Entry tags:
Things that have been on my mind, or in my browser tabs
I don't know about other people, but I spend more time online during the holidays. This makes me turn into a posting machine, unfortunately.
If you're bored, here are things I'm thinking about lately.
--After a day and a half of infrequent use, my Kobo Touch has stopped responding to....touch! I explain my problem in this post over at
ebooks. If you have any advice or commiseration, please offer it there!
--Dreamwidth has had thousands of accounts made in the last few days, mainly due to people moving here from LiveJournal, due to the latest round of heinousness (turning on automatic payments without people's permission - check your settings!; getting rid of subject lines in comments). Whether you're new to Dreamwidth or you've been on the site for a while,
rydra_wong has made a welcome pack post describing where to get info about Dreamwidth, how to connect with people, and how to find communities that relate to your interests.
--
commodorified is starting a blog carnival called "Cooking For People Who Don't." The topic this round is called "Food Security." The post is here.
I'm a person who doesn't cook very well. I've learned how to make some food because I live alone and would like to cook. Usually things don't go great.
As a person with dietary restrictions, I really, really love this advice for the blog posts:
That said, Describe much; Prescribe little. Readers may be complete beginners in the kitchen, food store, or garden patch, but they are, and deserve to be respected as, experts on their own lives, resources, abilities, and circumstances. Avoid the phrases, and the mindset, "anyone can", or "everyone should".
That latter sentence is great general life advice, I think.
--
littlebutfierce made a post titled, "productivity for the low-of-spoons," aka those with low energy levels for whatever reason. The post is here. I know I struggle with this.
bitesizedcleaning is great for housekeeping tasks, but I'm starting to think about "getting things done" in life more generally, outside of work (I don't have an issue there). I'd like to write, like to actively correspond with friends, etc. I just don't, at the moment. Still chewing on some ideas that other people posted there.
--I'm also still cruising around at
eastasianfandomgiftbag, a low-key gift exchange for anime/manga/video game/etc. fandoms. It's great especially for small fandoms! I WILL PRODUCE...SOMETHING?!
Reccing Things
--A recent NPR's Planet Money podcast called "Europe Turns on the Bat Signal" compared the Fed and the European Central Bank to super heroes. The podcast purports that to understand how both entities act now, one needs to know their origin stories and mottos, and then they explain. IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE TO ME NOW! Here's a direct link to the podcast.
--Fruits Basket manga: This is more of a minor note. Usually, manga-ka use the margin space to write notes about things I don't care about: groceries, thanking their assistants, conversations with their editors. Occasionally, they can be hilarious (see: Hiromu Arakawa & Kaoru Mori), but usually not.
I <3 a lot of Natsuki Takaya's notes. She talks about playing video games like FF7 and FF8, but also video games in general. My favorite recently read one was about how instead of watching in horror when a character in your party dies, all she can think is, "I hope I get all the stuff I have equipped on you right now." BWAHAHA.
As for Fruits Basket itself: I've only seen the anime and have never previously read the manga. It's pretty great.
--Yozakura Quartet anime: Humans and demons live side-by-side in a city in Tokyo. Based on the description, I wasn't expecting to like this series as much as I do. It's about kids with special powers. Which sounds awesome, but navigating society with things that make you "special" in ways that are sometimes a curse is pretty difficult. It took me a few episodes to really dig it, but from then on, it was great. As a bonus, I like the character designs a lot, too.
If you're bored, here are things I'm thinking about lately.
--After a day and a half of infrequent use, my Kobo Touch has stopped responding to....touch! I explain my problem in this post over at
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
--Dreamwidth has had thousands of accounts made in the last few days, mainly due to people moving here from LiveJournal, due to the latest round of heinousness (turning on automatic payments without people's permission - check your settings!; getting rid of subject lines in comments). Whether you're new to Dreamwidth or you've been on the site for a while,
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
--
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'm a person who doesn't cook very well. I've learned how to make some food because I live alone and would like to cook. Usually things don't go great.
As a person with dietary restrictions, I really, really love this advice for the blog posts:
That said, Describe much; Prescribe little. Readers may be complete beginners in the kitchen, food store, or garden patch, but they are, and deserve to be respected as, experts on their own lives, resources, abilities, and circumstances. Avoid the phrases, and the mindset, "anyone can", or "everyone should".
That latter sentence is great general life advice, I think.
--
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
--I'm also still cruising around at
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
Reccing Things
--A recent NPR's Planet Money podcast called "Europe Turns on the Bat Signal" compared the Fed and the European Central Bank to super heroes. The podcast purports that to understand how both entities act now, one needs to know their origin stories and mottos, and then they explain. IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE TO ME NOW! Here's a direct link to the podcast.
--Fruits Basket manga: This is more of a minor note. Usually, manga-ka use the margin space to write notes about things I don't care about: groceries, thanking their assistants, conversations with their editors. Occasionally, they can be hilarious (see: Hiromu Arakawa & Kaoru Mori), but usually not.
I <3 a lot of Natsuki Takaya's notes. She talks about playing video games like FF7 and FF8, but also video games in general. My favorite recently read one was about how instead of watching in horror when a character in your party dies, all she can think is, "I hope I get all the stuff I have equipped on you right now." BWAHAHA.
As for Fruits Basket itself: I've only seen the anime and have never previously read the manga. It's pretty great.
--Yozakura Quartet anime: Humans and demons live side-by-side in a city in Tokyo. Based on the description, I wasn't expecting to like this series as much as I do. It's about kids with special powers. Which sounds awesome, but navigating society with things that make you "special" in ways that are sometimes a curse is pretty difficult. It took me a few episodes to really dig it, but from then on, it was great. As a bonus, I like the character designs a lot, too.
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An FYI: These restrictions should go away in less than a month, when I have surgery. Then there will be a few weeks of recovery, and then I should be able to eat whatever.
The restrictions basically center around acidity.
Things I can't have:
--Chocolate
--Milk, lactic acid generally. Hard cheese are okay, lots of soft cheese, not. Sour cream is not. Cream cheese should be kept to a minimum.
--Spicy food (this includes "mild spice" or any variants. NO SPICINESS!)
--Certain spices, regardless of "hot spiciness." See: curry, etc.
--Tomatoes (of any kind - raw, cooked, in a sauce, whatever)
--Raw onions
--Lots of raw garlic (i.e.: fresh pesto)
--Carbonation
--Mint
--Caffeine
--Citrus, citric acid. The latter essentially means: No juice or flavored water. "No!" to lots of flavored candy like gummy drops or Starburst or etc. Citric acid is EVERYWHERE. Holy crap.
--Alcohol (I sometimes defy this in low quantities, but still try to find beverages that aren't carbonated, no citrus, etc.)
--Lately I've added "milk substitutes" (soy milk, rice milk, etc.) to this list, too. I don't know what it is, if it might even just be the bubbles that occur when one pours it into a cup, but it fucking kills me, so I've cut it out.
--Fried food
--Stuff soaked in vinegar - pickles, kraut, whatever
--Raw or undercooked meat
--I've recently decided that certain raw vegetables make me ill, and don't understand why. This includes broccoli, cauliflower, possibly carrots.
Of course, following all of these rules is no guarantee of "pain-free!" sometimes it's triggered by eating at all, or like, breathing.
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my.
That's a challenge, alright. Maybe that can be my January cooking challenge!
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If it helps as a starting point, I do a lot of "rice/couscous/pasta" mixed with "sauteed vegetables," usually mushrooms/shallots/garlic and sometimes greens.
Recognizing a need for protein, I've also had a lot of success with variants of this recipe, posted by
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Can you do tofu for protein?
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I live in a town where it is...readily available, though!
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I'm getting excited about the "Cooking for People Who Don't" carnival. I've been watching myself work for the past two weeks, and I realize I've developed scores of energy saving techniques so I can both cook and have the will to eat!
Isn't Planet Money a hoot?
I've never seen your whole "NO!" list together like that before. It's fuckin' intimidating. I'm hoping it will be an annoying memory real soon now.
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Energy-saving techniques would be great - even once my dietary restrictions go away, energy has been a habitual problem for me, and I'd like to be able to provide myself with nourishing food on a regular basis.
I LOVE Planet Money. Even more than the Thomas Jefferson Hour, which I started finding insufferable and am months behind on.
It is intimidating! And every time I recite it, I get all, "Oh, did I really get everything??"
Restaurant-staff *do not get it.* And lots of people will end up saying something like, "Oh, so you're gluten-free, then?" and I'm like, "....What??"
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Or ... how you (didn't) learn to cook in your family. Who did learn? Who taught? You're the children of the generation where moms & dads were both out of the house until five.
Here's a suggestions for wait staff: ask them if they have something you know you can eat. "I have more than 27 (whatever) foods I can't eat. Do you have plain rice or couscous plus a chicken breast? No spices please, no vinegar."
One of the earliest, best advice I got for GF eating out was, "Naked food! I would like bare naked food, please."
I wouldn't mind a good old-fashioned Roman orgy where we could relax and spill grapes on our bellies.
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idk about the generational thing. My mom's parents owned a resort until her dad died when she was 11, and then her mom worked in a factory. I'm actually unsure if that was 8-5.
My mom worked the 3-11 shift as a nurse, so meh. I learned how to make cookies from Mom, but mostly she told me I'd regret not learning how to cook from her, which is sort of true.
My mom's big on Weight Watchers, so everything's about points. The vegetables all come from cans or freezer bags. Food was rarely fresh.
I had to berate her when we were preemptively buying broth for my post-surgery. She was talking about buying low-fat stuff b/c it's lower in calories and I had to be like, "MOM. This is going to be ALL I CAN EAT. WE WANT CALORIES." Mostly, we can't talk about food.
But this is tied up into body image and my mom's relationship with her own weight and with mine, which....I don't really want to write about, I don't think, :/
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Ugh, Weight Watchers. (Although at the turn of the year they stopped points and went to meal plans.)
Mothers and cooking and body image and emotions: I think we've both got 'em. Perhaps we can find a nice sunny pond somewhere this summer. There we could talk about this shit until it gets scary, then dive down and plunge up on our tails like drunken dolphins.
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I'm pleased by some of their changes - apparently all fruits/vegetables now "count" as 0 points, (unsure how this works with meal plans) which has made my mom eat a lot more stuff.
MOMS. I've had an unnatural (for me) amount of body dislike lately. Expected to keep up as I have to drop 3-4 lbs before surgery (which I'm unsure how to accomplish except through doing a liquid diet for a few days beforehand?) and then lose a bunch of weight afterward.
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