreading by: IG GBoleyn123, @flowerlotus8, X klamstrakur

[justforbooks]

Charles Handy

Philosopher and management thinker who coined the phrase ‘portfolio’ career, and believed companies should retain their humanity

For a country that prides itself on its professional and financial services sector, the UK has produced remarkably few world-ranking management and organisational thinkers. At the very top of that pile, however, is Charles Handy, the writer and social philosopher – his preferred designation – who has died aged 92.

As both a thinker and educator, Handy was unusual. Although a professor – he was a founding faculty member of the London Business School (LBS), the UK’s first graduate business school, in the 1960s – he never followed the conventional path, ploughing a narrow furrow and publishing in specialist journals.

What he did was think, about the big human issues of business, society and democracy, turning his thoughts, often anchored in his own experience, into books, articles and talks with characteristically evocative titles such as The Age of Unreason (1989), The Empty Raincoat (1994), The Hungry Spirit (1997) and The Second Curve (2015). They gained him an international audience and global sales of more than 2m.

In his ability to perceive and articulate developments in the world of work before they crystallised, and in his big-picture approach, Handy took after another atypical European academic, Peter Drucker, dubbed the “father of management”, whom Handy admired. Handy was writing about the future of work as early as 1984, foresaw an era of discontinuous change in The Age of Unreason – his breakthrough book – as well as predicting the advent of the gig economy, remote working and the fragmentation of the traditional career. The “portfolio life” was his coinage, which he defined by living it.

In management terms, Handy’s legacy is his steadfast defence of the company as an evolving community of people rather than a machine or set of contracts. This was based on an unshakeable belief in humanity – “humanity will triumph – people need people”, he said in a podcast interview in 2021, at the height of a pandemic lockdown.

To thrive, a company had to make space for human purpose, human balance and human fulfilment. “Doing your best at what you are best at,” was his Aristotelian recipe, adding “for the benefit of others” at the end. This fed into his belief that the organisation of the future needed to be flexible, decentralised and built on trust rather than formal hierarchy and a rule book.

Born in Ireland, in Clane, Co Kildare, the son of Joan (nee Scott) and Brian Handy, a Protestant clergyman, Charles went to Bromsgrove school, Worcestershire, then studied classics at Oriel college, Oxford, from which he absorbed influences that marked his thinking throughout his life.

Just as formative was his first job at an outpost of Shell in Borneo in 1956, only doubly so: first because it was while there that he met Elizabeth Hill, then working at the British High Commission in Singapore, at a party in Kuala Lumpur, and second because, with her trenchant help, it showed him what he did not want to be. They married in 1962.

The epiphany came in 1965, when he found himself back in London, in an anonymous shared office at Shell HQ, greeted by a three-page list of responsibilities on his desk with no name on it. That struck him as not very human. Liz more forcefully gave him to understand that seeing the adventurous expat she had met and married turn into a dull office drudge was not part of their life’s plan.

Instead he relocated to the US – another formative experience – to attend the Sloan executive study programme at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he returned to London in 1967 to set up a UK version of the programme at the LBS.

He endowed it with a humanistic cast far removed from the usual finance and quantitative orientation. “Charles always had a sense of what it is to be human,” his friend and close LBS colleague Lynda Gratton said. “He inspired students, readers and friends to think more deeply, question more profoundly and live a life nearer to being human – with all its complexities and questions.”

Handy left LBS for a four-year stint as warden of St George’s House at Windsor Castle (1977-81), a sort of spiritual thinktank, before, again egged on by Liz, deciding to quit and go freelance as a writer and speaker. They reorganised their life, and, half-joked Handy, rewrote their marriage contract.

Henceforth they would split the year in two, with the work of first one, then the other, taking priority. Liz became his formidable agent as well as resuming her own career as a successful photographer – they subsequently collaborated on several books – and their time would be spent half in their former farm labourer’s cottage in rural Norfolk and half in their London home. They also shared cooking duties for the many visitors who arrived at both places to discuss world events, photography and politics over a generous lunch.

Relishing the new regime, Handy launched into a series of books that conquered an audience stretching far beyond business types. In fact, the latter were sometimes dismayed by what he had to say. He rejected shareholder capitalism, deeming shareholder ownership of companies a fiction and a fraud, and fretted that big corporations had become “prisons of the soul”.

For him, “good organisations are like a small English village. Everyone knows each other and what the other does. There’s no job title, you’re just Charles or Liz, and you help each other out. It’s not owned, people belong to it.” In those circumstances, management becomes a matter of common sense, not the technocratic exercises described in the textbooks he scorned.

If Handy’s writing style was conversational and accessible, his speaking could reach heights worthy of the ancients he had learned from. This was done without bravado, PowerPoint or notes, but with a quiet intensity that made every listener feel as if he was addressing them personally.

It was there that his inner firebrand sometimes surfaced. Few of those present will forget his closing speech, or the spontaneous standing ovation it prompted, at the Global Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna in 2018, when he called for a Lutheran Reformation of management, urging the audience not to wait for a great leader but “to start small fires in the darkness, until they spread and the whole world is alight with a better vision of what we could do with our businesses … If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”

Handy was active almost until the last. His final book, suitably titled The View from Ninety: Reflections on Living a Long, Contented Life, is due for publication in 2025.

Liz died in a car accident in 2018. Handy is survived by his son and daughter, Scott and Kate, four grandchildren and by two sisters, Ruth and Margaret.

🔔 Charles Brian Handy, social philosopher and management thinker, born 25 July 1932; died 13 December 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[astersofthesky]

I am currently watching the Death Note Drama (2015) and I couldn't help but notice how the characterization for drama!Light seems a lot closer to the manga than in the anime in a sense that both manga and drama Light have not developed the "god complex" yet early on in the series.

Expanding just because. Manga!Light did lose weight and sleep for five days when he did the killings. He hid himself in a blanket when he realized he killed two people. He was willing to sacrifice his life because it's already a "point of no return," meaning he can't stop even though he wanted to.

You know, very like his drama counterpart. Yeah, Ryuk actively manipulates drama!Light into the continuous use of the Death Note though, BUT even that feels a lot more closer to the manga because if you've read this analysis post about Light, you'd understand. Here's a TLDR tho, Light told Ryuk he'd be "god of the new world" because of three reasons;

(1) Ryuk is looking for entertainment.

(2) Ryuk could very much kill when he wanted to. What better way to entertain a bored shinigami by doing something unexpected?

(3)-this one is of my own opinion- Light was offended.

Anyways, back to the manga, we see Ryuk appearing and then proceeds to tell Light he dropped the note cause he was bored and that probably was like an ice cold bucket poured in Light "admired by all" Yagami's head. He thought he was "chosen" yet Ryuk denies this. Yagami Light is a prideful man, he has to make himself feel he was chosen because he's "special" as it always has been the case for him. He starts developing this idea in his head that "you're wrong ryuk, i am special because i am the only one who can do all these 'sacrifices' to enact justice. I will be someone special! I will be the new god of this world!"

Which makes you realize why he tells Ryuk that in what qualification does he see himself deserving the title, it's because he's the top student of japan! Yagami Light is so prideful he thinks he's doing something heroic and altruistic, when in reality, his pride was the biggest factor why he started this "kira" thing.

That's why i said drama!Light is closer to manga!Light in this regard. However drama!Light is just a lot more genuine and good in his intentions, but with people screaming in his ear "Kira is our savior! Kira is kami!" it's so easy to indulge to in the voices until you start to believing in yourself that what they say is real. Like waking up the pride and arrogance lying sleep in his subconscious.

This is why the anime differs slightly at Light's origin. Anime!Light is already a man with a "god-complex."

Imagine anime!Light trekking up a huge mountain of praises and he was just one step closer to the peak when suddenly he can't find any stone to further advance in his steps so he just stays there, dormant and bored because maybe this is the only height he can climb with his limited resources but suddenly, a magical rope appears and he uses that to pull himself towards the upmost top. The magical rope was the Death Note. The one thing he was waiting for so he can reach the higher heights.

So when he claimed "I will be god of the new world." you CAN see that this man REALLY believes he is higher that all humans, that he was a "god" over them, and the Death Note was a testament to that.

Meanwhile, manga!Light and drama!Light took its time to actually solidify their god complexes over the course of the series.

Short mention for movie!Light!! A man who had an extremely high sense of justice that actually believed in the justice system so he was heartbroken to know the truth that the system is very much flawed. He gets the Death Note and decides to do what the law can not. So I think he had also developed his "god complex" much earlier than the manga and drama Light because the very reason movie!Light started killing is because "The law is useless, the police is incompetent. My judgement is better and it actually BRINGS results." is a perfect recipe for feelings of superiority over the others.

It's really interesting, how these Light's vary from one another.

[pixelfoodie]

Succotash is a culinary dish consisting primarily of sweet corn with lima beans or other shell beans. Other ingredients may be added including corned beef, potatoes, turnips, salt pork, tomatoes, multi-colored sweet peppers, and okra. Because of the relatively inexpensive and more readily available ingredients, the dish was popular during the Great Depression in the United States. It was sometimes cooked in a casserole form, often with a light pie crust on top as in a traditional pot pie. Succotash is a dish with a long history. The stew was introduced to the colonists in the 17th century by indigenous Americans. Composed of ingredients unknown in Europe at the time, it gradually became a standard meal in the cuisine of New England and is a traditional dish of many Thanksgiving celebrations in the region, as well as in Pennsylvania and other states. src.: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/succotash, Bowles, Ella Shannon (1947). Secrets of New England Cooking. Barrows, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/dining/yes-succotash-has-a-luxurious-side.html, https://newengland.com/yankee-magazine/food/succotash-recipe-with-a-history/, Morgan, Diane and John Rizzo. The Thanksgiving Table: Recipes and Ideas to Create Your Own Holiday Tradition. Pg. 122 photo ref.: https://foodmeanderings.com/corn-succotash-gluten-free/

[castletown-cafe]

Castletown Café Episode 27: Butterscotch-Cinnamon Pie

It's been 8 years.....doesn't seem like that long, does it? On September 15th, 2015, Undertale launched to the world and took the internet by storm, delighting gamers young and old and capturing their hearts and minds with the story, humor, memorable characters, and beautiful music. Without Undertale, there wouldn't be Deltarune.

It's safe to assume that the pie Kris stole between Chapters 1 and 2 as well as the pie Toriel later teaches Susie how to bake is the same pie from Undertale: butterscotch-cinnamon pie. It's the pie Toriel is known for in Undertale, where she asks you early on in the game which flavor you prefer. It doesn't matter if you choose cinnamon or butterscotch, because she later bakes you one delicious pie with both flavors included that compliment each other perfectly.

This pie is well known by fans to restore your health to full HP, regardless of the route you take (which effects how much max HP you have). It even has plot significance! If you know, you know.

Since Undertale's launch, I've made butterscotch-cinnamon pie every September to commemorate it's anniversary. In previous years, I followed pre-existing recipes, but this year, I have concocted my own! The results are a beautiful custard pie with a perfectly-set filling and it tastes as heavenly as the pies I'd made in the past!

While many butterscotch pie recipes out there include a meringue topping, I always opt for a cinnamon-vanilla whipped topping, inspired by @terribletriocreations butterscotch-cinnamon pie recipe. That said, I'd love to try out my butterscotch-cinnamon pie recipe with a meringue topping one of these days!

There are so many different ways to make butterscotch pie, from the simple to the advanced. You can make it with the browning butter method, or use butterscotch chips, or an easy brown sugar and butter custard filling. Mine is the latter category; great for any beginner and easy to make! Here we go!

BUTTERSCOTCH-CINNAMON PIE:

1 pie crust, pre-made or made from scratch

1 cup firmly-packed dark brown sugar

3 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons cornstarch

Pinch of salt

2 cups milk

4 egg yolks, divided

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Cinnamon-Vanilla Whipped Topping:

1 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out pie crust and line a pie dish with it. Make sure the crust fits the dish, trim off any excess dough, and dock the bottom with a fork.

Crimp the edges of the crust around the rim of the pie dish. I do it by pinching the dough with my fingers and thumb, but using a fork or another utensil works, too.

In a small bowl, scramble one egg yolk with a little bit of water and brush the rim to gloss the edges of the pie.

Grab a sheet of foil and place in the pie, then fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake the crust for about 7-10 minutes. After that, remove it from the oven for a moment.

Remove the beans or pie weights and place a pie shield on the rim of the pie shell to prevent the crust rim from overcooking. If you don't have a pie shield, grab a sheet of foil and place it over the pie, cutting out the center where the filling should go. Instant pie shield! Now, bake your pie crust again for another 5-7 minutes, or until your crust is fully baked. Remove it from the oven yet again. If the crust puffs up at the bottom, squish it back down with a spoon.

In a small mixing bowl, beat 3 egg yolks and set aside.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine brown sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt. Whisk together for 30 seconds, then slowly add the milk while continuing to whisk in order to prevent any clumps or lumps from forming.

Cook the mixture, stirring constantly to prevent burning, until it's nice and thick and is bubbling a wee bit.

Stir in the butter and keep cooking as the butter melts. After that, keep stirring and cooking for a few more minutes, then remove from heat.

With a ladle, slowly incorporate (while whisking) 1 cup of the hot butterscotch mixture into the egg yolks to temper the eggs and prevent scrambling from occurring. Once you've added and mixed it together, feel free to add just a little more butterscotch, slowly, to ensure that the eggs gradually got hot enough. Then simply pour your egg mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining butterscotch.

Return your butterscotch to medium heat and cook again for another 3 minutes or so, then stir in the vanilla and cinnamon until fully incorporated.

Pour that butterscotch filling into your prepared pie shell and bake once again for another 7-10 minutes. Remove your pie from the oven and let it cool completely. Once cooled, your custard should be completely set and ready for the whipped topping!

In another mixing bowl, combine heavy cream, powdered sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon and beat on medium speed until stiff peaks form. Attach your decorating tip of choice to a piping bag and place it in a tall glass to fill it with the whipped cream. As you would with decorating a cake, pipe the whipped topping over your pie in any pattern or design you'd like. If you want, you can sprinkle the top with a little extra ground cinnamon for a finishing touch. Enjoy and stay determined! ❤

[poppetsisters]

To this day, I cannot forgive Denny's for making a Thing Burger as a promotion for the 2015 Fantastic Four film, not because the movie is bad, but because the burger itself is non-kosher. That's right, Ben Grimm can't eat his own burger!!

What kind of sick twisted diner makes a burger based on a famously Jewish comic book character that violates not one, but two dietary restrictions in the Jewish faith. Not even Yancy Street would pull a stunt this dirty!

Firstly, the burger includes bacon. Kashrut only permits the consumption of animals with divided hooves that chew their chud. As pigs do not chew their chud, they cannot be eaten.

Secondly, eating meat alongside dairy is not kosher. This is because of a Torah passage that states "Do not cook a kid in its mother's milk."

So how do we fix this revoltin' development? Removing the bacon is easy. You could even substitute it with turkey bacon if you so wish, but choosing between meat and cheese is tricky. Removing the meat takes away the... well... meat of the meal, but taking away the cheese removes the bun's Thing-like appearance, removing its identity as a Thing Burger and making it just another hearty meal.

There are two ways to go about this, which I shall dub the pro-meat method and the pro-cheese method. The ingredients in the official Denny's Thing Burger include burger buns, a beef patty, pork bacon, hash browns, cheese (inside and on the bun itself), egg, and Thing Sauce (spicy mayo). By sampling from this list, we can make a kosher thing burger.

My recipe for the Pro-Cheese burger is to cook your dough in the oven with shredded cheese on the top to create that rocky look. For the interior, I thought perhaps I could lean into the Thing's aesthetics by emphasizing the hash browns. In fact, if the potato slices are mixed with egg and flour and cooked on a pan, you just created a Hanukkah staple: Latkes! The fact Denny's thought to include hash browns but somehow didn't make it intentionally Jewish is an astounding missed opportunity. Slide some Latkes in-between the cheese bun, maybe drizzle some dill sauce, grind some pepper for extra kick, and you got yourself a weird variant of a Hanukkah dish. I wonder if Aunt Petunia would approve.

For the Pro-Meat burger, I thought maybe the Latkes themselves might be stable enough to use as a substitute for the buns, but in case you feel different, you can always have them inside the buns. If you choose to have standard buns, I recommend scoring the top before baking so that it looks all rocky. You could also do this for the pro cheese method if you so wish. As for the inside, go ham... literally! Get a nice beef patty, throw on some (turkey) bacon, a nice sunny side up egg, that spicy mayo, some ground up pepper, and you got yourself a hearty burger that Benjy is sure to enjoy. You could even substitute the patty for breaded chicken if you think it looks more Thing-like.

No matter what option you prefer, I hope that this reconciles the mistake Denny's made in constructing a burger Ben Grimm, let alone the jewish people wouldn't be able to eat. Maybe someday the Kosher Thing Burgers will outlive the half-assed film tie-in that inspired it.

[beardedmrbean]

There something about the French Revolution fetishizers that confuses me. Should we tell them that the France colonized the living fuck out of the Middle East and Africa. And also been connected to several assassinations of African countries heads of state?

The French empire was some of the most evilest motherfuckers on the planet with the likes of British empire. But Hitler just happened to kick off ww2 so the French and British use that to hide their atrocities in textbooks.

Not saying all French people are evil, but we really need a course on the evil shit the French empire did. Why do leftists romanticize the French Revolution? The evil they hate just stop wearing crowns and switch to top hots.

UK hasn't managed to keep that kind of thing down so well, France still has a few "colonial" territories left too, one of them I popped up a bit back island with about 200,000 inhabitants that overwhelmingly voted to stay French, doing otherwise was economic suicide.

But as for hiding their sins, not sure if the hiding was done on purpose or if it was just a case of it being overshadowed by people that would rather bitch about the US and UK, odd since many of the issues in the middle east are a direct result of the UK and France going behind the US's back so they could do what folks consistently bag on the US for. AKA they wanted that oil.

Back to fun with France, the year was 2015 and I promise there's a point.

How dare they do that with a "traditional" dish

Yes manipulation of the "traditional" recipe for "traditional" Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwich.

They replaced the "traditional" Vietnamese crispy baguette bread with non Vietnamese ciabatta bread.

Because the baguette is a traditional Vietnamese food steeped in thousands of years of culture and not something that was brought over by the French when the whole area was known as French Indochina and its capital was Saigon.

French left the area in 1954, so not too long ago.

Food is a screwy thing from a cultural standpoint, potatoes will forever be associated with Ireland even though they didn't exist outside of south america until the age of exploration. Don't even try to figure out who invented hummus just eat it, sausages and dumplings exist everywhere the contents are the only thing that changes.

Fortune cookies were brought to America by Japanese immigrants and managed to get associated with Chinese food because of WW2 and prejudice. That's one story at least.

Tangent over, maybe one day I'll go into how yoga is actually Dutch tho.

but ya, for some reason people forget how big the French empire was, it included Mexico at one point even now it's pretty much just French Guyana, it's weird really you'll hear more about the Belgian Congo than French Morocco, granted France didn't treat the people of Morocco nearly as bad as Leopold did the people of the Congo so there is that.

Spain still has a little corner of North Africa that's connected to Morocco I think it is, that's about all they have left of their empire other than one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

Wildest thing about France in all of this is how many times the place shifted power, topple the monarchy still got all the colonies, first republic falls to napoleon, still got the colonies, 2nd republic pops in still got the colonies, here comes napoleon again, colonies, 5 republics, 2 empires, and a hereditary monarchy, oop can't forget the vichy nazi collaborators either, Petan should have already been dead imho but that's a different story.

Imagine being a French colonial governor when the revolution started, managing to keep your post and ride the whole thing out then the republic that was formed falls to Napoleon, then the Burbons pop back in for a few months, what a mess.

This was long but I hope entertaining in a way and maybe enlightening too, I could keep rambling like this lot of interesting things and my brain functions like a wikipedia tree when it starts in on things like this so I have to force myself to stop.

[because-its-eurovision]

Your discussion of Sweden yesterday was so interesting to me. I’m a eurovision fan from outside Europe so I was never sure how people actually like Sweden. But I am a musician and musicologist, and Sweden removed from EV is essentially a pop songwriting factory which… some pop songs work in Eurovision, some Eurovision songs work as pop songs but a lot don’t. I’ve actually made it into a verb: “Swedening it up” when someone does just as straight up basic pop song. I’m excited to hear quite a few people talk highly of Finland’s song this year though as I have been a Finland fan since I started following EV.

First of all, thank you so so much for supporting Finland 🥺🖤 This year feels even more like an alternative reality than 2021 with people loving our entry, saying it's a sure qualifier and a contender to win the televote. Finland? Being a fan favourite? Doing well? It's so surreal, heartwarming and almost overwhelming 😭😭

As for our neighbour, Swedening it up is a great term 😄 Sweden has learned that the best recipe is to combine a catchy pop song with a charismatic performed, throw in a stage prop nobody else has and voilà, top-10 guaranteed.

I’ve heard Eurovision fans talking about the whole contest Swedifying, not only because Sweden tends to get great results, but has a say in the rules and conventions of Eurovision itself (pre-decided running order came to action in 2013 and current voting system in 2016 – both when Sweden hosted). I’m not a music professional by any stretch of imagination, but Sweden’s reputation as the (hit) pop songwriting factory has also strongly influenced the diversity of the entries we get in Eurovision, and many fans including myself are not keen on that.

Just to give one example, in Eurovision 2017 seven entries were partly or entirely written by Swedish people. Those were of course Sweden, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, North Macedonia and Serbia. The last three were written by the same person, Joacim Bo Persson. Sweden’s songwriting legend Thomas G:son has reached Eurovision 13 times, for seven different countries, and competed against himself in 2007 (Norway & Spain), 2012 (Sweden & Spain), 2015 (Georgia & Spain) and 2016 (Georgia & Cyprus). Some people see using Swedish songwriters as a guarantee of quality, some see it making the contest more boring. I’m with the latter. For me Eurovision is about showing and promoting the songwriting, staging, styling and performing abilities of ones own country with preferably some local flavour thrown in as well. Same songwriters competing for multiple countries in a continent-wide competition just feels wrong and unfair, and I wish more of those had faith in their music industry instead of going the safe and predictable Swedish popfactory route (looking at Malta, Azerbaijan and Cyprus).

In fairness we must bring up that not all of the most prominent Eurovision writers are Swedish. We have the likes of: - Ralph Siegel from Germany, who has made it to Eurovision astounding 24 times for five different countries and competed against himself in 1980 (Luxembourg & Germany) - Boris Milanov from Bulgaria who has made it to Eurovision 12 times for seven different countries and competed against himself in 2017 (North Macedonia & Serbia), 2019 (Azerbaijan & Malta) and 2020 (Bulgaria, Germany and Malta). - Philipp Kirkorov from Russia, who made it to Eurovision nine times for four different countries (but never competed against himself 😕)

[rabbitcruiser]

National Boston Cream Pie Day

National Boston Cream Pie Day arrives on October 23. If you’ve never heard of Boston cream pie before, it’s a yellow butter cake, filled with custard or cream and topped with chocolate glaze. (Yum!) Now, we know what you’re thinking: Why is it called a pie, when it’s actually a cake?

History of National Boston Cream Pie Day

Well, when the Boston cream pie was first invented, cakes and pies were baked with the same kinds of pans, and even the words were used interchangeably. As a result, the Boston cream pie kept its old-fashioned name, in addition to its delicious flavor. It was first invented in 1856, by an Armenian-French chef named Sanzian. At the time, chocolate frosting was a fairly new idea, so the delicious dessert took the world by storm. And to this day, it remains a popular menu selection. It’s even the official dessert of Massachusetts! So get your fork at the ready—let’s eat!

Back then the dish consisted of French butter sponge cake filled with thick custard and brushed with a rum syrup. The same custard overlaid with toasted sliced almonds coated the sides, while chocolate fondant topped it all off. While other custard cakes may have existed at that time, baking chocolate as a coating was a new process, making it unique and a popular choice on the menu.

According to the website, What’s Cooking America,: “Cooks in New England and Pennsylvania Dutch regions were known for their cakes and pies and the dividing line between them was very thin.  This cake was probably called a pie because in the mid-19th century, pie tins were more common than cake pans.  The first versions might have been baked in pie tins. Boston Cream Pie is a remake of the early American”Pudding-cake pie.”

National Boston Cream Pie Day timeline

1856

A world pie premiere

French chef Sanzian invents the Boston cream pie for The Parker House Hotel (now the Omni Parker House Hotel) in, ummm, Boston.

1996

It's Official

Massachusetts names the Boston cream pie as the official “state dessert.”  A civics class from Norton High School sponsored the bill. The pie beat out other candidates, including the toll- house cookie and Indian pudding.

2010

Want seconds?

Students at Southern New Hampshire University created the world’s largest Boston Cream Pie — measuring 10 feet wide and 1.5 feet high

2015

History of New England Pies

Author Robert Cox publishes the definitive history of New England pie making. Discover the “revolutionary” roots of the Boston cream pie.

National Boston Cream Pie Day FAQs

Is Boston cream pie a cake?

Why, yes. It’s a yellow butter cake, filled with custard or cream and topped with chocolate glaze. 

Why do we refer to Boston cream pie as pie?

This cake was probably called a pie because in the mid-19th century, pie tins were more common than cake pans.  The first versions might have been baked in pie tins.

What are Boston’s other signature foods?

Clam chowder, lobster rolls, oysters, baked beans, fish and chips, and the Fenway Frank — for hungry Red Sox fans.

National Boston Cream Pie Day Activities

Bake your own: If you’re someone who loves to bake, then this is the perfect opportunity to give a delicious dessert a try. If you’re trying it for the first time, or if you’re improving on an old favorite, baking your own Boston cream pie is the perfect way to celebrate.

Throw a Boston cream party: Invite your fellow cake enthusiasts to join you in celebrating Massachusetts’ official dessert. Bring along other Boston-themed foods as well — such as clam chowder, lobster, and Sam Adams beer (if your guests are of age). And if you really want to give it that revolutionary vibe, invite your guests to party in period-style clothing!

Go to Boston: Well, what better place to get an authentic Boston cream pie than in its official birthplace? And while you’re there, check out some of the other excellent experiences that Boston has to offer. 

Why We Love National Boston Cream Pie Day

It’s delicious: The recipe is so simple — you really only need three ingredients — and yet there's something about the combination of chocolate, cake, and custard that's so comforting and tasty. Not only that, but the simplicity of the ingredients gives you a lot of room to experiment. How many ways can you jazz up a Boston cream pie?

It’s got a rich history: Boston has always been a rich cultural hub. It was the site of some of the most important events in the Revolutionary War, and has continued to be the birthplace of American traditions ever since. With every bite of a Boston cream pie, you are continuing a tradition of wicked Bostonian trend-setting and innovation that's 260 years strong.

Let us eat cake: You don't really need an excuse to eat cake — but it's handy to have one sometimes. So go ahead and treat yourself.

Source

[jaicourtneyfan]

Top 15 Recipes of 2015

[veganmikehanlon]

@7x5 here’s part one of recipes!! yes there’s more you can only do 10 links at a time :(

[wirewitchviolet]

Wait, people are jumping to the Twitter clone from Jack Dorsey? The guy responsible for Twitter’s nazi problem?

All of the sudden today I’m seeing a bunch of people talking about signing up for BlueSky, the twitter clone from Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of original recipe twitter... specifically the former CEO who’s BFFs with a truckload of card-carrying neo-nazis and personally blocked the company from enforcing its terms of service against any of them.

Like I know there’s this whole phenomenon where like every time in my lifetime there’s been a new Republican president and he starts doing horrific stuff, a bunch of people start building up this weird fantasy where the last Republican president’s regime of horrors gets memory holed and people start building up these weird fantasies where they were actually totally fine and couldn’t we have that back. Is this one of those situations? Please tell me it’s not one of those situations and you all just missed that this is his new social media thing, or that he was in fact The Guy Coddling All The Nazis.

Here is an article from 2018 about Jack Dorsey personally stepping in to make sure Alex Jones, the guy who’s made a whole career out of absolutely terrorizing the parents of a classroom full of kindergarteners who were gunned down by a mass shooter, AND famous card carrying neo-nazi Richard Spencer could remain on the site, against the protests of not only the general population but the concerns of the rest of the staff.

Here’s another.

And another.

Here’s the one I took a screenshot of at the top of this, from 2019.

Here’s the interview that one’s citing, where he complains about how every time he posted anything on the site, people suggested he ban nazis.

As a quick point of clarification- For I believe the entirety of the time Jack Dorsey here was CEO of Twitter, including when that interview went up, the American Nazi Party not only had an official Twitter account they refused to take down, it had verified status. Along with a hell of a lot of individuals who were equally formal about these things.

And to be really clear, it’s not even just that big name neo-nazis held onto their accounts and verified status until he stepped down as CEO. He was mutuals with these people. Being unable to log into the site since, you know, the whole bit where a bunch of fascists mass-reported my account and got it auto-flagged for suspension just from the sheer volume, I can’t easily pull his profile up, check his follows, and screenshot for you, but you might be able to yourself, or find one of several threads on there from me where I have pointed this out in the past. Lot of personal ties to the 8chan crowd in particular.

Little more anecdotally, back when I was doing the whole anti-terrorism organization thing, and we reached a point where Twitter made a big PR statement about consulting with us to deal with, you know, the big terrorism and mass murder problem they were having at the time (I think this was... 2015? 2016 maybe? Shortly after he was made CEO again) we compiled a document for them of something like a dozen accounts which clearly and unambiguously not only personally breached every point in Twitter’s TOS you could name, but were demonstrably such central ring-leaders of terrorism and harassment that half of all support tickets Twitter was getting at the time could be traced back to them. After the third time we forwarded this along and they “lost the files” we arranged a face to face meeting with a printed copy. I wasn’t personally present, but I’m told the reaction after a quick rifle through was “we like all these guys though” and promptly cutting their relationship with our org. I kept tabs on the next couple they pulled the same PR song and dance with, they had the same experience.

Oh and here’s a news article about Jack Dorsey personally refusing to take action against Donald Trump when he was inciting death threats against politicians.

Here’s one about that whole weird situation where a particularly neo-nazi was leading a major hate campaign against an actress and was punished by taking away his little verified status badge rather than just banning him, which seems particularly relevant to people looking to move somewhere over related concerns.

And another from when that finally got upgraded to a ban, with a lot of other general context, and a reminder that Dorsey is mutuals with Mike Cernovich.

In case that’s another name people have memory holed, here’s me (and others) explaining Cernovich’s connections with a child pornography/trafficking website.

I could keep going with this. To be perfectly honest, I don’t actually see why anyone desires a repalcement for Twitter. If you want to talk to friends, there’s a dozen things for that, if you want to share and promote stuff, you can just set up a blog, like this one you’re reading, or a personal website, or a patreon (by the way, end of the month, short on my rent, great time to throw me a few bucks, just saying). If you really insist on sticking with something that keeps that general shape though, there’s like a dozen clone sites these days, and I’m sure they all have their own problems and flaws, but I don’t know, maybe pick one that ISN’T run by a guy whose personal contact list is chock full of neo-nazis, rape manual authors, and honest to goodness pedophiles. I realize this also eliminates Gab and that thing Graham Linehan set up, but there’s still Mastodon, Cohost, uh, Hive? I’m not on any of these but they’re not run by Jack freaking Dorsey so they have to be steps up.

Anyway, please share this around, and really in particular shove it in the face of anyone you see giving out links to their BlueSky profile or whatever, thanks.

[whatever-lola-wants]

3, 11, 25

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

I'll list five because three is just not enough when it comes to movies 🥰 Mad max fury road (2015) Perfect Blue (1997) John Wick 4 (2023) The Thing (1982) Top Secret! (1984) 11. What do you consider to be romance?

Romance is a connection. The I saw this and thought of you's, the wish you were here's, updating with pictures throughout the day, discussing recipes together, them remembering the little things you told them about yourself offhand, and just the comfort in knowing you're always on each other's minds, that you smile big because you remembered something about them. It's the shared laughter, but also the support when you aren't laughing. It's the feeling of being seen and heard and valued.

25. Favorite season and why

Autumn because perfect weather and cromchy leaves 🥰

Thanks for the asks!