Emchap's Shit from the Internet 01/8/20 🍠
I had the good fortune of spending my last weekend with my sister, who slept on my couch before bounding off to her much more glamorous life as an employee of the Blue Man Group (yes I have seen your Arrested Development gifs, no I do not need more). We went to the Huntington, which is the best kind of museum (a bananas rich person's house), which I knew absolutely nothing about except that everyone I know who has been loves it.
It turns out that they are correct in doing so, because it's a giant huge expanse of buildings and grounds that includes a beautiful research library (where you can in a 3 minute span hit the most complete copy of the Canterbury Tales that we know of, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and a bigass Audubon book), a shitload of telescopes hanging out in a science exhibit, a bunch of American art (god I love weird early American portraits), and an absolute shitload of gardens. I got lost on my way back from the Japanese Garden and wandered through the Australia Garden, Jungle Garden, and Desert Garden before eventually finding my sister in the Rose Garden. It was deeply cool and deeply wild and deeply a reminder that California's ecosystem can support whatever you'd like if you put your mind to it and steal Colorado's water.
The Library, as a side note, has a set of pre-suggested tour brochures in its visitors center (great idea!) and my sister and I absolutely did the one that was literally just the most photogenic exhibits for Instagram. It was great. More museums should let me pick my path based on beauty.
But my favorite thing on the tour was something my sister and I hit as an afterthought on our way to the gift shop. It's the Orbit Pavilion, which is a big metal dome hanging out on one of the lawns. It does not look like it belongs there, because it's sitting next to a shitload of succulents and a bunch of rich person house, and if you go inside you get to look up at the sky and listen to gentle noises made by NASA satellites pinging home. It was beautiful and strange and reminded me very much of 17776, which is a deeply affecting piece of online writing that I think about very much despite being not at all interested in football (its nominal focus).
All of this is to say that if you ever find yourself in Pasadena, the Huntington is a beautiful way to pass many hours, particularly if you like art or flowers or giant ominous space orbs. I recommend it.
Shit to read
I always forget the queen of shitty robots is my age, and I never forget that she is smart as fuck.
Fat acceptance ran so body positivity could be commercialized by deodorant companies.
Long-term caloric deprivation is not good for you, no matter how much @jack tries to make having an eating disorder fun and flirty.
Little Women: now more appealing to me.
Also fuck Hot New Cities without public transit (I know it is a million percent more complicated than that but I think about this a lot, as someone who doesn't drive but also doesn't want to be paying so much in rent forever).
This poem made me cry.
I read this out loud to someone recently and absolutely could not stop laughing.
A very sweet ode to weird dogs.
Get High See Cats is the Be Gay Do Crimes we need in 2020.
Shit to eat
While making small talk with your coworker who you once conned into going to a Guy Fieri's Flavortown with you in the Cancun Airport (by "conned" I mean "asked nicely, because he's a very nice man"), stumble across your shared enthusiasm for cooking.
Mention your recent stand mixer acquisition.
Begin to discuss doughs, because of course that is one of the places a mechanical mixer shines. Get asked if you have a favorite pizza recipe.
Be rewarded in turn with your coworker's favorite pizza recipe, which is of course tested within an inch of its life because Engineers.
Screenshot it, text it to yourself, and file it away.
When you return from therapy one night, dump half a can of tomatoes and some butter and garlic cloves (there should be an onion but you used the one you had) with some salt on the stove. Leave it on "slightly too high" to cook. Preheat the oven to 500-ish.
Add 100 g warm water, half a teaspoon of yeast, half a teaspoon of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, and 4 g olive oil all together.
Revel in the fact that this kitchen scale is—unlike your last one—not broken.
Stir everything up and add 163 g of flour.
Leave in the stand mixer to mix for a while. Debate using the dough hook; decide not to.
While that's happening, heat up some water in your skillet. Dump some collard greens in there for reasons like "you should eat a plant".
Cover them while they wilt.
When the dough seems like it's doughy, pull out a quarter sheet and flip it over. Toss cornmeal on it, and stretch the dough out to cover the back of the sheet.
Add some of your sauce on top. It will have heated up too much and gotten tomato detritus all over the stove. That's okay.
On top of that add torn up hunks of mozzarella and parm. Then the cooked-down greens. Put salt and pepper and red pepper over everything, and a drizzle of olive oil
Pop in the oven for 10 minutes.
Leave to cool, add some pizza spice, and enjoy a belated dinner.
Shit to listen to
God help me I didn't hate this.