#it is basically you eat a bunch of pie the day before thanksgiving because you don't have room for it after thanksgiving dinner | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

etraytin · 4 years ago

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Quarantine, Day 263

November 30 Okay, trying to journal a little bit earlier than normal like a responsible adult person, but I'm distracted by my little Fallout Shelter people persistently failing to produce enough electricity for their subterranean home. And after all the nuclear power plants I've given them! Another quiet day, though it started poorly with me waking up at 7:58 am when kiddo's school starts at 8am central. This was complicated further by the fact that he let the Chromebook die over the weekend, and it can be tetchy to wake up when it is plugged in but not charged, stupid thing. It was also also complicated by the fact that kiddo's login is his school email, which is a series of numbers followed by an @, followed by literally four or five modifiers separated by dots. It is impossible to memorize and a pain in the ass to use. So he was ten minutes late to school this morning, but technical difficulties are the virtual school equivalent of a late bus, they happen to everyone occasionally. With the kiddo set up, I went with my mom to drop my dad's car at the shop so I could drive her home. On the way we dreamed of happy future days when we will drop casually by Starbucks in the morning, or have lunch at our favorite sushi place. We went right home instead, where I worked for awhile on fixing the Christmas wreath where two of the four hundred-light strings have gone bad. It was an extremely tetchy job to unwind them without hurting the wreath, and I have full confidence that winding the new lights on will be at least as annoying. The kiddo has been roping anybody who sits still long enough into playing Exploding Kittens with him. He's getting quite good at the strategy part, now I just need to teach him to shuffle cards. In the evening, my mom got some bad news about her brother, my uncle, who took a nasty fall on Saturday and now has to go to the hospital and get a bunch of scary tests done. She was very upset, of course, so I cooked and cleaned for dinner. We had ham loaves from the freezer, made by the Methodist Womens' group at one of the local churches and extremely delicious. These were marked 2019, and we realized we didn't know if there'd been a ham loaf sale this year. A lot of those Methodist women are no spring chickens, so there may not have been any available to buy in 2020. Bummer! We also had a butternut squash soup, made with the largest butternut squash I have personally seen. Sliced in half, it covered basically all of a normal sized cookie sheet, and I didn't even have to scrape it to get six cups of squash meat from it. It was lorge. My mom didn't have bouillon cubes, so I had to punt with bougie bouillon paste and salt, but it turned out pretty well. After supper, my folks went to my aunt's house to wish my other aunt a happy birthday and take her a present. The original offer was for all of us to go over and sing and eat cake, but while my "are they _crazy_?" response may not have been the most politic, it did appropriately frame the debate. The birthday aunt is a substitute teacher who was in school at least one day last week, and the other aunt and uncle just spent Thanksgiving with kids and grandkids, including an attorney, a teacher, and a police officer. So yeah, we're not talking safety podded here. Eventually my mom and dad went, wearing their N95 masks, did not eat cake, dropped off the present, and we all sang over the phone. My mom reported upon returning home that the birthday aunt was all set to blow out the candles over a pie that everybody else was then going to eat, before my mom was all "Really?" and they were all "Oh yeah...." Jeezy Creezy. I need there to be an emoji that combines equal parts “lol” and “yikes” and I need that emoji to be named 2020. My biggest news of the day was that I finally bought a new laptop! HP was having some very nice Cyber Monday deals on their website so I bought straight from them. It's nothing special, a very basic laptop with 8gb RAM, an Athlon Gold chip, a 15 inch screen and no CD drive. I did spring for an upgrade to 256GB solid state drive for storage because I am a digital packrat from small times, but even then the entire thing came out to just over 300 dollars which is not bad for a laptop that is not a dumbass Chromebook. It won't be here for a couple more weeks, but I'm looking forward to it! We ended the evening by doing hot cocoa bombs, which was very fun. They're like bath bombs, but they are hollow chocolate balls decorated with sprinkles and filled with high-quality cocoa mix and marshmallows. You put the bomb in a cup and pour hot milk over it slowly, and the ball cracks open and spills cocoa and marshmallows everywhere. Very cool and very yummy. Expensive as hell, too, but not that much more than a Starbucks cocoa and at least we were supporting a local candymaker. My mom bought enough for everybody in the family to have one, so she was very happy they worked out. Feels like Christmas already!

#quarantine #chocolate #hot cocoa #exploding kittens #safety pod #is a ridiculous term that i am using anyway because 2020

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phantomphangphucker · 5 years ago

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Ectober Day 14: Dinner - Hunger Is My Boi

It’s been a bit too long since Danny has had some ectoplasm to eat. And now his folks want him to spend all day in the lab sorting and sampling ectoplasm samples.

Note: I've had an idea for a ghost hunger fic for a while now and this was the perfect excuse to make everyone deal with my bullshit. I also wrote this while getting progressively more wine drunk because that's just what happens every thanksgiving in my house.

Danny erratically untangles himself from his twisted up bed sheets as his mom knocks on the door, Danny shouting, “I’m up! I’m up!”. He nearly trips over a couple of socks on the floor as his mom chuckles, “it’s six am, I wouldn’t expect you to be”, clearing her throat, “but your father and I seemed to have siphoned off far too much ectoplasm, and of different kinds too! To be able to handle it all ourselves”.

Danny stills, shorts only halfway up, grumbling, “oh just great, why couldn’t this have happened tomorrow instead?”. Rubbing at his core as just the mention of ectoplasm makes it vibrate with hunger. Patting at it, “I know, I know. Just gotta wait till tonight”.

Danny yanks his shirt over his head and ruffles his hair before sticking his head out the door, “just how much are we talking here? It’s not, like, that entire trap box worth again, is it?”.

Maddie shakes her head with a smile, “we’ve already handled all the messy bits. Just need help keeping track of all the breakers and take samples”.

“So I don’t need a broom or need to wash my hands for an hour just to get the splatter off?”.

Maddie laughs and shakes her head, “no sweetie. I’ll be in the lab”, before turning heading downstairs.

Danny mutters, “damnit, so that’s a ‘no’ on sneakily cleaning my hands with my tongue”. Danny closes his door and leans against it for a beat before reopening his door and heading down to the lab.

Scratching at his chest, “my core’s just gonna spasm out of my chest if there’s just open beakers everywhere, especially since I could eat, like, a whole ghost horse worth, right about now”. Taking the steps cautiously and groaning as he gets hit with, what is basically a wall of, the acidic lemony scent of ectoplasm. Danny can’t help but twitch his nose, picking up on some of the more unique scents from the different kinds, “lime, grape, chipotle, bitter dark chocolate...jeez just where the hell were they siphoning from?”. Wiping away the slight drooling from his lips, picking up on his cores favourite, “fuck, even cherry cough syrup covered white chocolate and caramel. How dare life tempt me so”. Danny snorts, “well technically it’s death that’s being tempting, but still”.

Hopping down onto the lab floor with fake cheeriness, “what’s cooking? I can practically see the sour green salty aroma in the air”. Danny grumbles to himself as his dad laughs loudly, “still weird all regular humans can smell is sour saltiness”, smirking, “especially when only the lime and sugar scented ones are sour”.

Flopping down on one of the spinning stools, tracing his eyes over at least a hundred different beakers. Whistling, “trad green, bruise green, purple, red, pale blue, and fuchsia? Ya weren’t kidding. The heck was your source?”.

Jack beams, “some island with purple mist coming off it in pillars. There was hundreds of different plants, some even leaked this black ectoplasm!”, Jack animatedly holds up a large beaker of bubbling black ectoplasm, “never even seen this before!”.

Danny scratches his nose to hide his twitching nose, this kind was unfamiliar to him too. Danny mutters into his hand as Jack noisily pushes a bunch of beakers in front of him, “so the Defted lands then? And ripened from the sounds of it”. Which really did explain the strange ectoplasm, no ghosts went the when it was ripened, so there was probably many strange kinds there during the full bloom season.

Danny shifts, core vibrating with longing and curiosity, as he stirs a consistency stick in some red ectoplasm, letting go of the stick to see how long it keeps spinning for. While his dad takes every sample under the sun from the black kind.

Maddie taps his shoulder, looking up at her, “hmmm?”.

She points down at his bare feet, “I know your contamination makes that safe for you, but really? You have fresh socks don’t you?”.

Danny rubs his neck, “I’ve got one clean sock. Don’t know ‘bout socks plural. Besides, like you said, it’s freaking six am”, smirking, “who wears socks at that time”. In truth, Danny had gone with so much skin exposure in the hope of some actually getting spilled on his skin so he could just absorb it or subtly swipe it into his mouth.

Maddie shakes her head before putting down a plate of untoasted bread and a sealed mini-pack of jelly. Danny swirls a beaker lazily, ectoplasm sloshing around, as he spreads the jelly on his bread; genuinely hoping some spills out of the beaker into the jelly. Chuckling, “how did you know I just needed to get hit with some sweet succulent gooey goodness”.

Maddie smirks as she takes a few of the vials Danny’s filled up over to the centrifuge. Danny can’t help frowning slightly, that thing basically made ectoplasm inedible. Well, could still drink it but it’d taste and feel like licking a rusted and corroded spoon. So not exactly pleasant or tasty.

Danny twitches as his dad knocks over one of the beakers, one that Danny had intentionally placed a little too close, onto Danny’s wrist. Splashing purple ectoplasm on his hand, they probably think he’s frowning at the mess but really, he’s frowning because the beaker didn’t break.

Tilting the beaker back upright, “well that didn’t take very long”.

“Here sweetie”.

“Huh?”, Danny looks to the side only for his mom to wipe his hand off. Forcing himself not to sound painfully sarcastic, “that’s just perfect, thanks”. Patting at his hand, “stuff really can look like jello huh? Makes me wonder how many people sneakily eat the jello, when they’re supposed to be ‘working’ during jello wrestling”.

Jack claps him on a back, “thinking of that time you tripped into a blow-up swimming pool we had to inflate to catch all that overflowing ectoplasm, and got a mouth full of the stuff?”. Danny smirks, reminiscing fondly, they had purified the hell out of that stuff. So how could he possibly resist ‘tripping’ to steal a taste.

Maddie shakes her head, “don’t smile! You scared the crap out of us that day!”. Making Danny laugh as he rubs his core some.

The three work well past noon, and Danny’s officially both hungry and hungry. Being perpetually surrounded and bombarded by ectoplasmic aromas was not helping in the slightest. Twirling a few vials around in his fingers and laughing, “imagine if someone just filled one of these with green apple Gatorade and straight-up drank it? That’d be pretty weird, huh?”, as he pushes his wheeled stool over to the microscopes. He could easily see well enough to not need them, but any regular human would need them.

Jack laughs loudly, “that could certainly make for interesting Halloween drinks!”.

Danny smirks, making mental plans before licking his chops as he pulls out little bits of the smaller particles. Core vibrating and making his skin twitch. Sighing as he leans back, glancing at the clock, “the core of me has become the embodiment of hunger”.

Maddie smiles softly, “yes it is about that time isn’t it”, before standing and wiping her hands off on her legs, “any requests?”. Danny’s honestly hoping she forgets to wash her hands/gloves before making dinner. He knows she won’t but a guy can hope can’t he? Grinning goofily, “I have a hankering for green gummy bears and lime Creme pie wouldn’t be too much to ask for would it?”. Earning a chuckle and head shake from Maddie, while she walks up the stairs to make food for everyone.

Jack pushes a few larger beakers in front of Danny, “usually I’m the one harping for food! But you’re a grown man now so it’s expected”.

Danny rubs at his neck as he pours the pale green ectoplasm into smaller vials, intentionally using the vial rack that has cracks and chips in it, in the hopes that it’ll break and spill ectoplasm everywhere. “You better watch out, soon I’ll be taller than you”. Jack just laughs with a wide smile.

Danny’s pressing samples in between microscope slides, little bits squishing over the edges to drip onto his fingers. It looks like it’s glowing brighter than normal but Danny just knows that his core is influencing his brain to be more focused on the ectoplasm; to notice the potential snack easier. Licking off his thumb as Maddie comes down, holding plates of fish and a bottle of vinegar. Maddie kisses Jack, “out of tartar sauce, sorry Jack dear”. Jack waves her off with a laugh and basically dumps vinegar on the fish.

Danny sighs happily as he takes his plate, “perfect because isn’t there like some endless gaping hole that rivers of ectoplasm just flow into? Yeah pretty sure that’s a physical manifestation of my insides right now. Seeing as I’m just positively glowing with hunger right now”.

Jack tilts his head and barks out a laugh, swallowing before speaking, “yes Danny-boy, I'm pretty sure there is!”. While Danny just smiles, knowing full well that the Falls Of Reverlee were very much real. But they were kind of like pitcher plants, tons of ectoplasm but not exactly safe to go inside. Plus there’s was some chemical in it that made the ectoplasm super sticky, which could be kind of funny if you ate the ectoplasm since it would be like getting a mouth full of peanut butter.

The thought just makes his mouth water though, resulting in Danny eyeballing the black ectoplasm as he eats his fish, only lightly soaked in vinegar. Highly tempted to try to dip the fish in ectoplasm as a sauce. The pale green would go wonderfully with just how lemony it was, though the vinegar undertone might be a little overwhelming if mixed with actual vinegar.

Jack notices Danny’s staring and offers him a slide of the back ectoplasm, “you seem curious, why don’t you take a look at it for yourself?”.

Danny has to force his hand to not just snatch the slide and forces down the response of ‘fuck yes, gimme gimme’, and instead says, “sure, it’s strange”.

Jack chuckles and nods, while Danny wheels over to the microscope, doing his damnedest to get some ectoplasm off the slide subtly. Jack speaking while Danny stares down into the microscope, “we’re pretty sure this kind is made by these strange flowers. The stuff was just inside of these sacs hanging off the flowers! If you poke them they just explode!”.

Danny points at his dad, “so like fruit gushers?”, before blinking and lifting up his head, “did you bring back any of the sacs?”.

Jack nods excitedly and pulls out a container shaped like a tomato, opening it to show six ‘sacs’. Danny blinks, knowing in his gut these were actually seeds. Defted seeds. If cared for properly you could literally make a mini garden of Defted blossoms. Which yes, Zone yes. Ancients he was a blessed man. Danny will, without a doubt, absolutely be stealing one. He’s got no clue how his folks found these, Defted seeds were insanely rare and very very few ever so much as saw one. Mouthing ‘wow’ at his dad before actually speaking, while his core vibrates with aggressive happiness at the prospect of growing and having Defted blossoms nearby, “very strange. Any clues what, exactly, they are?”.

Jack shakes his head almost aggressively as he closes the container, “not a one. Which is why we’re being extra careful with them. Hopefully we only have to damage one to get some kind of idea”. Danny jerks and his core spasms slightly over his folks damaging Defted seeds, but there's nothing he can really do about it.

Danny nods, “hopefully”, before turning back to his microscope, officially even more curious to have even a little of this black ectoplasm. It smelled like a rich thick smoothie and chances are, it’s packed with nutrients.

Danny hands the slide back a bit stiffly, hunger gnawing at his chest and making the ectoplasm in his system jab at his veins and muscles. It was annoying pushing off feeding for this long but his life wasn’t exactly calm or routine. Plus, there was ectoplasm samples around if he really needed to nab some on the fly. Problem now was, he wasn’t alone down here. But he also slightly didn’t care, his folks knew he was goddamn weird and accepted it. They just didn’t know exactly how weird.

Danny manages to knock off one of the black ectoplasm vials, right over the edge of the table. Nabbing it out of the air and swapping it with an empty vial, holding the empty vial out to his dad, “slippery stuff eh?”. Making Jack chuckle as he takes the vial, none the wiser.

While Maddie shakes her head, pipetting up some purple ectoplasm. Danny leans over her and smirks, vial in his back pocket, “would be a lot faster with straws”.

Maddie shakes her head with a smile, “if that was safe and wouldn’t contaminate the samples we just might try something like that”. Making Danny seriously wish saliva, especially his ectocontaminated saliva, didn’t count as contamination.

Clapping her on the shoulder, “well Imma be right back”, before heading upstairs to the bathroom. Slipping out the vial and spinning it around as soon as he locks the door. Sure, it’s a small amount of ectoplasm but this is more about satisfying curiosity than need.

Swirling it around and sniffing at the milkshake scent again before downing it, tasting strongly of whip cream covered strawberries. Looking in the mirror Danny can see his eyes dilating dramatically and speaking as he just goes to lay on the floor, “oh shit”. Colours pulsating and able to smell the scents of the other ectoplasm samples through the floor. Snorting at the ceiling as he moves his fingers over the tiles, which feel much more defined, “it’s like one of those flavoured liquors but drugged”. His skin felt like someone was pushing really fluffy cotton up against all of it, making him feel comfy and numbed.

Flipping to stand back up and smirking at his reflection, little lines of black in his blue irises. It’s not like they’ll actually notice, so he slides out of the bathroom with a slight bounce in his step. Feeling light and kind of like dancing, with an undercurrent of hunger.

Danny hops down the final step and glides to sit back in his chair, spinning around some before moving to separate samples again.

Jack hands Danny a fist-sized jar of fuchsia ectoplasm, Danny raises an eyebrow at it before unscrewing the lid, “what? Ran out of regular sample cases so you decided to can it? Now it’s more like jam than jello”, tapping his chin, “honestly, could probably actually can ectoplasm”.

Maddie turns to him and eyeballs the jar, “that would certainly be something to try sweetie, but what would be the point?”.

Danny shrugs as he pours some into a Petri dish to poke at and mix in chemicals, “the idea of ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’ is bullshit”.

All three turn to look at the portal, which is firmly a ‘probably shouldn’t have done that’, arguably in a very different way for Danny than his folks.

Stirring around the fuchsia ectoplasm in the petri dish with a metal ectoproof stick, having half the mind to just start stirring it with his fingers instead. Core thrumming and pulsing over the scent of its, of Danny’s, favourite of flavours. While Jack is rolling a little ball of the black kind, testing to see how well it stays together and how bouncy it could be. Hint, very bouncy apparently. Seeing as Danny can’t help but laughing as Jack bounces it off the table only for it bounce into the ceiling and back down somewhat violently, splattering all over the table.

Danny bends over in a show of laughing even harder, but he’s really just hiding his face slightly so he can lick his cheeks off.

While Jack mutters, “woah”, Maddie copying him seconds later. Danny sees why as he lifts his head. Some of the black ectoplasm had landed in a small cup of purple ectoplasm and appeared to be devouring it, making the cup's contents slosh somewhat erratically.

Danny laughs again, “it’s cannibalising itself! Ectoplasm eating ectoplasm! Guess black buddy wanted some dinner too!”, his parents join him in laughing as Danny snorts and laughs into his hand, “maybe it’s saying I need to take a hint and start straight-up cannibalising things myself! And maybe cannibalise a little something else too!”.

Jack shakes his head with a heartily laugh, “that one doesn’t even make sense! But! It works ‘cause ectoplasm eating itself doesn’t make sense either!”.

Danny pats Jack’s arm, “thank you for coming to my voretastic TED talk”. While Maddie begins cleaning up the mess, shaking her head with a smile over Danny’s antics.

Danny turns back to his samples and beaker, core vibrating with hunger and making his skin twitch. Putting the Petri dish to the side and starting on pipetting out ectoplasm to fill tiny vials. Watching the liquid slowly fill up each one with a watering mouth.

Cleaning off the pipet and snapping the lids on the vials closed. Clearing his throat and swallowing thickly, “what else you want with the fuchsia?”.

Jack scratches his chin, shrugging, “nothing specific, so do what you fancy Danny-boy”.

What Danny fancies is straight-up eating the whole damn beaker and stealing all the other samples. That mental image making him chuckle slightly, lips feeling kind of puffy and numb all the while. Poking at the beaker with a slight smirk, honestly it’s not like they actually needed any of these samples; except maybe the black one since that was an unknown and unique.

Glancing at the clock, it was going to be a while before it could be considered night. Before his folks would be finished up and he could just dilly-dally off.

Turning his head back to the beaker and rubbing at his core. Which hums with temptation, the vibrations making him twitch more. Rubbing a hand over his slightly numb cheeks and lips, apparently whatever high that black kind have lasted a while even with such a small amount. Looking back to the clock, “fuck tonight”, before staring down at the beaker, speaking thick with humour, “you know it’s very much happy hour, so it would be pretty on point for someone to start chanting ‘shots shots shots’ right about now”.

Both of them send him confused looks but Jack shrugs, “you’re not wrong. But we are certainly not doing that”.

Danny chuckles as he pokes at the beaker again, “if we got Jell-O shots or some of that colourful liquor, we could even accidentally mix things up”.

Jack blinks and laughs, “that would be worse than mayonnaise in pudding cups!”.

Danny points at him with mock aggression, “hey! Mayonnaise is delicious”, smirking as he twitches almost violently, “and just for that...”.

Danny trails off as he grabs the beaker, mentally says ‘fuck it’, and straight up sloshes back the entire thing. Chugging it almost aggressively before slamming the glass down on the floor, like a mug of beer, while his parents gape at him for drinking that. Danny dramatically shouts, “Opa!”, just as the beaker shatters apart.

Jack pitches sideways, wheezing with laughter. While Maddie blinks at him, looks to the floor and broken glass, looks back up to him, “sweetie, it’s not often I feel the need to say this and know that I mean this with no small amount of love and acceptance, but...what, the, absolute, fuck”.

Danny just grumbles, “you’re supposed to say Mazal tov!”, while his core hums happily and he savours the cherry cough syrup covered white chocolate with a hint of caramel on his tongue.

End.

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m-602 · 5 years ago

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The Road to Mayhem

((So I was struggling to come up with a story that wasn’t filled with absolute angst... Then I got the idea to make a bunch of lighthearted one-shots between the sonas over at Discord. Specifically, this includes me, @astel4, @sillypanda3, @foxyfan666‘s Reaper, @kittydoesthings and her void baby Shadow, and @a-fanfic-fan‘s Silver.))

((Also... Yes, M’s full name has been revealed to be “Mikearu”... Yes, he’s in the body of a shadow lich child... No, I’m not giving context as to how that happened. It was a Discord RP and explaining it here would take up WAY too much text space...))

((Warning. There is some swearing here. Sorry!))

((Anyways... I hope you enjoy!))

((Happy Thanksgiving!))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Panda, put that halberd down right now!”

“No! I don’t think I will!”

That describes basically every day in the house. What would normally be every parent’s nightmare is just an everyday occurrence to the strange family of friends. When you hear about family spending time together, a self-entitled mother chasing around a halberd-wielding feral child wouldn’t even crack top fifteen. And yet… here we are.

Just family things.

Astel: “You’re gonna hurt yourself! Or someone else!”

Panda: “Is that a challenge?~”

A: “Wha- No! Now give it here!”

P: “Nope! This is mine!~”

Well, it would’ve still been hers. But a magical aura around the weapon indicated the end of that. It floats over to Astel’s outstretched hands.

A: “That’s enough, young lady!”

P: “What the fuck?! Give it back!”

She wasn’t giving it back. Mom mode Astel is currently trying to tame the feral child - a hopeless endeavor, yet one she attempts anyone. She cares about her too-

Silver: “Oooh.~ Shiny!~”

And with that, the halberd was out of Astel’s hands, the thief literally sliding the stairs as if they were rails.

A: “Gah! Silver! Get back here!”

Yep… Just family things…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To take a break from the chaos, let’s transition to something every family can relate to - actual family time, of course! The fireplace adorned living room is perfect for this, a familiar, bright blue flame warming the room from the cold, snow-less night. Everyone was simply doing their own thing, relaxing after running out of things to do. Chaos already reigned for most of the day, so it’s time to let order take the wheel. And as expected… it’s rather nice.

Mikaeru: “I go’ ho’ choco!~”

Even better - hot chocolate! Who doesn’t love hot chocolate? The lich, who decided to stay in his child form after the whole memory dive event, was now coming out of the tray filled with mugs. Within each one was a swirling, chocolatey beverage that warmed one to their very spirit. Even Mikearu, who didn’t need to drink or eat, enjoyed the stuff!

He offers one to Kitty. She gently takes a mug from the tray to avoid spilling it. And then proceeds to start slurping it down.

He offers one to Astel. She accepts in a heartbeat. She really loves chocolate…

He offers one to Silver. She immediately stashes it in her backpack. What a strange little thing…

He offers one to Reaper. She accepts it rather quickly as well. Likely for the added warmth.

He offers one to Panda. She’s too busy listening to music through her headphones. That’s fine, though! He just places it next to her in case she wanted it later.

He places his own drink on the table, dashing into the kitchen to put away the tray. When he returns, he’s immediately seated on the couch, finally taking a moment to relax.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying the silence - odd for a “family” of chaotic idiots. It’s around this moment that Panda would try to cause mischief or Silver would… be Silver. But nope. Nothing of the sort here… It’s kind of terrifying how all these people, who were the direct opposite of order in their own ways, could just sit around and enjoy themselves in the quiet.

Subconsciously, he let himself lean on the closest person on the couch… Which turned out to be Kitty. She just shrugged and placed an arm around the child.

He had brought his hot chocolate closer, taking sips of it as the azure flames roared from the fireplace. This is what he had imagined when he thought of “spending time with friends” - it’s not much… but it’s something…

He didn’t even notice his eyes start to flutter close as he drifted off to sleep, a nearly finished mug of hot chocolate at rest on the table in front of him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And judging by all the screaming, we’ve fallen back into the chaotic routine.

Reaper: “Who the hell gave Silver the wheel?!”

A: “Silver, did! She stole the wheel!”

A child who embodies cartoon logic at its finest is probably the last person you want driving the car. Mikearu had been traveling side by side with the vehicle… Now he’s trying to get anyone he can out of the death-mobile’s way. He sends a message to Astel within the shared mind.

M: ”A-Astel! Can’t you stop her?!”

A: “I’m trying! She won’t give me the wheel! She won’t even let me get close, and I’m sitting in the damn driver’s seat!”

Eclipse: “You know… You could always try freezing her like an ice sculpture.~”

Ikearu: [“OR JUST LET ME TEAR HER APART.~”]

M and A: “NOT HELPING!!!”

A cacophony of screams (excluding Silver’s overly enthusiastic laugh) roared from the out of control vehicle as it barreled down the road. People scrambled to jump out of the way - the strugglers were pulled away by a black and blue blur.

S: “Oooh.~ Railroad tracks!”

R,A, and Kitty: “WAIT, WHAT?!”

Yep. They were heading for railroad tracks. Hey, at least there wasn-

*HOOOOOOONK*

There was a train heading down the tracks. Right towards them. And Silver, being the maniacal child she is, wasn’t stopping.

M: “Oh, for the love of-”

Doing the only thing he can think of, he chained the rear wheels of the car, keeping them from spinning. Unfortunately, this also caused them to completely snap of the car due to the amount of force they were exerting. The rear of the car suddenly dropped lower as it slowed down exponentially, coming to a stop just before the tracks. Just in time, too - the train had just passed by them the moment they stopped. Any moment later, and…

Everyone (except Silver, who was still laughing) breathed a sigh of relief as they evacuated the car. Mikearu stood behind the vehicle, massaging his neck. He looked like the embodiment of stress.

M: “You know… A’ leas’ one of you has powers… You could’ve done somethin’, too!”

A: “I was kinda busy trying to get Silver off the wheel!”

R, gesturing to the car: “And I didn’t want *that* to happen.”

K: “Hey, at least we’re all safe…”

Silver had just hopped out of the car at that time.

S: “Woohoo! Let’s go again!”

Everyone else: “NO!!!”

S: “Aww… You’re no fun!”

At least one of them was about to correct her and say they also weren’t crazy… But likely didn’t since that would’ve been a direct lie. Everyone here is crazy - that’s why they’re a “family” after all.

Using Mikearu’s chains, Reaper’s strings, and everyone’s effort (excluding Silver - she’s still mad), they started dragging the car back home… which was quite a ways away from where they were. On the topic of home, a thought crossed Reaper’s mind.

R: “...Was it a good idea to leave Panda by herself in the house?”

Everyone else: “...”

It was safe to say that they were coming back to a trashed living room… And weapons sticking out of the couch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of Panda… She’s been acting kind of weird lately… You surely wouldn’t expect her of all people to hold her hands up to Astel and ask to be picked up.

P: “Up?”

The teenager turned mother picked her up upon the request, taking her over to the couch. Panda is rested on her lap as she’s held close.

A: “What’s wrong, hun?”

P: “Me. A-All I do is h-hurt you or Mikey or Reaper or even Kitty. I-I’m a b-bad person…”

A: “That’s not true, hun…”

P: “It is! I’m bad! Bad!”

Astel just held the self-loathing girl in her arms, trying to calm her down. It… was kind of bewildering to see her like this. She’s normally not the kind of person to be this upset over something. Either she shrugs it off or reacts with anger.

A: “...We don’t mind being hurt, y’know?”

P: “T-That doesn’t make sense!”

A: “What I mean is… We don’t mind being hurt if it means you’re okay…”

P: “But why?! W-Why do you care about me?!”

A: “Because we love you.~ We love you for who you are…”

P: “B-But… I’m nothing special… A-All I do is h-hurt-”

A familiar black and blue blur made its way to the couch. Panda suddenly found herself being hugged by a familiar lich child.

M: “You’re special to us! We like havin’ you around! And more importantly, we’re always here for you, Panda!”

P: “...”

The trio just kind of hugged it out, one of them kind of uncomfortable with the sudden affection. But she wasn’t about to ruin the moment… For once, she’ll stay quiet about this…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

E: “‘Stel!! How the hell do you make this shit?!”

A: “*snrk*”

Thanksgiving dinner was taking quite a while to make… Why was that? Because Eclipse had decided it was the perfect time to take over… Right when Astel was starting to make pie and cranberry sauce… Even more unfortunate is the fact that, for some reason, Astel decided to try making both at the same time.

E: “THE CRANBERRIES ARE BOILING OVER!!! ‘STEL, WHAT DO I DO?!”

A: “Literally all you have to do is lift the pot for two minutes, it’s fine.”

I: [“WHO KNEW THE DREADED NIGHTMARE QUEEN WAS A TERRIBLE COOK?~”]

M: “Pffft…”

E: “Quiet! The both of you!”

And of course the other minds are not help either. They’re enjoying the show!

Kitty would’ve helped… If she wasn’t laughing at the Nightmare Queen’s terrible cooking skills, too. Occasionally, a stretchy arm would give her the utensil she needed… But only once or twice.

E: “When the hell am I supposed to take out the pie?!”

A: “Not now, dumbass! I just put it in before you decided to take over!”

E: “Why you-”

M and I: “CAN YOU PLEASE JUST FOCUS ON THE DAMN FOOD?!”

Astel’s shadow trying to cook is proving to be harder to handle than the whole “kill everything” plan. Mainly because even said shadow has no idea what the heck she’s doing. Then again, Eclipse did this to herself when she decided to take over Astel’s body.

E: “What do I do now?!”

A: “Just wait! The food needs to cook!”

The door slamming open cuts them both off… As well as Kitty’s outburst.

K: “Shadow, wha- Did you kill those yourself?!”

Shadow: “Well… duh. How else were we gonna get a proper Thanksgiving dinner?”

K: “We could’ve just bought one!”

The void child just shrugged with two dead turkeys in either hand. Eclipse just stares at the child, coming to the slow realization that they’ll want a cooked turkey.

A: “Sure you don’t want me to cook?~”

E: “Well- Wait, hell no!”

I: [“YES, CAUSE YOU’VE BEEN DOING SO WELL BEFORE…”]

E: “NOT HELPING!!!”

Welp… Sucks to be you, Eclipse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After much bickering, culinary incompetence, and screeching, Thanksgiving dinner was finished. It’s honestly a miracle the house didn’t burn down with how clueless Eclipse was.

The food was already at the table the moment it was prepared. You can thank Mikearu for that…

Everyone had taken their seats, ready to dig in to the massive meal - even those who didn’t need to eat or didn’t eat normal food were waiting patiently to prepare their plates. Their reasoning?

M: “I’ s’Thanksgivin’! Why wouldn’ I?”

R: “Agreed.”

Sh: “I killed it. That’s all…”

And nothing more was said. Yep, just the usual.

The only problem was convincing Eclipse to give Astel her body back. It took a lot of mental and physical bickering to finally get the Nightmare Queen to give in, with Ikearu not doing the lights any favors.

I: [“SHE COOKED THE FOOD. LETTING HER HAVE ASTEL’S BODY FOR A GOOD WHILE SHOULD BE REWARD PLENT, HM?~”]

M: “Just shut up, you irritating pest.”

I: [GRR… YOU!]

It was as exhausting as it sounds. Definitely made the actual meal itself worth all the trouble. Though all the grumbling in the shared mind indicated that Eclipse wasn’t too happy with the arrangement in any way, shape, or form.

What children…

Surprisingly, the food was delicious! Guess a lot of good fortune saved their skins… and their stomachs.

It was nice. And it was more than just warming silence during a cold night. Everyone was chatting, making jokes, getting on each other’s nerves, the usual. It was all one could ask for a Thanksgiving dinner.

M: “Mm… I’m grateful to have me’ you guys.”

A: “Aw… Same here!”

K: “Yep.”

R: “Happy Thanksgiving, guys!”

Sh: “Heh… Whatever…”

P: “Yep, sure…”

And Silver was stuffing food into her backpack… Again… At least she was eating it, even if she wasn’t actively engaging with anyone else.

For a bunch of idiots on the Road to Mayhem… They were actually having a good time together…

If you didn’t know any better… You could probably call them a real family…

#one-shots #m #mikearu #the discord family #aka #the chaos gang #tw swearing #funny moments #fluffy moments #idiot friends being family #discord shenanigans

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leepace71 · 6 years ago

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LEE PACE AND HIS NEIGHBOR, JESSICA LANGE, CATCH UP ABOUT WILD FANS, THE WILDERNESS OF EMPTY HOTEL ROOMS, AND NATURE ITSELF

The first time I met Lee Pace, we were outside, next to the East River in Brooklyn, and I was a little stoned. We had just been introduced through a mutual friend, and within minutes of speaking to one another, he invited me up to “the farm,” a country house with five fireplaces, about two hours north of the city. The farm has played an important role in Pace’s life, offering him a retreat from Hollywood, but also purpose; there, with his own hands, he built a rustic barn, in which he lived until he bought the property adjacent to his from his then-neighbor, the two-time Oscar-winning actor Jessica Lange.

It makes sense that Pace feels at home outside of the city; the actor, now 40, was born in the small town of Chickasha, Oklahoma. He gained a modest, albeit devoted following by appearing on two beloved but short-lived TV series: Wonderfalls, in 2004, and, three years later, Pushing Daisies. His star, however, shot into a whole other orbit beginning in 2012, when he joined what seemed like every franchise at the time by starring in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, all three of the films in The Hobbit series, and Guardians of the Galaxy—as the hooded, blue-faced villain Ronan the Accuser. His recent role as the closeted Mormon Joe Pitt in the Broadway revival of Angels in America was magically exhausting and eloquent, and it coincided with a public truth of his own—or, as a headline in The New York Times put it, “Lee Pace Came Out Seven Times a Week. Then He Came Out for Real.”

The actor’s two upcoming projects reemphasize his dual—perhaps dueling—interests in entertainment and art: He reprises his role as Ronan this spring in Captain Marvel and, later this summer, he’ll play John DeLorean, opposite Jason Sudeikis, in Driven, a biopic about the controversy-courting automobile tycoon. In anticipation of both films, Pace invited Lange to his apartment in New York’s West Village to talk about moviemaking, marketing, and, yes, the farm. She did a slight twirl upon entering the main room and, as one might expect from the queen of elevated shade, said, “Not bad, Lee—for a pied-à-terre.” —NICK HARAMIS

———

LANGE: Should we jump into acting?

PACE: Let’s start with the farm.

LANGE: I remember the first time I saw you, I had walked down to the pond and I looked across, and I saw somebody in that next field over there to the right. And I thought, “Fuck, I’m going to have a neighbor.” But then it turned out to be you, and that was swell.

PACE: I can’t imagine what you saw because those first few times, I was camping out there in a tent to try to figure out where I was going to build a house. I remember that first night, it was about four o’clock and it must have been early March or something. I had made camp, but I didn’t have enough time to make a fire before it got dark. I got into the tent, and I opened up my roast beef sandwich and start eating it, and then all around the quarry I heard the coyotes. I swear I heard one of them sniff the tent just right outside that nylon. So I made a ton of noise and ran back to the car.

LANGE: The land up there is haunted, but beautiful.

PACE: One of the things I’m most proud of is building that old frame out of raw timber on the edge of the woods. Then, right before Thanksgiving, I got a bunch of my friends together to push it up.

LANGE: It was like an old Amish barn raising. I remember because Sarah Paulson was staying up with me that weekend. I baked a pie and walked across the field with it wrapped in a linen basket, thinking, “This is something from another time.”

PACE: That farm has become such a big part of my life.

LANGE: As an actor, most of the time you’re staying in a hotel room in some strange city somewhere.

PACE: I do love seeing the world, and being in those hotel rooms. It’s such an incredible thing playing a character all day, and then at night you go home to this hotel and you wake up in the morning and you don’t quite know where you are.

LANGE: I think the part of it I’ve loved the most, and the part that’s been most difficult, is that nomadic life. When my kids were little, we were like a caravan. We moved dogs, birds, cats, kids, tutors—and that was great. But when you’re by yourself doing it, it’s incredibly lonely. Being an actor is an inherently lonely life.

PACE: It really is, isn’t it? It’s kind of disorienting in that way. It’s like having this sheet of thick glass between you and everyone else.

LANGE: Do you think in some way actors are already lonely people, who are then drawn to this life more than others?

PACE: There must be something.

LANGE: That and a traumatic childhood make a good actor.

PACE: Check.

LANGE: Tell me about Captain Marvel.

PACE: I’ve never read the script. I was doing Angels in America when I shot it.

LANGE: How in the hell did you do that?

PACE: That whole time of my life was insanity, so it just added to it. I basically did a matinee on Sunday, flew out to L.A., got painted blue, and put on a costume. Then I stood in front of a blue screen, and they’re like, “Okay, there’s a hologram in front of you and they’re saying this.” It’s so surreal in a way. I did two days of that, and then I was back onstage playing Joe Pitt in Angels in America.

LANGE: Well, that kind of covers acting A to Z, doesn’t it?

PACE: So many people see those movies and they entertain so many people, and I guess I’m an entertainer, so I embrace that. But if I’m being honest, it’s disorienting.

LANGE: When you were in Angels in America, you stepped in for another actor, right?

PACE: Yes, they had rehearsed it and had a whole run in England, so when they brought it back to Broadway, I was the only one who was new, so I was playing catch-up. As with all big experiences, life informs the situation, and it informed the interpretation of the character. When I read the play in high school, I understood this cognitive dissonance of Joe feeling like an alien in a world full of humans. I wanted to advocate for his point of view, because as a queer person, I’m seeing everyone behave as human and I feel like I’m painted blue. And the character really just goes through hell. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done because there was no pulling the punch going onstage. I was terrified about it every day, about walking through those shoes in that public way, because the character has just stripped off his skin.

LANGE: Sometimes those are the best acting moments, don’t you think? It confirms all the reasons why we do this. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but in that production your performance was by far the most moving.

PACE: That means so much to me. I just felt so cooked by it, do you know what I mean? I think Tony [Kushner] knew it was coming to me, because I ran into him in Provincetown and he was like, “Hey, would you consider doing this?” I think he knew it was coming, and I’m glad I didn’t know.

LANGE: You don’t have to answer this, but how does it feel when there’s a certain discord—and I’m putting it lightly—with an actor opposite you. How do you find your way around that?

PACE: Well, I guess you’ve just got to show up for that first moment, right? You make your entrance, and that’s all I could do, really. I had to love this woman deeply, profoundly, unconditionally, and I did not. But the play does the work, really. Some nights, it hit such beautiful notes. Then there were times when I would look across at her, and I was like, “This isn’t the play we’re doing. You’re angry at someone else right now.” But there’s no redoing it, so yeah.

LANGE: This summer you’re going to star in a film as John DeLorean. How is playing an actual person different than playing a fictional character?

PACE: I love playing real people. You just get so much more color. The thing that was so fun about learning about John DeLorean is that no one has the same story about him. He left such different impressions on everyone he came into contact with. There are people who thought he was a visionary of a certain time. There are people who thought he was a crook.

LANGE: What ever happened with that car company of his?

PACE: There was this whole house of cards where he needed money to keep the business running, and so he got involved in a coke deal. But the FBI was setting him up, and they got video of the whole thing.

LANGE: If you could play anyone in the world, who would it be?

PACE: Putin? Trump? Let’s stick to mega-villains. I don’t know. I want to work with a good director who will pick for me.

LANGE: Is there a part you want to do onstage again?

PACE: I’m not 25 anymore, but I would love to have played Romeo. That’s a character I find so interesting and contradictory. I would also like to play Uncle Vanya. I think I could still play him.

LANGE: I think you could, too.

PACE: I can’t wait to get onstage again.

LANGE: I’ve found that with series, you get to have longer to develop a character. For all the disadvantages of doing a series, that’s one advantage.

PACE: There’s also the writers. I loved our writers on Halt and Catch Fire, because they watched us and saw things in us that they brought out of the character.

LANGE: They see you and know your strong points.

PACE: I think the writers in our room were like, “He’s going to hate this,” because my character gets dragged through hell. For the first few seasons, I was like, “This isn’t fair.”

LANGE: How much do you think an actor owes his fans? Is that even part of the way you think?

PACE: I think that’s a very contemporary view. Social media creates this call-out culture where people can view something as being problematic. But I don’t really consume a lot of media, so I don’t really pay attention to it much.

LANGE: Do you have—what are those sites called? Twitter?

PACE: I have Instagram. But it’s not really the media outlets on it that I find interesting. I just find cool people doing interesting stuff. To be honest, I look at very dumb memes.

LANGE: What’s a funny anecdote you remember from a fan approaching you?

PACE: I once went up to the farm—this was after I bought your house—and I saw this rotting bag of dumplings outside, along with a ticket to Shen Yun. Do you know that Chinese dance?

LANGE: Yes.

PACE: And there was a note that said, “I know you like dumplings, please come with me to Shen Yun. I’ll be waiting with a ticket for you. By the way, you have a beautiful farm.” [Laughs] I’m so grateful that people like the work that I do and that they respond to it. Twenty years ago, I never would have dreamed that people would have felt strongly about the work that I do. But one of the lessons I learned playing that role in Angels in America is that approval is really not what it’s about. Understanding is what it’s about.

LANGE: I’m so far outside the realm of social media, but from what I’ve heard people say, your presence—or following, or whatever—now adds to your bankability. It’s insane. I passed by somebody on the street today who was talking on her phone, and she said that she had 20 million followers.

PACE: I wonder who has the most. Would it be Selena Gomez? Let’s see how many she’s got—145 million followers.

LANGE: What does that even mean?

PACE: If she posts a picture, 145 million people will see it on their feed. I mean, that’s more than a movie.

LANGE: That’s a lot of people. It feels dangerous to me. I don’t mean to be a conspiracy theorist, but do we really understand what any of this stuff is? It makes you want to retire to the farm.

LEE: I love those days when you wake up and just make coffee, then walk out into the fields.

LANGE: Do you remember that one beautiful coyote that used to cross the field?

PACE: Yes.

LANGE: He was gorgeous!

PACE: I remember one time, the pond had frozen over and these coyotes chased a doe out onto the ice and then she slipped and fell, and they ripped her up. There were tracks going back into the woods where they took a piece of her. The next day, it thawed and it all disappeared like it had never happened.

#lee pace #jessica lang #interview magazine

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thatjewishbisexual · 7 years ago

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Autumn Would You Rather

i was tagged by @phoreverphan tysm ur awesome!

1. apple picking vs hay rides

2. scary vs sweet (this means that by surviving something scary I can reward myself with horrible romcoms and Doritos)

3. sweaters vs boots (sweater paws are life who needs gloves)

4. socks vs mittens (like I said before who needs gloves? Plus you can mismatch socks which is awesome)

5. bonfires vs football (If I had the capacity to understand sports I would try exercise but that is never gonna happen)

6. trick or treating vs watch scary movies (sleep? Never heard of it)

7. apple pie vs pumpkin pie (I don’t like pumpkin)

8. halloween vs thanksgiving (my mom makes heavenly baked mac’n’cheese)

9. bake a pie vs bake some cookies (I’m not good at doing either)

10. rain vs fog (just cuz of the song honestly)

11. black cats vs owls (I need to get over my superstitions)

12. ghosts vs wizards (I need to be able to Apparate)

13. Harry Potter vs halloweentown (I’ve never seen Halloweentown)

14. go hiking vs sleep in (bugsbugSbuGSbUGSBUGS)

15. cinnamon vs nutmeg (I’ve never had nutmeg)

16. reading vs writing (I can’t write to save my life)

17. hot chocolate vs tea (is both an option idk)

18. live in a cabin in the forest vs have it be fall 24/7 (that one day a year with the perfect temperature is always in Fall)

19. candy apples vs caramel apples (neither tbh)

20. blankets vs pillows (blankets can be pillows smh)

21. roasted marshmallows vs roasted chestnuts (burnt marshmallows are the best)

22. coffee vs apple cider the definition of warmth)

23. red leaves vs orange leaves (it just seems more energetic and I need energy boosts in the Fall)

24. braids vs bows (I can’t really rock either tho)

25. scented candles vs the smell of fresh baked goods (chocolate chips with anything is awesome)

26. carve pumpkins vs make eat pumpkin pie (but the slime aaaa)

27. pumpkins spice lattes vs chai tea lattes i don’t like lattes

28. coats vs oversized sweaters (yaaaasss)

29. beanies vs berets (I wish I was cool enough to wear either

30. candy corn vs peanut butter cups Is neither an option

31. s’mores vs apple crisp (BURNT IS THE ONLY WAY)

32. jump in a pile of leaves vs swing on a tire swing (the only acceptable form of exercise)

33. corn maze vs haunted house (food and friends)

34. bob for apples vs visit a pumpkin patch (only if they have complimentary warm food)

35. whipped cream on hot chocolate vs marshmallows on hot chocolate (I don’t like whipped cream)

i tag @piye-ruya @purplezobot @zoozoocala@sassprincesierra@collar-phil @phanicatthelibrary @ravendeer @shadowed-violet @conscious-colours @pyxishowell I’m basically copying @phoreverphan‘s list because we have a bunch of common mutuals so if you are a mutual I didn’t tag I’m sorry I’m so lazy and consider yourself tagged

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junker-town · 5 years ago

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A Thanksgiving sides draft, because we are a sports website

Photo by: Anjelika Gretskaia/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

2 sides, 1 dessert, 1 drink. Whose Thanksgiving reigns supreme?

Thanksgiving dinner has never been about turkey.

The focal point of the biggest meal of the holiday season can be brined, roasted, or fried, but it will never escape its fate as lean, bland bird meat. On its own, it’s more of a lowkey punishment than the centerpiece of a celebration.

That’s why we have side dishes. The heart of Thanksgiving is the supporting cast that soaks across your plate and imparts a little extra flavor to the day’s starring attraction. Good sides are a meal on their own, reduced to complementary status in the name of an hour-long gorging. They even get their own stewards thanks to the presence of desserts and beverages tasked with cleaning the whole mess up.

Put all that together, and you’ve got one hell of a meal. And, for the dads of the nation, a prelude to the greatest recliner nap they’ll take all year.

In the interest of celebrating the one celebration of America that doesn’t involve hot dogs, we turned the perfect Thanksgiving meal into a competition. Five SB Nation writers joined forced to draft their ideal meals. The ground rules:

everyone starts with turkey and gravy

everyone drafts two sides, one dessert, and one beverage (adult or otherwise)

sides must be fundamentally different from one another to be considered a viable alternative to an already-picked food (i.e. sausage and herb stuffing vs. Stove-Top is good to go, but pumpkin pie vs. pumpkin pie with whipped cream is not).

Our four-round draft was a randomly-assigned snake draft, and our managers could pick sides, dessert, or beverage in any round of their choice. These are the results:

1. Stuffing — Louis Bien

Easily the MVP of every Thanksgiving dinner. Stuffing stands up well on its own, but it pairs with everything else beautifully, too. Stuffing complements everything around it, and everything complements stuffing. It just tastes like Thanksgiving. And it saves amazingly well for next-day sandwiches. Some people like to add sausage to their stuffing, but that’s one job too many for what is essentially the do-it-all point guard of any feast. Let stuffing be the giver that it is.

Christian D’Andrea: Cool man. You took breadcrumbs cooked inside a bird anus No. 1 overall.

Alex McDaniel: If Stove Top is No. 1, let’s give up now.

2. Mashed potatoes — Christian D’Andrea

An easy choice. Mashed potatoes are the glue that you dip your turkey in so that other, better foods (stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn, etc) will stick to the bird and thus make it taste like something. It’s also instrumental in the post-meal leftover sandwich, which is easily the best part of Thanksgiving (old man naps while seating completely upright aside).

Fooch: I’d like to continue shit-talking Louis on this one. Forget stuffing — mashed potatoes is the go-to side. Mashed potatoes is the Orlando Pace of this draft. The offensive tackle prospect that you know will turn into a Hall of Famer. It’s not a sexy pick, but like Christian said (when he wasn’t trashing my old man choices), it’s the glue of the Thanksgiving meal.

Louis: Boxed fake mashed potatoes >>>>>>> real mashed potatoes. I will take no more questions at this time.

3. Cranberry sauce (Ocean Spray) — David Fucillo

I’ve learned to enjoy fancy cranberry sauce, but nothing tops the gelatin version! Some will mock me for my distaste of gravy, but this actually serves as my choice of gravy. I combine all my sides together with the turkey, and the cranberry sauce is what keeps it from turning into a lumpy mess.

Louis: This is high for cranberry sauce, but I get that people really love it, and I like the gelatin version over the Real Stuff, too. But I will NOT abide this gravy slander, sir.

4. Cornbread dressing — Alex McDaniel

Aside from being the Thanksgiving dish most likely to start a family fight over the right way to make it, cornbread dressing is the quintessential side-that-could-also-be-a-meal holiday food. (It’s also way better than stuffing in that we don’t shove dressing up a bird’s ass.)

Louis: Y’all know you don’t have to cook stuffing in the turkey’s butt, right?

5. Pumpkin pie — Eric Stephen

In theory I probably should have picked a side dish here, but since I had two picks back-to-back I wanted to give the Thanksgiving dessert its proper due as a first-round pick. Pumpkin pie is not something that should be eaten year round, but it is a Thanksgiving staple. There was no way this was lasting until the end of the third round, so I had to make sure to grab my dessert — the dessert — right away.

Fooch: Every draft requires someone forgetting that a selection already happened. I was psyched to take pumpkin pie in the third round, only to realize I missed Eric taking it with the fifth overall pick. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream is what Thanksgiving is all about. I probably should have taken it over cranberry sauce, but such is life.

6. Green bean casserole — Eric Stephen

I have to be honest here: for the overwhelming bulk of my Thanksgiving dinners, I’ve had fairly standard green beans, maybe spruced up with bacon here and there. But green bean casserole is the ultimate comfort food, and perhaps more importantly it’s one of the easiest sides to make — green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and fried onions — which is important for those of us who aren’t hosting but rather bringing something to the table.

Christian: Easily the worst kind of bean. I appreciate the casserole’s commitment to making a healthy food so capable of bringing on a stroke.

Louis: Is there any part of green bean casserole that actually tastes good other than the French’s fried onions sprinkled on top?

Fooch: The fact that Christian shit-talked my Brussels sprouts the way he did and doesn’t offer nearly enough hate for green bean casserole is just unacceptable.

7. Sweet potato casserole — Alex McDaniel

I’m not sure why I didn’t make this my first pick because it’s undeniably the most on-brand example of Thanksgiving indulgence in existence. How do you make sweet potatoes, a naturally tasty and good-for-you food, more appealing? Mix them with a shitload of butter and brown sugar and eggs and vanilla before topping them off with marshmallows and EVEN MORE butter and brown sugar. Plus, it’s the only dish other than boring-ass cranberry sauce that counts as a side AND a dessert.

Christian: A dessert as a side dish? You really are from the South.

8. Brussels sprouts (with balsamic glaze) — David Fucillo

A vegetable I would never eat as a kid I have grown to love as an adult. I’d be fine with just a basic sprout dish cooked with some salt, pepper and garlic. In reality, a balsamic glaze and potentially some bacon takes this side to a whole other level.

Christian: Of course the guy who picked candy corn and raisins at Halloween wants Brussels sprouts, the villain food from every Nicktoon from 1992-1998. Enjoy your tiny cabbages, old man.

9. Sausage and herb stuffing — Christian D’Andrea

How do you improve on stuffing? Add a bunch of pig fat to it. This is effectively a breakfast sandwich, blended down into spoonable form. I love every word in that sentence, so that’s an easy pick for me.

Louis: Talks shit about stuffing then takes the frozen Jimmy Dean’s version of it eight picks later. OK.

10. Spiced peaches — Louis Bien

It was slim pickings for sides at this point of the draft outside of [Insert vegetable] and [Insert starch]. But spiced peaches are a nice curveball on the plate — sweet and tart and delicious. Who cares that they don’t actually go with anything.

Alex McDaniel: It’s hard for me to talk shit about such a delightfully Southern dish, but I’m guessing spiced peaches in Wisconsin just means throwing some cinnamon on a Del Monte fruit cup and calling it a day.

11. Rye old fashioned — Louis Bien

A simple, noble, delicious cocktail that tastes like the embodiment of crackling fireplaces, cozy sweaters and fucking off from work.

Christian: You went to the University of Wisconsin and chose rye over brandy for your old fashioneds. The city of Madison will judge you for this. Harshly and drunkenly, as is tradition.

Louis: Do I get to rebut in the comment section? Listen, I hear you, but brandy hurts, man.

12. Cheesecake — Christian D’Andrea

A top five dessert after any meal. Can be topped with literally any fruit in order to make it healthy.

“Healthy.”

Louis: Yes, that’s exactly what I want after my 20-pound meal, a sugar bomb with the density of a red dwarf.

13. Roasted potatoes — David Fucillo

Gotta have a starch and I couldn’t justify scalloped potatoes. Mashed potatoes are the easy choice, but a quality toasted potato can bring a little something extra.

Christian: How difficult was it for you to pass up “rolls” or “water” here?

Louis: “Mmm, pass the filler please.”

Eric: This is a great side, but missing only one step: mashing the potatoes.

14. Hot bourbon cider — Alex McDaniel

Adding bourbon to apple cider is a) delicious and b) more socially acceptable than drinking straight whiskey from a Solo cup at the Thanksgiving table. Or so I’ve heard.

Christian: The only thing I don’t like about this pick is your Solo cup bias. Next you’re going to tell me everyone sits on chairs that don’t fold up at your house and the kids’ section isn’t just a three-legged card table.

15. Mac n’ cheese — Eric Stephen

The gamble in picking my dessert first meant that most of the good sides would be snatched up by this time of the draft. But what could be better to add to Thanksgiving than one of the best side dishes for any meal? Mac n’ cheese is delicious whether out of a box or made from scratch, and for an extra touch maybe through some bacon in there since I didn’t get to add them to my green beans above.

Louis: I am probably very, very alone in this, but I love mac n’ cheese in pretty much every context except Thanksgiving. Here’s a sumptuous banquet of Earth’s bounty, and also cheddar noodles.

16. Boring-ass regular cider — Eric Stephen

I suppose I could have just picked a beer, or even tequila here (man, that would hit the spot right now), I picked a beverage I have in my kitchen at this very moment. Yes it’s relatively plain, and non-alcoholic, but the spicy warm beverage is just perfect for the holidays, and hit the spot.

Christian: Warm Dr. Pepper was RIGHT THERE.

17. Salted caramel pie — Alex McDaniel

Listen. If you eat a bunch of rich and/or sweet stuff at dinner, maybe DON’T make this your dessert choice. Eat some Jell-O and go lie down. But if you kept things dry and boring, salted caramel pie is the dessert you DESERVE, not to mention a hell of a lot more creative than standard, boring, embarrassingly un-salted pies.

Christian: Is the recipe for this just “salt, sugar, butter, milk” and then a shrug emoji?

18. Hot buttered rum — David Fucillo

I’m not a big holiday drinker, but this just seems like a quality option during a cold, winter evening. Why get complicated?

Christian: OLD. MAN. PICK. Fooch drafted himself a Thanksgiving meal he read about once in a Dickens novel.

19. Porters/brown ales (like say, Tyranena’s Rocky’s Revenge?) — Christian D’Andrea

A good warming beer to ease in the oncoming winter. Nothing sets up the 4 p.m. hibernation break quite like a couple beers to wash down the week’s worth of carbohydrates you just ate.

(Tyranena, please send me stuff.)

Fooch: I love a good porter or brown ale, but I can’t even begin to imagine trying to drink this during or right after a huge Thanksgiving meal. I’m a glutton when it comes to this meal, but this would knock me on my ass before I even finished eating. I at least like to make it back to the television and pass out while watching football.

20. Ritz cracker pie — Louis Bien

I think this goes by mock apple pie in some circles, but we usually make this with pecans and/or walnuts in the mix, too. Ritz cracker pie is light and fluffy and sweet and perfect after over-gorging on everything else. I almost always end up having some for breakfast the next day.

Christian: I ... have no idea what this is?

(Ritz, please send Louis stuff.)

Our final results:

So who won our inaugural Thanksgiving sides draft? Throw your vote in below. The winner will earn a smidge of pride. The loser will be mocked relentlessly for having terrible taste.

If you can’t see the poll, click here.

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laurelwinchester · 7 years ago

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DEAN/LAUREL FOR THE MEME!

Paging goshutuplucifer because you also sent me D/L for this meme.

who hogs the duvet: Laurel. She is always cold and she tosses and turns in her sleep, which means she usually wakes up all tangled in the blankets. Dean tends to run hot anyway so he doesn’t really care about the lack of blankets but she always feels so guilty when sees that she’s stolen all the covers so when she inevitably wakes up before him, she carefully covers him up and lets him sleep in.

who texts/rings to check how their day is going: They both do this a lot. However, neither one of them actually say outright that they’re texting to check in so they just send each other texts about dinner or grocery lists or random things about their day. If one of them is out of town - if he’s on a case or she’s off working with the Justice League - they kind of up their check in texts. Occasionally, one of them will bluntly send a text that says something like yo, babe, you still alive???? Especially if it’s been over 24 hours since the last check in. But most of the time, they try to be lowkey in their worrying.

She’ll send him selfies of her expression while she’s stuck listening to Oliver or Bruce drone on in meetings just to let him know she’s still alive and uninjured. Or she’ll try to start conversations by texting him random things like Kara says hi and she’s sending me home with Eliza’s recipe for sweet potato pie or Helena’s in a mood today. She keeps threatening to “dickpunch” Ollie. Has she talked to you at all?

Meanwhile, when Dean wants her to know that he’s okay or when he’s fishing for a response to let him know she’s not dead, he just sends her a lot of pictures of random birds all with the caption is this u?

who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts: Okay, so, Laurel’s grandmother had this really ornate jewelry box that had been in the family for generations. Laurel absolutely loved that thing. She’d admired it since she was a kid. It was so beautiful. It was supposed to be passed down to Dinah but when Beatrice saw how much Laurel loved it, she planned to give it to her. But when Bea and Richard moved from their house into the nursing home, it was broken in the move. A couple of years later, Dean had the box recreated and gave it to Laurel on her birthday. It was amazing. She cried.

Of course, Sam was the one who pointed out, “That was nice, dude, but you fucked yourself. Now you have to try to top that every year.”

Dean considered that but eventually just threw his arms out with a smirk and went, “Challenge accepted.”

who gets up first in the morning: Laurel gets up at an obnoxiously early time to go for her morning run. Most of the time, when she does this, she’ll wake him up briefly just to let him know that she’s heading out for her run and he’ll sleepily mumble something like “have a good run” or “I’ll have coffee waiting when you get back” but sometimes he’s just like “it’s six in the morning, what the fuck, go back to sleep, what is your life.” Because who wakes up at six in the morning on a Saturday in the winter to go for a run?

who suggests new things in bed: I feel like they’re both on pretty even ground at this point. In the beginning, however, it was Dean who made the suggestions. He had more experience than she did and he wanted her to be happy, comfortable, and satisfied. So there are a few things he’s responsible for introducing her to, sure, but he’s also just responsible for helping to loosen her up a bit and make her more comfortable in the bedroom. She’s always been a sex positive person in theory but you need the right partner for some things and I will bet everything I own that pre-island Oliver was selfish in bed. Dean, on the other hand, is very giving and there’s definitely a level of trust there that she didn’t have before.

who cries at movies: 90% of the time this is Laurel. Unless they’re watching a Disney movie. Then it’s both of them.

who gives unprompted massages: Dean does this all the time. Half the time he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. He just likes to be touching her to remind himself that she’s still there. It becomes a habit for him. And it he really good with his hands. He massages are amazing and she carries so much stress in her neck and shoulders so she is on board with that habit. Never turn down a Dean Winchester massage, honestly.

who fusses over the other when they’re sick: They both do this because they’re both caretakers by nature, but Dean is a bit more insistent in his fussing. Which works out perfectly because Laurel is needy af when she’s sick.

who gets jealous easiest: It used to be Dean, especially in regards to a certain ex of hers, but at this point, neither one of them really bother with jealousy anymore because it’s honestly just a waste of time. Overprotectiveness? Sure. But jealousy? Not so much.

who has the most embarrassing taste in music: Oh, Laurel. It’s not all embarrassing. She likes classic rock, indie music, and she went through a belated Riot Grrrl phase when she was 12/13 and some of that stuck, but her not-so-guilty-pleasure music is Top 40. Her workout playlist is all Britney, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce. She is not at all embarrassed by this, though. She also uses it whenever she needs to get her way.

Like, one night, right after Thea’s moved in with them, Laurel and Dean get in the world’s dumbest argument over whether or not they need a dishwasher (she’s for, he’s against) and it just goes on and on and on and on. Thea, equal parts irritated and amused, goes to hide in her room. She’s in bed, online shopping and live texting the fight to Sam, when she hears Laurel yell, “Don’t make me do the thing, Dean!”

And he’s like, “Do not do the thing!”

Then there’s just a lot of incoherent protesting from Dean, followed by the sound of the Spice Girls, followed by a, “DAMN IT, LAUREL!”

Thea frowns and has to text Oliver: what does it mean when laurel puts on spice girls in the middle of an argument????

His response is quick: She’s going to get whatever she wants.

Thea: ??????

Oliver: It’s her idea of a filibuster. Then, a minute later: Has she started dancing yet? She’s a terrible dancer.

Thea: awww that’s mean bro. she tries. she’s still a better dancer than you.

Anyway, the next morning, when she’s in the kitchen, eating cereal and reading one of Laurel’s old Vogue magazines, Dean comes into the kitchen. He pours himself a cup of coffee, sighs heavily, and asks her, “Do you need anything from Ikea? We’re getting a dishwasher.”

(This answer got long. I just wanted everyone to know that Laurel Lance stages filibusters with the Spice Girls because it seemed like really important information.)

who collects something unusual: Dean sends her a postcard every time he’s out of town so she has a collection of those that she keeps in a box by her bed. But also, THIS GIRL IS A BORDERLINE HOARDER. Whatever home she’s in, it’s cluttered. She keeps everything. She has magazines dating back to 2005, a bunch of her grandparents’ things (including a bunch of fine china that she never knows what to do with), flea market finds, and way too many shoes.

who takes the longest to get ready: Generally speaking, it’s Laurel. But if they’re going to some fundraiser or gala in Star City or out to dinner with her father, it’s Dean who takes the longest. He’s just dragging his feet but he’ll insist it was because he needed an extra minute for his hair because, “Do you think I just wake up like this?” Her response to that is always a dry, “I wake up next to you, honey. I know for a fact you wake up like that. It’s annoying. I hate you a little bit for it.”

who is the most tidy and organized: Neither of them are particularly tidy and organized but Dean might take this one just because of the borderline hoarder thing. She has so much stuff that their house is practically bursting at the seams. And you know what else? She leaves her goddamned shoes everywhere. He has nearly died before because she left a stiletto in the living room. (He didn’t “nearly die” but that’s what it said in his all caps text.) But, at the same time, Dean doesn’t fold clothes. The bedroom is full of all these piles of clothes and Laurel never knows what’s clean and what’s not because that man is allergic to folding clothes and putting laundry away.

who gets most excited about the holidays: Laurel loves the holidays! She was so excited to move into their cozy little house because it meant trick or treaters at Halloween. She spends weeks fixing up goodie bags for the kids and decorating the house and planning costumes and forcing Dean to make a menu for the Halloween party. She puts up the Christmas tree and starts playing Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. She stands at the bottom of the ladder while she tells Dean where to put all the lights. She plans the Easter egg hunt for all the kids in the Justice League.

She gets so full of energy around the holidays that people keep telling Dean that they need to hurry up and have kids because she needs somewhere to put all that “weird holiday energy.”

who is the big spoon/little spoon: They take turns because sharing is caring.

who gets more competitive when playing games and/or sports: One year, there is a softball game between all of the superhero teams. We’re talking all of them. Team Arrow, Team Flash, Sara’s time traveling team, the Birds of Prey, Supergirl and Friends, other various members of the Justice League and their teams. It’s supposed to be a team building exercise. Dean is offered a spot with Laurel and her girls but his response basically boils down to, “Hard pass.” Still, on the day of, he dutifully shows up with Cas and sits in the bleachers with a very pregnant, very tired, and very grumbly Iris West-Allen. Everything is fine for awhile. Until Oliver and Laurel get in an argument over his pitching abilities and it ends in her chasing him around the field.

Iris bursts into laughter and films the whole thing on her phone, managing to get out giggles of, “I take back every grumpy thing I’ve said today. This is the best thing that has ever happened!”

Dean does eventually manage to grab Laurel and toss her over his shoulder while she’s ranting and accusing Oliver of cheating, but not before he almost falls off the bleachers because he’s laughing so hard.

who starts the most arguments: Ummm, Dinah Laurel Lance: Lawyer By Day, Vigilante By Night. She should have “I’m a lawyer, I live to argue” tattooed on her forehead.

who suggests that they buy a pet: Pets have always been an ongoing discussion for them. Laurel was the one to bring it up first before they even got married, but they both decided to wait until they were working less and home more. It takes them a long time to be ready to pull the trigger on that particular issue. See, they’ve both always said that they’d like their kids to have a dog. But, you know, some things aren’t meant to be. The years pass and the people around them start getting married and having kids. Sam and Eileen have a daughter, Sara and Nyssa raise Nyssa’s nephew for a few years, Barry and Iris have twins, and even Oliver has William.

Meanwhile, Dean and Laurel have nothing but an empty house that feels too big and these chasms in their chest that they’ve tried and failed to fill. Finally, after 10 years together, 7 years of marriage, and 5 years of trying for a baby with nothing to show for it other than a handful of losses, they decide to adopt a pitbull puppy.

The puppy - a super sweet and shy little girl - doesn’t completely fill the void but she sure does love them a lot and they love her too.

what couple traditions do they have: They take a vacation once a year. That’s Laurel’s doing. Sometimes you just need to get away from the vigilante life, recharge your batteries, and have sex on a beach.

Also, it’s not so much a tradition as a habit, but they high five each other a lot. It’s weird. They do it for everything. It’s like every time they make a decision or every time they want to celebrate, they high five. Some people shake on it. Some people pinky swear. They high five. Nobody says anything about it for a long time until Claire is over for dinner one night and winds up blurting out, “Do you two do that all the time?”

Thea bursts out, “Oh my god, all the time!”

Dean and Laurel are both a little startled by that because they genuinely didn’t realize they were doing it that much. When he asks if they high five each other that much, Laurel is adamant that they don’t. Then a few seconds later, she looks up from what she’s doing and admits, slowly, “Well… We did high five after sex last night. Is that weird?”

Dean thinks long and hard about that before answering, “No, that was really great sex. It deserved a high five.”

And then Claire’s like, “Wow, we’re still at the table, you pervs.”

what tv shows they watch together: They used to watch cooking competitions together until an intervention was staged. Dean yelled at the television like a sports fan watching the superbowl and Laurel got way too emotionally invested in the people and their backstories.

what other couple they hang out with: I don’t know if they’re really a double date kind of couple but I can see them hanging out with Sam and Eileen, Sara and Nyssa, John and Lyla, and maybe Barry and Iris.

how they spend time together as a couple: They both work so much and they’re both out of town a lot so when they’re together, they prefer to spend their time at home doing absolutely nothing but watching bad movies on Netflix, eating pizza in bed, and ignoring the outside world.

who made the first move: Nobody knows for sure because they each have a different answer to that question. Dean says it was Laurel. Laurel says it was Dean. (…It was Laurel.)

who brings flowers home: Laurel loves having fresh flowers in the house but buying flowers all the time can get expensive so eventually she decides to just start her own garden in the backyard and they have flowers all over their property and they are never without a few vases of fresh flowers inside.

who is the best cook: No question about that. It’s Dean. Laurel tries, but it’s just safest for her to stay out of the kitchen.

Send me a ship and I’ll tell you

#dean x laurel #otp: the beauty of wild things #spn x arrow #asks #anon #my headcanon #ask meme #otp meme

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asfeedin · 5 years ago

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19 Essential Thanksgiving Tools | Serious Eats

[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

Hosting Thanksgiving dinner is stressful even in the best-case scenarios. Between choosing the right bird, settling on a menu, and stocking your pantry, not to mention cooking the whole thing, there’s already plenty on your plate. Toss in the inevitable array of rowdy/late/oppositional/drunk/inappropriate/whatever-drives-you-insane guests, and throwing a full-blown holiday temper tantrum starts to look pretty tempting.

Thankfully, while you can’t control the chaos that is family, you can have a firm grasp on what’s going on in the kitchen. That means getting all your shopping done early, making what you can in advance, and stocking your toolkit with every vessel and utensil you’ll need to make cooking and serving your Thanksgiving meal a breeze. Here’s the heavy-duty, functional-but-attractive equipment that the Serious Eats staff uses, both to test our Thanksgiving recipes at work and to make our Thanksgiving dinners at home, from casserole dishes to pie plates to the best food processor, instant-read thermometer, and more.

A Good Casserole Dish

Casseroles are Thanksgiving gold because they can be assembled up to a few days in advance and baked off whenever the oven is free. Good casserole dishes heat food evenly in the oven and retain heat well, helping to keep whatever’s inside them warm on the table come serving time. (Really good casserole dishes have the added advantage of looking good on said table, as well.) This porcelain baking dish meets all of these requirements. You can use it to make a wide assortment of Thanksgiving sides, like our sweet potato casserole, this creamy Hasselback potato gratin (or a classic potato gratin), Kenji’s homemade green bean casserole, and Daniel’s cornbread stuffing with sausage and sage.

Cast Iron Skillet

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

An excellent cast iron skillet is useful year-round, but it’s especially handy come the holidays. If you use yours exclusively for stovetop preparations, then you’re in for a treat—since they’re oven-safe, cast iron pans are just as useful for baked preparations, like brown butter cornbread, Stella’s sweet and savory corn casserole, and these delicious pull-apart stuffing rolls.

And did we mention that a cast iron skillet is also useful for so many party-ready desserts? This chocolate cake can actually be made and baked in the pan. And this skillet cookies recipe is another simple-to-prepare crowd-pleaser. What’s more, cast iron pans are handsome, so you can place them right on the table from the oven (with a trivet and a warning…serious burns do not a calm holiday make).

Half Sheet Trays

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

Hopefully, you already have some half sheet trays lying around. If you don’t, it’s time. You’ll need these come Thanksgiving for nicely charred Brussels sprouts, roasted root vegetables, and even for the main event. Yup, that means you can say goodbye to that fancy roasting pan; all you need is a regular old sheet pan to make our crisp-skinned, evenly cooked spatchcocked turkey. Well, that and a wire rack to ensure air circulation all around your holiday bird.

Pie Plate

[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

The Thanksgiving table needs a pie, and a pie needs a good pie plate. We’re big fans of the tempered-glass plates from Pyrex for our gooey deep-dish apple pie. Also this pumpkin pie with a secret ingredient. (It’s butternut squash.) Want to know if that pretty stoneware dish you bought will do the trick? Here’s how to pick the right pie plate for every job.

Portable Kitchen Timer

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

Armed with a portable kitchen timer, you won’t need to worry about burning toasted nuts or your crispy mashed potato casserole. Best part about this one? It hangs around your neck, so you won’t forget about your food. It’s also a nice conversation piece for when things get awkward with your in-laws.

Instant-Read Thermometer

[Video: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Undercooked-turkey paranoia is a real thing. The way I banish the I’m-going-to-give-my-whole-family-food-poisoning nerves is to use an instant-read thermometer. You’ll also find that thermometers are useful for more than just meats. They’ll give you blazing-fast results (in under two seconds) whether you want the temperature of sugar for candy or oil for deep-frying. If you feel like the Thermapen is a bit on the pricey side, we suggest the ThermoPop. It takes just a bit longer to provide results, but it’s just as accurate, so you can serve your bird anxiety-free.

Mandoline Slicer

[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

Handheld mandolines are great to have on hand if you want to cut perfectly even slices for roasted veggies, salads, and even potato dishes like our cheesy, creamy Hasselback potato gratin. The good news: We have found three mandolines that slice like a chef for under $50. If only all tools this useful were so affordable.

3-Quart Saucier

While it’s a little pricey, this All-Clad saucier will help you achieve the silkiest gravies, sauces, and reductions. The aluminum-clad stainless steel heats evenly throughout, which you’ll need for more temperamental preparations, like egg custards. Better yet, the curved bottom makes it easy to whisk right in the pot, so you won’t need to fret about lumpy gravy. While we don’t want you to have to dirty too many pots and pans, we also think it’s pretty useful to have a stock pot—we recently reviewed them—on hand for super-rich post-Thanksgiving turkey stock.

Rolling Pin

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

I know you might think that rolling out your pie dough with a bottle of wine is just fine. But a good, tapered, French-style rolling pin offers a lot more control and precision. Once you have your rolling pin, you’ll be ready to make any kind of pie Stella throws at you. Might I suggest her double-chocolate cream pie? Save that bottle from the floury mess! Drink the wine instead.

Knives

[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

You don’t need to go out and buy an entire knife block to prep your Thanksgiving meal. Just a few essentials will do. When it comes time to cut the turkey, you’ll need a good carving and slicing knife. Unlike a standard chef’s knife(which you’ll also want at least one of for all your basic chopping needs), the long, tapered blade of a carving knife will help you get right down to the bone and maneuver around cartilage (which means more meat for you and the fam). While the Wüsthof was the clear winner of our carving knife tests, Mercer Culinary makes a nice sharp alternative for almost a quarter of the price. Finally, you should definitely have a paring knife—we tested those, too—for mincing shallots, cutting up fruits, and lots of other kitchen tasks.

Scale

[Photograph: Emily Dryden]

We did some testing to find the best kitchen scale. While you may not think you need one—you’re more of a “little bit of this and that” person—a scale is the most precise way to measure ingredients, period. Baked goods require precision, so if you have any pies, rolls, or cakes on your menu, be especially sure to invest in a scale. Want some other great measuring tools? We’ve done the legwork to identify the best liquid measuring cups, dry measuring cups, and measuring spoons.

Oven Thermometer

So, what happens when you’ve followed our turkey recipe down to the letter but things aren’t looking quite right? Well, it’s probably your oven. To keep your oven honest, we strongly suggest you pick up an oven thermometer. Simply place it in there to make sure your oven is calibrated and ready to get that turkey skin extra crispy.

Dutch Oven

[Photograph: Emily Dryden]

I don’t think there’s anything more versatile than a good Dutch oven. Come Thanksgiving time, you can use it to par-cook potatoes for Kenji’s best roasted potatoes recipe, sauté aromatics for your sausage and oyster stuffing, and even prep your apple pie filling before you slide it into that perfect crust. We did a deep dive into the world of Dutch ovens and found that our old standby, the Le Creuset, is still one of the best out there, thanks to its excellent heat retention, generous capacity, and versatility on the oven and stovetop. If that $300-plus price tag is more than you can handle, we found that the Martha Stewart does almost as reliable a job and costs under $100. (It weighs about 14 pounds, so lifting it also totally counts as a workout.)

Potato Ricer

[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

There may be some people out there who are cool with lumpy mashed potatoes. But for the rest of us, a potato ricer is a great tool to have in the kitchen, whether you’re partial to extra-fluffy or rich and creamy mashed potatoes. A good food mill will also do the trick (and proves handy for making extra-smooth cranberry sauce, too). You probably don’t need both, though, so take a look at this guide to see which one you should have in your kitchen.

Poultry Shears

[Photograph: J. Kenji López-Alt]

If you’re going to spatchcock your turkey, you’ll need a strong pair of kitchen shears. Good thing we finally got around to testing out a whole bunch. OXO’s poultry shears were the winners: The looped handle will keep your hands from slipping (in case of grease), and there’s a take-apart hinge that makes them super easy to clean. These are the only shears we tested that do well getting through slimy skin and cleaving through bone. Take that, turkey.

An Immersion Circulator

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

If you’re looking to do more of a modern Thanksgiving menu, having a sous vide circulator will take your cooking to the next level. We like the Anova for its reliability and easy-to-use interface, which guarantees that even if you’re new to sous vide cooking, everything will turn out just fine. And when we say everything, we mean extra juicy sous vide turkey breast with crispy skin and the carrotiest glazed carrots you’ve ever had. Should you need a smaller model, the Joule will definitely serve you well.

Fine-Mesh Strainer

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

We’ve written time and again about the many uses for a fine-mesh strainer, and on Thanksgiving, it definitely makes the essential tools list. For example, fine-mesh strainers ensure that your stock and gravy will be nice and clear. And they’ll help produce the silkiest custards (like for Stella’s chocolate cream pie, which makes for an incredible Thanksgiving dessert).

Food Processor

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

We recently tested a number of food processors on the market. Sure, they can be heavy and pricey, but a food processor is an excellent tool to have in your kitchen, especially when you’re cooking for a crowd. Use it to quickly blitz your mirepoix, slice potatoes, put together your flaky pie dough in a flash, or even purée soups. Our testing found the Magimix food processor to be the best and most efficient, but if you’re looking for something a little more affordable, the Cuisinart will serve you well at about half the price.

Immersion Blender

We��ve not only done extensive research on finding the best hand blender, but we’ve also written a love letter of sorts about why we think you need one. The long-short of it is, you can use it to make the silkiest butternut squash soup and even whipped cream in a pinch. And if you happen to somehow produce lumpy gravy, a quick blitz with the immersion blender and it’ll be smooth as can be.

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visiononion28-blog · 5 years ago

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drop cornbread biscuits

This past Saturday, we hosted our second Friendsgiving, stuffing 17 people in an apartment that has no business holding 17 people, but it’s okay, there’s wine for that. Our first one was in 2016; you can read about it here. I took 2017 off because I was a teensy bit busy book touring for Smitten Kitchen Every Day** It was fun to be back.

When having friends over, I like to get everything done that I can in advance and I do this for completely selfish reasons: I want to enjoy my party, too, and I can’t if I’m scrambling around all day and am bone tired by the time food comes out. But last week was abnormally busy and I only got to grocery shopping on Thursday, only to discover that one week before Thanksgiving, it’s like tumbleweeds, the lull before the weekend stampede, all past-prime rosemary and other sadness. I almost cancelled but my husband miraculously found almost everything that evening, and instead I did a very beautiful, highly recommended thing: I nixed a few things on the planned menu and swapped more complicated ones for simpler recipes with shorter ingredient lists but high reward. Here’s the menu, a few details, and completely random tips:

—

* Herb and garlic baked camembert: This is in Smitten Kitchen Every Day and there will never be an SK party without it. In fact, it’s gotten so popular that my friends and family make it now too, so I outsourced it. My SIL brought three, we heated them here. It was so nice to have one less thing to do.

* Bacon-wrapped dates: No recipe, but there are a gazillion on the web. I don’t stuff them (I did it once and it was way too pesky, especially given that they’re good without stuffing) and no dip. We made a ton and they were gone quickly; my daughter called them “bacon candy.”

* Turkey: In 2016, I did a hybrid wet brine from a bunch of sources. It was delicious but not worth the logistical nightmare. And mopping. This year, I made The Judy Bird, a Thanksgiving application of Zuni Cafe’s famous roast chicken. There are many dry brine recipes out there but this was the simplest and why make something more complicated unless you know it’s necessary? Based on the turkey reviews, I don’t think it needs anything else. My changes are that I baste it with a melted 1/2 cup of butter, and then when I’m out of butter, the pan juices, and this year, I put quartered red and yellow onion wedges in the bottom of the pan (tossed with a little oil, salt, and pepper) and friends, they were glorious after getting caramelized and lightly charred in turkey-butter drippings for a few hours. Here’s a logistical tip I don’t think enough recipes make clear: You want to rest your turkey for 20 to 30 minutes before carving it, tented lightly with foil. It’s then going to take 15 minutes to carve (I had a friend holding a YouTube video tutorial in front of me because I’m very bad at it.) This gives you 30 to 45 minutes of empty oven time where you can reheat sides, which is more than most need. I have a single, not big, not great oven and it was all I needed. [I mean, needs being relative, just in case Nancy Meyers is out there and wants to lend me a set kitchen and the life that goes with it next time.]

* Gravy: I really ought to write up a recipe one day, huh, but I use a basic formula of 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup flour, 8 cups chicken or turkey stock, a splash of dry marsala or sherry to deglaze the pan, and a lot of salt and pepper. (You cook this the way you would a bechamel.) When your turkey is done, if you want to separate the drippings, you can replace any of that butter with fat and any of that broth with juices. Or you can skip it! The gravy will have a less nuanced turkey flavor, but it’s still pretty awesome, especially if you have homemade stock. (In a freak bit of luck, I discovered two quarts of this in the freezer from last winter and used them for the gravy, stuffing, and more.) I make the gravy right in the bottom of the roasting pan, stretched across two burners; this way I can scrape up all the good, flavorful bits. If you don’t use the dippings to make gravy, I highly recommend you use them to drizzle over the sliced turkey, to keep it as moist as possible when you serve it.

* Stuffing: I also owe you a recipe for this but although I have two stuffing recipes on this site that I adore, I made a simple challah stuffing instead — although I made it decidedly less simple by making my own challah. Each loaf will make enough bread cubes to easily fill a 9×13-inch dish. I made mine with just celery, onion, and herbs, but you could easily sauté some mushrooms, diced apples, pancetta or crumbled sausage in too. Oh, and definitely make enough to have leftovers; this is important.

* Cranberry sauce: I went old-school with this, with a very early recipe on this site. I wanted something on the sweet side because my friend Ang was bringing a more savory one with tomatillos. Both were delicious.

* Green bean casserole with crispy onions: Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it (homemade). I make the green beans extra firm (just 2 minutes, then into ice water), then the mushroom sauce. Cool them both fully before mixing them. This goes in the fridge overnight. I’ll fry the onions — always make more than you need — and keep those separate until we’re about to eat the warmed casserole.

* Slow-roasted sweet potatoes: Once I realized I’d have no time for the root vegetable gratin I’d originally planned, I added these and 10/10, would recommend because the ingredient list is basically nonexistent. I baked them for the 2 to 3 hours before the turkey goes in, because they need a lower temperature. Broil them to get a good color on the skin. Leave them out while the turkey roasts (they’ll stay decently warm for a couple hours) and rewarm them just before eating. We served these in 2-inch segments, skin and all, and I was texting the recipe to friends demanding it even before going to bed that night. It’s that good.

* Stuffed mushroom casserole: My friend Ang brought this too and it was delicious. (She thinks it needs more cheese, though. I had no complaints!)

I didn’t make any pie at all! (Although my friend Molly brought a mincemeat pie with a cheddar crust and it was wonderful.)

* Bourbon pumpkin cheesecake: I made this in a 9×13-inch pan to cut as bars instead. Same recipe. Same temperature. However, you’ll want 1.5 or even 2x the crust, and it bakes in about 30. Seriously. It’s awesome.

* Perfect Manhattans: Because why not. I made two carafes of them, just scale up the recipe until you run out of an ingredient or carafe space. Friends can pour or shake it over ice; leave cherries or orange peel strips on the side.

* Cranberry crumb bars with mulling spices: This is in The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.

—

Finally, as always, I have a last minute recipe for people who do things at the last minute. It’s never my intention, but it’s consistently my reality. I made these biscuits the first time over the summer, a season where we eat outside and act like it’s no big deal (waah), for a 4th of July ribs fest along with slaw and corn and all of those summery things. So, they go really well with warm weather. But they’re also a great quickie dinner roll, or even a fun addition to a breakfast-for-dinner night (like we had last night) with scrambled eggs and bacon. They take 5 minutes to put together and 15 to bake and there’s nothing not to love about that. They’re craggy and crisp on the outside and plush within, perfect for splitting open with your fingers, buttering, drizzling with honey, and finishing with flaky salt or nestling into the side of your holiday plate.

Previously

One year ago: Endive Salad with Toasted Breadcrumbs and Walnuts Two years ago: Root Vegetable Gratin and Cheesecake-Marbled Pumpkin Slab Pie Three years ago: Kale and Caramelized Onion Stuffing, Apple Cider Sangria and Date, Feta and Red Cabbage Salad Four years ago: Sticky Toffee Pudding, Pickled Cabbage Salad and Pretzel Parker House Rolls Five years ago: Perfect Uncluttered Chicken Stock, Cranberry Orange Breakfast Buns, Green Bean Casserole with Crispy Onions, and Apple-Herb Stuffing For All Seasons Six years ago: Granola Crusted Nuts and Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette and Gingersnaps Seven years ago: Sweet Potatoes with Pecans and Goat Cheese, Creamed Onions with Bacon and Chives Eight years ago: Sweet Corn Spoonbread Nine years ago: Moroccan-Spiced Spaghetti Squash and Chard and Sweet Potato Gratin Ten years ago: Mushroom and Barley Pie Eleven years ago: Roasted Stuffed Onions and Simplest Apple Tart [New!] Twelve years ago: Cranberries: Candied, Fruity, and Drunk

And for the other side of the world: Six Months Ago: Pasta Salad with Roasted Carrots and Sunflower Seed Dressing 1.5 Years Ago: Rhubarb Upside-Down Spice Cake and Tall, Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes 2.5 Years Ago: Failproof Crepes + A Crepe Party and Crispy Tortellini with Peas and Proscuitto 3.5 Years Ago: Crispy Broccoli with Lemon and Garlic, Not Derby Pie Bars, Liege Waffles, and Mushrooms and Greens with Toast 4.5 Years Ago: Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp Bars and Five Egg Sandwiches

** have you bought it? There’s so much great Thanksgiving and holiday stuff in there, like a chocolate pecan slab pie, a kale caesar that we have out at almost every dinner party, a wild mushroom shepherd’s pie, and a few of my favorite cookie recipes, ever. Between now and December 12th you can order either my first book, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, or Smitten Kitchen Every Day, my second with a custom inscription of your choice from The Strand and it will arrive by Christmas.

Drop Cornbread Biscuits

Servings: 8 to 12

Time: 20 minutes

Source: Land O Lakes

Shown here are 8 large biscuits; you can make 12 smaller ones, just use the short end of the baking time range.

1 3/4 cups (230 grams) all-purpose flour

2/3 cup (90 grams) cornmeal

1 to 2 tablespoons granulated sugar (use 1 for a more savory biscuit)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon fine sea or table salt

1/2 cup (115 grams) cold butter, in cubes

1 cup (235 ml) cold buttermilk (buttermilk substitutes)

Heat oven to 450°F. I covered my baking sheet with parchment paper but it shouldn’t be strictly necessary, and many shouldn’t go in this hot of an oven, so use your own discretion.

Stir flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the bottom of a large bowl with a fork or whisk. Add butter and toss to coat cubes in dry mixture. Use your finger or a pastry blender to break the butter into smaller and smaller bits, until the largest is pea-sized. Add buttermilk and stir once or twice, until a dough comes together.

My very scientific method of dividing the dough evenly is to press it gently into the bottom of your mixing bowl into roughly a circle. Cut into 8 or 12 wedges. Pull out one triangle of dough with a soup spoon for each biscuit, pressing it into a craggy, messy ball, then drop it onto your baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 12 to 14 or 15 minutes; smaller ones should be done at 12, larger ones at 14 or 15. Remove from oven and serve warm. Biscuits are best on the first day. On the second, gently rewarming them will improve the texture.

Source: https://smittenkitchen.com/2018/11/drop-cornbread-biscuits/

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fadingfartconnoisseur · 7 years ago

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AK Monthly Recap: November 2017

Happy December, everyone! It’s hard to believe the year is nearly over. For me, once again, this was a low-key month, mostly spent at home. I’m savoring these times before I strike up my busy winter travel schedule.

Destinations Visited

New York, New York

Reading and Lynn, Massachusetts

Nashua and Merrimack, New Hampshire

Las Vegas, Nevada

Favorite Destination

Viva Las Vegas. It was so good to be back!

Highlights

Finishing Whole30 — a perfect 33 days. When I began Whole30 — 30 days of no sugar, alcohol, grains, dairy, legumes, or artificial flavors — I worried that I wouldn’t be able to resist temptation. That wasn’t the case at all! I was sad that I couldn’t keep going!! I ended up lasting for 33 days and felt so much better as a result. See more about that in the Fitness Update section below.

Spending Thanksgiving at home. Two American Thanksgivings in a row after spending six outside the country? That was a very good thing. Even if eating the pie sent me into major stomach pains following Whole30.

My 15-year high school reunion. How have 15 years passed already?! My class had an informal reunion at a nearby bar, and while I didn’t expect many people to show up, I was delighted that so many of my classmates came. And everyone looked the same to me — I guess the RMHS Class of 2002 is a well-aging bunch.

I was a little worried that I would be the odd woman out, as it seems like everyone in my class is married and/or popping out kids these days, but it turns out that most people at the reunion were unmarried without kids as well! Ha. And it was really nice to hear from classmates who have become readers of the blog.

I was featured on ABC 7 New York. The local news station is doing a series of video features on local influencers. I talked to them about my life, career, and travels. You can check the whole thing out here.

A return to Las Vegas! The trip began on November 30, so I’ll mention more in next month’s recap, but the highlights of the first day were eating at Gordon Ramsay Steak (and if you see an American Rib Cut on a steak menu anywhere, GET IT — it’s crazy good) and the sheer luck of having a row of three seats to myself on a six-hour flight.

Challenges

I got hit with some bad news at the end of the month. Nothing truly awful like death or illness, nor is it work- or business-related, nor is it anything juicy or gossipy, but it’s bad news anyway, and for reasons you’ll understand later, I’m keeping it private at the moment. It’s basically a huge disappointment compounded by a logistical pain in the ass, and it’s going to cost me a good amount of money. Fun times.

In other words, please be patient with me over the next few months, especially if you know me in real life. I’ll talk about it once things are settled.

There was a huge fire in my neighborhood. Six alarms and more than 300 firefighters were on the scene. Thankfully, neither my sister nor I were in danger, nor were any of our friends, and the injuries were miraculously minimal, but a lot of my neighbors have lost their homes. We’ve been raising money and collecting donations for them.

Most Popular Photo on Instagram

Hard to argue with a very rare view: a New York sunset without a single cloud in the sky, taken from one of the best viewpoints in the city: the Staten Island Ferry. For more live updates from my travels and New York in real time, follow me on Instagram at @adventurouskate.

Fitness Update

Whole30 is one of the best things I’ve ever done for my body. Stripping out sugar, alcohol, grains, dairy and lots of other things made my body suddenly start working far more efficiently. Altogether, I lost 8.8 pounds of fat and gained 0.8 pounds of muscle. That’s pretty much best case scenario for what my body can do in a month.

And one benefit that I didn’t expect was that my workouts with my trainer suddenly improved by leaps and bounds. For several weeks, I was struggling to do squats properly while holding kettlebells — and then suddenly it clicked and I was doing them perfectly. I was curving my back during kettlebell swings, then BAM — perfect swings. Bigger deadlifts, too.

I tried Pilates for the first time in October, and it’s since become a major part of my fitness regimen. I love it! It’s so weird, because I always get bored and exasperated at yoga and I always feel like I’m dying in barre, but Pilates is the happy medium. I feel so strong and aligned after I do it.

And finally — I’m doing Couch25K again! Couch25K is a running plan that takes you from being a couch potato to being able to run a 5K (3 miles, or about 30 continuous minutes) at once.

You might recall that I started Couch25K two years ago, got injured, and never picked up running again. Well, like many people, that was because I pushed myself too hard too fast. This time I’m determined to do it right — not running too hard or too often, stretching well, cross-training appropriately, and only increasing the intensity slowly. If this works out, I’ll be racing by spring.

What I Watched This Month

Can we talk about This Is Us? Can we talk about how I can’t decide if I want Randall Pearson to be my husband, my dad, my brother, or my kid? It’s disconcerting. If you’re not watching, you can get started on Hulu and catch up…

What I Listened To This Month

One podcast that I really enjoyed this month was More Perfect’s episode about Citizens United. More Perfect is a fabulous podcast about the Supreme Court; it explains some of the Court’s more notable cases in an interesting way that non-lawyers can understand.

I didn’t know as much as Citizens United as I should have — looking back, I realize it was because the case was decided in January 2010, which was the month that my life blew up, leading me to start this blog and travel the world. It was a crazy time; no wonder I wasn’t following the news beyond the bare minimum.

So listening to this podcast was incredible — while I only knew the basics of Citizens United, I feel like I understand all the nuances of it inside and out now. What a catastrophe, and what terrible results for America.

What I Read This Month

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton (2017) — I didn’t want to read this book at first. Reliving the election was the last thing I wanted to do; I thought it would be too painful. So what changed my mind? Seeing so many people, from journalists to internet randos, saying that Hillary should just sit down and shut up.

Fuck that. Seriously. You’re saying that the first woman ever to be nominated by a major political party, a woman who won the last election’s popular vote by nearly three million votes, deserves to be silenced for the rest of her life? No. Al Gore and John Kerry and John McCain and Mitt Romney didn’t get the same treatment.

So I read the book. And I really liked it. It was a deep delve into the election from Hillary’s perspective, and honestly it felt so damn good just to hear her voice speak through her writing. So if you’re like me and you weren’t going to read What Happened because you thought it would be too painful, I encourage you to do so anyway. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Chemistry by Weike Wang (2017) — What happens when your world drops out from beneath you? In this book, an unnamed narrator, a Chinese-American student working on her Ph.D. at an elite Boston university, has a breakdown. She can’t decide whether to continue pursuing her doctorate or whether she wants to marry her perfectly nice boyfriend, and when compounded by pressure from her parents, she slides deep into indecision, letting the world decide for her.

This book is sweet, and short, and gentle — but what surprised me the most about it was that it read as a lesson in how to be kind to yourself, how to forgive yourself, and how to find joy and meaning after giving up the life you always thought you’d have.

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood (2017) — I like to think that the best memoirs are by people with exceptional life stories, told in an exceptional way. Most memoirs are only one or the other, but I don’t think a single memoir has been equally strong in both areas as Priestdaddy. Patricia Lockwood grew up with a Catholic priest for a father (yes, the Vatican allows some clergy from other Christian denominations to convert to priesthood, even if they’re married and have kids, and it’s rare but it does happen). And the story is told beautifully because Lockwood is a poet. Every sentence is a work of art.

The memoir covers the nine-month period that Lockwood and her husband lived at the rectory with her parents to save money, as well as some childhood anecdotes. Basically, her father is a guitar-jamming, nudity-loving, abortion-protesting larger-than-life character, and her mother and four siblings are various shades of quirky and hilarious as well. I’ve never read a book remotely like this before. Just one warning — Lockwood’s prose is so detailed, each word placed carefully, that reading it will probably take you longer than you think. This is a book to savor, not speed through.

Practical Curiosity by Alex Berger (2017) — I am a big fan of my friend Alex’s writing on his site, Virtual Wayfarer, so when he released his first full-length book of observations on life, love, and travel, I was eager to dig in. Alex has a perspective that I’ve always valued — we’re about the same age, but he has the wisdom and insight of someone much older, and I love how he puts his thoughts into words.

If you’d like to look at your life a bit differently, add more adventure and curiosity to your life, or nod in appreciation about how much long-distance relationships suck, this is a great (and cheap!) book to check out.

Coming Up in December 2017

No travel plans other than the remaining days in Las Vegas that I just finished. I should be home in Massachusetts for Christmas, though.

And it’s a good thing that my upcoming Antarctica trip was postponed from December to March, since I now have to spend December taking care of the issue that I mentioned in the “challenges” section above.

That said, I love Decembers on the blog because I get to write my best and worst of the year posts! Get ready for posts on the best and worst moments of the year, as well as my favorite new destinations and favorite books of the year.

What are you up to this December? Share away!

The post AK Monthly Recap: November 2017 appeared first on Adventurous Kate.

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phatjosh180 · 7 years ago

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... and I'm back ...

After 15 days abroad — I am back! There is so, so much to say about the trip. Not only did I tour Paris, Rome, Athens and other places alongside my family, but I was able to meet cousins in Athens and Crete as well. It was a life changing trip — to say the least.

But, after living out of a carry-on suitcase and on some very questionable mattresses (one in which I broke, oops), I am happy to be home. Beyond happy. Especially spending nearly 13+ hours in the air yesterday.

The length of the trip was perfect though. Usually when I am heading home from a vacation I am not ready. But, being able to see and do what I was over the past half month — I got in what I wanted to do. It was the perfect vacation.

The hardest part about leaving was leaving behind my family that I met in Athens and Chorafakia. They were the highlight of the trip for me. In both instances our family was welcomed with open arms and an unquestionable embrace of love. Even our cousins in Chorafakia that we discovered on this trip. My feelings for them and the moments we shared are hard to put into words — it just makes me more grateful for family.

I shared a bunch of my trip on social media — some on Facebook and mostly on Instagram. I have over 200 pictures spread across both @josherwalla and @ketoshua, but I thought I’d share a few of highlights here on the bloggy blog. But, feel free to browse my pictures on Instagram — again, I have tons.

I also have tons of pictures I never even posted on social media.

I won’t recap the entire trip, but I will share some of the pictures from each location. Enjoy the pictures.

Paris

We flew into Paris on a red eye flight from Dallas. Half of our party was staying three days, while the other half was flying to Rome for a couple days (including me). After landing we crashed for a couple hours and hit the town — mainly the Cathedral of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower — with dinner afterwards. It was long and tiring, but fun day in Paris.

It’s the song of his people …

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 16, 2017 at 2:49pm PST

WOW! One of the most incredible places I’ve been. Every inch, every detail is ornate, deliberate and beautiful.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 16, 2017 at 2:54pm PST

Beautiful landmark, but I couldn’t find the roller coaster and adjoined casino?!

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 16, 2017 at 3:01pm PST

Home is never that far away.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 16, 2017 at 3:08pm PST

Rome

Because of the long night in Paris, I only got two hours of sleep before leaving for the airport to catch a flight to Rome. We couldn’t crash at the hotel when we landed like Paris, because it was an Airbnb — so it was a very looooong day. We took a city tour bus that ended up being about a two hour nap for us. We got in the Colosseum and some other places, but we got back to the Airbnb room and crashed around 5pm for the night.

The next day was spent mostly at the Vatican City along with Trevi Fountains and eating lots of gelato. Probably too much. But, that’s debatable.

The following day we left Rome for Athens and the next leg of our trip.

When in Rome … get lost like the Hansen’s get lost.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 17, 2017 at 8:10am PST

Standing here, I couldn’t help but stand in awe in realization that — I am here. I am at the Colosseum! I am standing in what was once a mere chapter in my history books. This trip has been nothing short of amazing.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 17, 2017 at 1:48pm PST

Mood.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 17, 2017 at 1:50pm PST

I could have stuffed my whole face with this ricotta filled goodness. But, I shared.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 18, 2017 at 6:05am PST

Off to do Vatican things …

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 18, 2017 at 6:10am PST

One of my many goals here in Rome was to get authentic pistachio gelato. Goal met ✅

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 18, 2017 at 6:18am PST

History’s first recorded dab.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 18, 2017 at 6:54am PST

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 18, 2017 at 6:58am PST

I hope this is enough to make my wildest dreams come true …

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 18, 2017 at 10:02am PST

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 18, 2017 at 11:53am PST

Athens

We flew into Athens on Sunday and met up with our family at the airport. After getting situated in our Airbnb, we headed to the Valavanis for dinner. We ATE and ATE and ATE! It was a great evening. One that won’t be forgotten. We spent about 5 days in Athens — touring Corinth, Nafpoli, The Acropolis, Marathon and around Athens.

We spent Thanksgiving Day in Athens — first with a little family Turkey Trot in the Olympic Stadium. We had a brother’s sprint contest — Freedom won. I came in fourth (which is last), but as I told my brothers — challenge me in a marathon or longer and I’ll win! We had a meal with the Valavanis that night with some amazing Greek food — the best Thanksgiving ever.

It was perfect.

We are now over Greece! We’re almost home! 🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 19, 2017 at 4:12am PST

Η οικογένειά μου 🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 19, 2017 at 12:05pm PST

The food kept coming … and coming … and coming … and coming … and miraculously I ate it all. Such a great meal! Such a great evening with my family! Τροφή που γίνεται με αγάπη! 🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 19, 2017 at 12:11pm PST

Evangelo’s gift to my Dad. A painting he made for him signifying both their roles as the protector of their family histories.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 19, 2017 at 12:20pm PST

I bought some authentic spanakopita for breakfast this morning and the kiddos were quite skeptical of this strange green spinach pie. So, I bribed them with a Euro each to take a bite. They’re now fans. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 20, 2017 at 9:11am PST

I’ve made my pilgrimage to the homeland as a Greek and now as a runner. I’ve made it to the birthplace of the marathon, where Pheidippides famously ran from to Athens to tell of the victory over the Persians. It was hard not to think about my journey, my first marathon and the places running has taken me. My trip is nearly complete with this visit. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 20, 2017 at 10:01am PST

Ancient Corinth. There’s a lot of cool old crumbly stuff here.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 21, 2017 at 1:02pm PST

I made friends with a stray dog at Corinth. I know I shouldn’t have gotten attached (or touched him for that matter), but we’re basically BFFs now. Since he’s from Corinths I named him Paul. It was only fitting. He’s likes face kisses, half eaten granola bars and road side rubbish. I’ll miss Paul, but I’m 99.99% sure I’m not getting him past customs let alone into the family’s rental van.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 21, 2017 at 1:28pm PST

The Parthenon doing what the Parthenon does best — sitting there like it has for the past 2400 years. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 22, 2017 at 12:41pm PST

The Littles atop the Acropolis. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 22, 2017 at 12:43pm PST

Cheese pie … yum! Basically a feta cheese street food, that was the perfect bridge between meals while out shopping. ———————————————————— #ketoshua #fitness #wellness #health #running #runnerslife #runner #run #weightloss #weightlossjourney #hashimotos #hashimotoswarrior #thyroid #hypothyroidism #workout #wod #instarunner #run4fun #runningcommunity #keto #ketodiet #ketonics #ketorunner #cheesepie #feta #streetfood #greekfood #athens #greece ———————————————————— @ketoshua @josherwalla @joshruns180 ———————————————————— Follow my blog at www.phatjosh.com

A post shared by KETOshua Snow Hansen (@ketoshua) on Nov 23, 2017 at 1:52am PST

MORE FAMILY! I finally got to meet my cousin Magda! What a happy day! 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 22, 2017 at 1:44pm PST

The Panathenaic Stadium. Let the games begin …

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 23, 2017 at 11:05am PST

Turkey Trot Brother Sprint. I didn’t win. But, if I challenged them to an ultra marathon … that’d be another story.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 23, 2017 at 2:48pm PST

Thanksgiving Dinner 6,300 miles from our house, but still right at home. Spent a wonderful evening with our Greek family. It couldn’t have been a more perfect celebration of family, gratitude and kinship.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 23, 2017 at 3:01pm PST

I don’t recall what this was called (it was all in Greek), but my cousin explained this was a traditional dish eaten in Smyrna, Turkey where our family was from before being displaced during the Greek Holocaust. It was touching having that connection to this dish. It felt like an honor enjoying it with family connected to that past. ———————————————————— #ketoshua #fitness #wellness #health #running #runnerslife #runner #run #weightloss #weightlossjourney #hashimotos #hashimotoswarrior #thyroid #hypothyroidism #workout #wod #instarunner #run4fun #runningcommunity #keto #ketodiet #ketonics #ketorunner #athens #greece #thanksgiving #thanksgivingdinner #feast #notketo———————————————————— @ketoshua @josherwalla @joshruns180 ———————————————————— Follow my blog at www.phatjosh.com

A post shared by KETOshua Snow Hansen (@ketoshua) on Nov 23, 2017 at 11:18pm PST

Much to celebrate tonight! Bravo!

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 23, 2017 at 3:31pm PST

Me and Mariathy. As I told her at leaving, “I don’t believe in goodbyes, only see you laters” I am leaving my heart here in Athens with my family. This has been a life changing trip. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 23, 2017 at 3:33pm PST

The Littles ready to go, unlike their parents. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 24, 2017 at 4:28am PST

Crete

On Friday we flew from Athens to Crete. The 40 minute flight was highlighted pretty much by a 40 minute tantrum from Thalia. We might have disowned her for about 40 minutes. We spent a night in Heraklion before driving to Chania and the western part of the island where my Propapou was born.

The mission of our trip to Crete was two fold — one, see the island and, two, find any family members. We don’t much about my Propapou’s family. His life is quite remarkable — he was born in a cave on the island and then joined the army at 17 where he eventually met and saved my Yia Yia in Symra during the Greek Holocaust in the early 1920s.

On Sunday we did find family in Chorafakia — a whole clan of them! It was amazing how we came as strangers and were immediately embraced as family with a bond that was unshakable. It was amazing. Amazing. They invited us to dinner that night, but we had other plans — so we came back the following day and we ate like kings!

They shot a wild goat for us that morning and fed us some wonderful food — Greek salad, lemon rice pilaf, weed salad something or other (how’s that for a guess? It was really good though!) and other traditional Greek foods. It was perfect. It was hard to leave and many of us left with tears in our eyes for the newfound family. This was the highlight of the trip for me.

Touch down on Crete — the island of heroes. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 24, 2017 at 9:31am PST

Who’s having more fun, @benhansen00 or the kids?

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 24, 2017 at 9:37am PST

Cretan Paella with mussels, shrimps and saffron (ie-love). This is the dish I wanted this whole trip — and I got it! ———————————————————— #ketoshua #fitness #wellness #health #running #runnerslife #runner #run #weightloss #weightlossjourney #hashimotos #hashimotoswarrior #thyroid #hypothyroidism #workout #wod #instarunner #run4fun #runningcommunity #keto #ketodiet #ketonics #ketorunner #cretanpaella #paella #seafood #notketo #dinner #crete #greece ———————————————————— @ketoshua @josherwalla @joshruns180 ———————————————————— Follow my blog at www.phatjosh.com

A post shared by KETOshua Snow Hansen (@ketoshua) on Nov 24, 2017 at 12:22pm PST

I’m not sure he knows exactly what he’s looking at — and, well, neither do I?

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 25, 2017 at 4:08am PST

I spiked my hair today. And, I don’t like it. I used too much hair gel. I look like a Troll. Plus, I haven’t shaved in over a week and I need a shave bad. If it gets any longer I get a nasty patchy neck beard that’d make any prepubescent teenage boy extremely jealous. I feel like a hot mess.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 25, 2017 at 4:20am PST

😍😍😍

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 25, 2017 at 6:01am PST

GET IN MY BELLY LITTLE SHRIMPS! 🍤💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 25, 2017 at 8:34am PST

This is the life. A slice of heaven here in Crete. ———————————————————— #ketoshua #fitness #wellness #health #running #runnerslife #runner #run #weightloss #weightlossjourney #hashimotos #hashimotoswarrior #thyroid #hypothyroidism #workout #wod #instarunner #run4fun #runningcommunity #keto #ketodiet #ketorunner #greece #crete #villaveggera #greecetrip #poolside #island ———————————————————— @ketoshua @josherwalla @joshruns180 ———————————————————— Follow my blog at www.phatjosh.com

A post shared by KETOshua Snow Hansen (@ketoshua) on Nov 26, 2017 at 3:50am PST

How to toddler proof a really, really, really nice place. Toddlers can’t climb, right?

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 26, 2017 at 3:46am PST

Papou in front of the store and cafe that’s been in the Tsitidakis Family for generations. It was once owned by his Papou before coming back to America.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 26, 2017 at 10:14am PST

I felt like we experienced our own episode of Who Do You Think You Are? today here in Greece. One of the reasons we came here to Crete was to connect with family from my Propapou’s (Great Grandpa) side of the family. And, we found them! I can’t tell you the joy and tears of happiness as we discovered our Tsitidakis cousins in the hometown of my propapou. We came unannounced and as strangers, but we were quickly embraced with a familial love and warmth as we visited and compared our family lines and relations. This has been a great day. One, that’s been too long in happening. But, I look forward to tomorrow when we’ll meet again and strengthen this newly found bond! Οι οικογένειες είναι για πάντα 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 26, 2017 at 12:23pm PST

Connecting the dots between who I am and where I’ve come from. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 26, 2017 at 12:28pm PST

Just like spanakopita, the tyropita here in Greece is diverse and delicious. We were greeted at our villa tonight with a honey drizzled tyropita. 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼 ———————————————————— #ketoshua #fitness #wellness #health #running #runnerslife #runner #run #weightloss #weightlossjourney #hashimotos #hashimotoswarrior #thyroid #hypothyroidism #workout #wod #instarunner #run4fun #runningcommunity #keto #ketodiet #ketorunner #notketo #tyropita #greece #crete #cretegreece #cheesepie #cheese ———————————————————— @ketoshua @josherwalla @joshruns180 ———————————————————— Follow my blog at www.phatjosh.com

A post shared by KETOshua Snow Hansen (@ketoshua) on Nov 25, 2017 at 12:43pm PST

I can’t get enough of this island! This is home! 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 27, 2017 at 6:33am PST

We found our Chorofakia cousins just yesterday and we our now feasting with them all today. I can’t adequately describe my joy for this occasion. Οι οικογένειες είναι αιώνιες 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 27, 2017 at 9:44am PST

After arrangements were made for our family meal today, our cousin contacted the restaurant owner to ask for a special meal. The owner went out this morning and hunted this wild goat specifically for this meal. Talk about fresh food. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 27, 2017 at 9:53am PST

Our cousins gifted my father this beautiful cross handmade needle work lace made by my propapou’s sister-in-law. This is a significant gift and a heirloom passed down generation to generation — my aunt was given the hand stitched cross my Yia Yia made which will be handed down to my cousin. This was beyond touching and an example of the embrace we now cling to after being out of contact with each other for years.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 27, 2017 at 10:01am PST

I found another runner in the family! This is my cousin Michael and we’ve both tread similar paths. He’s lost over 45 kilos (around 100lbs) through running and exercise. He’s done a number of marathons and other races. We invited him to the US and Utah and I told him when he comes we’ll go run! 🏃🏻🏃🏻💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 27, 2017 at 10:16am PST

Somewhere, not far, from these cliffs my propapou was born in a cave sometime in November at the tail end of (one of many) a conflict with the Turks. Women and children hid in these hills and caves to protect themselves from the Turks. It wasn’t until years later that my propapou adopted November 10 as his birthday because it happened to be his friends’ birthday. He had no confirmed date of his birth. Being here is humbling. Finding family here has been a blessing. This place holds my heart as I contemplate this humble beginning and the hopes and dreams my propapou held that propelled him toward America. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 27, 2017 at 11:49am PST

“We inherit from our ancestors gifts so often taken for granted. Each of us contains within this inheritance of soul. We are links between the ages, containing past and present expectations, sacred memories and future promise.” Edward Sellner

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 27, 2017 at 11:32am PST

Our newfound cousins gifted us some FRESH olive oil to take home with us. And, by fresh, I mean, pressed just two days ago. TWO DAYS!! 💙🇬🇷

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A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 28, 2017 at 2:51am PST

Two weeks into this trip and they’re finally useful.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 28, 2017 at 3:25am PST

I left my heart in Greece. This will always be home. Off to Paris. 💙🇬🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 28, 2017 at 10:27am PST

Paris

After leaving Crete, we made our way to Paris via Athens. We had one more day in Paris and we were torn on how to use it. Some of us wanted to do Versailles, others Disneyland, while some wanted to do the Louvre. We settled on Disneyland, but switched to Versailles last minute because it turned out rainy and cold.

Versailles was neat — over the top neat. It really made you sympathize with the French Revolution. The opulence was too much. Beautiful, but it made you thankful for our government and constitution — even as crazy as it might be right now.

But, needless to say, I was in AWE of the amount of detail on Versailles and the palace. It was nothing short of amazing.

Rainy cold day in Paris. No Disneyland. So we’re off to Versailles. I can barely contain my excitement.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 8:43am PST

That’s a blingy gate.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 8:49am PST

Cousins. ❤️🇫🇷

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 8:57am PST

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 8:55am PST

I’m pretty sure I found a statue of one of Jonah Hill’s ancestors.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 8:59am PST

If I was the king and had a floor like that I’d be playing a nightly game of “people chess” with my servants. It’s clearly the right thing to do.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 9:38am PST

Some people look at this and see art. I look at this and see a naked man hugging an eagle while feeding it gummy worms.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 9:44am PST

I wonder how long it took royalty to find a bathroom, I could barely find one myself …

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 9:31am PST

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 9:52am PST

A little home away from home.

A post shared by Josher (@josherwalla) on Nov 29, 2017 at 9:56am PST

Recap

This was truly a life changing trip. I had a blast. I was able to reconnect with family — connect with others. I was able to see some amazing places and just forget about work, running and everyday life for two weeks. It was perfect.

It really makes me want to travel more. I want to see more of Europe — the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic and Norway. I want to connect with family there if I can.

But, I will also come back to Greece. I made the promise to my cousin that I will come and run the Athens Marathon in 2019. That’s the goal. I want to start planning that trip, because I plan on visiting Crete and my family there as well. Greece became more than just where I’m from, it really became home for me during the trip.

It was hard to leave Greece — but, as I told my cousins — I don’t believe in goodbyes, just see you laters!

So, Europe and Greece — see you later!

… and I’m back … was originally published on PhatJosh | My Life Running.

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