Everything-bagel-blog - Blog Posts
A brief history of roses
Dogrose: Wow I sure love having softly coloured petals and an easily accessible center for pollination. Horticulturalists: I am going to ruin your whole career and needlessly complicate your entire existence and future
soil creature stew
Humans are more sensitive to petrichor than sharks are to blood. So, we obviously already hunted all the soil creatures to extinction. I imagine they made a good stew.
Mass-production
Today: Mass-production is the death of quality - a scourge of the modern age! The literal, classical Romans: What are you talking about we love our identical friendship cool army swords
How to make soup
This is not a recipe. Soup requires no recipe. Soup is soup. All you must remember is that food is love and food is for sharing. Now onto the recipe.
Whenever you prepare soup, you must tend to it. Unwatched stoves are the most common cause of housefires. What? Did you expect me to speak of the loneliness of unattended soup? I need not speak of unattended soup. You know what happens when you leave soup unattended. You will not like what happens when you leave soup unattended.
That's right - possibly a housefire.
Start with liquid - stock or water will do. If you are adding cream to the soup, do not add it yet, it does not do well with extended boiling. Next, find your meat, if you consume it. The bones are the best, and a chicken carcass is my favourite to start with, although lamb will always work wonderfully after hours of boiling and skimming off fat repeatedly. Here, you must extract all the flavour from the bones and leave them hollow like an old tree where you might find fairies - or a possum - there is no difference really. The meat should fall of the bones and swim in the water. Now, you add the chopped-up root vegetables. Carrots, potatoes, swede - whatever takes long to cook. Do not forget your grains - barley and rice are delicious additions to any soup, soaked for hours to absorb flavour. Heat this on a low heat with the lid on for a long time; it will not overflow. Turn off the heat and go to bed now. The soup and you both need rest. Continue to heat it the next morning. Add whatever else you wish (now or earlier even) - salt, pepper, leak, onion, garlic, basil, sage, thyme - it matters not to the hungry soup.
Serve the soup and share the soup. A soup ladle is designed to cradle the soup like you should cradle the ones you share the soup with. Gently.
Some may try to tell you that the soup is bland. That it has no substance and is not a meal worth treasuring or even cooking. Pay this no mind. There are many places, many times, many families, where not much was to be had. Tough meat and tougher vegetables were made soft and spread further with the love and time taken to craft them into soup. Whatever you have, it has always been worth taking pride in the dinner you serve. To sleep with quietened bellies is to sleep full of love.
To eat soup is to find comfort in whatever you have in the pantry or fridge or garden. To share soup is to find comfort in those around you.
Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth: I am a queen. *The king of Scotland existing* Lady Macbeth: I will be a queen.
Flash and Crash
Lace-making
Lace-making: So detailed, so fine - such skill shall surely be preserved for centuries to come! The rich: I love this lace and I am rich - so bury me in this The king: Think of the wool trade - I'm making all burial shrouds be woolen by law! Be sheep & do as everyone else does: The lace: Oh hi, I only exist know in old graves - and you don't know how to make me because you chose wool over my beauty The lace: If you stop paying attention to me for even a moment I shall perish like your loved ones I embrace long after you could
well IM eating sheet metal and you are missing out my friend
metal is so fucking good I'm eating it
Ryan: We are not here to hurt you. We just want to communicate Shane: SCRATCH MY NIPPLES Ghosts: ... I think we have different definitions of communication
look at this loser who’s never had a strawberry crumble - they all do that
Imagine a Star Trek type food replicator that lacks an internal library of approved outputs and instead uses a generative language model to figure out what you're asking for. People having to do Midjourney-style prompt crafting to get the meals they want out of it. Abusing the system by describing things that absolutely are not food in ways which circumvent the safeguards. Occasionally it produces something that tries to eat you back which it insists with perfect confidence is in fact a strawberry crumble.
Beowulf
Hrothgar: Beowulf! I'm so glad you're here! Finally, you can slay the monster Grendel! Hrothgar: Beowulf where is your sword? Beowulf:... Hrothgar: Beowulf please tell me you brought a sword.
On a hot air balloon, September 21st 1783
Sheep: Dear heavens, there is fire. What is happening. Rooster: Hey, hey, hey, watch this. Duck: Why are we here Sheep: WHY ARE WE FLOATING?!!! Why am I here?!!! *The sheep was chosen because it was believed to be a reasonable approximation of a human's physiology and psychology*
I imagine the rooster and duck were chosen because, presumably, birds would remain calm when flying in a hot air balloon.
Someone show me a rooster that has ever been calm.
Nettles (alive & dead)
Nettle: Fear me for I have the sting of the bee and none of its' glass cannon character Dead Nettle: Attack of nerves I as me be cognizant of the acidity concerning the queen and nary one as to its' lens artillery DNA
Nettles (alive, dead) and dock leaves
The stinging nettle (Urtica dioica): A bee sting in plant form. Both give you acidic stings, but whilst a bee will die after a single sting, the nettle holds no such melodrama. Importantly, the underside of the nettle has no stinging needles - using this, a nettle leaf can be folded and eaten. Quite delicious, but like oysters, it is best to only chew them just enough to experience the flavour. Unlike oysters, it is an established tea.
The dock leaf (Rumex obtusifolius): The apologetic, unassuming, elder sibling of our funny little trio. Never too far behind the stinging nettle, growing in the same habitat, it is a welcome gift for the unlucky or unwary. Simply crushing it's flat, broad leaf, arranged in small clumps, low to the ground, and rubbing the remains on the sting will greatly ease the pain. Unfortunately, as some kind of earthy punishment for irresponsible agricultural practices, or maybe it's simply prone to seasickness, it did not accompany the stinging nettle on its torment to Australia.
(Important note: it is NOT a certified doctor, and, in fact, does not hold any kind of medical certificate or degree).
The dead nettle (Lamium purpureum): Surprisingly, edible, and harmless enough. It's pretty pink-ish-purple flowers will ruin its disguise in certain seasons, along with its ever-present diminutive size. The dead nettle relies on the terrifying reputation of the stinging nettle to warn away anyone and anything. Yet, it you touch one, you will find no sting. Like if the spirit of the plant it pretends to be manifests in that sting, it finds itself lacking something it will never achieve. However, for the dead nettle, once that sting is proven absent, it's likely already dead - possibly uprooted for its uncanny skill of growing in driveways.