Emchap's Shit from the Internet 04/15/20 🍠
We have hit the point in the great insidening where I have moved from sort of paralyzed anxiety into a low-level "don't wanna" burnout about my current job. Normally this would just be a sign I need to take a vacation (I like my job, but getting in fights with server admins about RFCs that predate my birth does occasionally get old), but of course at this point it feels like there's no reason. What would I do with a day off? Watch more Community than I'm already watching?
So I'm shuffling along at 80%, worrying about my friends and family and growing increasingly sad about how the summer will almost certainly contain none of the things (pools, outside concerts, Friday night picnics) that I so completely enjoy about living here. Obviously this is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but adjusting to the knowledge that we may have another three or six or twelve months of this has been a drag. I want to see my friends; I want to go do stupid cute couple shit with my boyfriend; I want to not feel anxious every time I go to the grocery store.
It is a little better than it has been: I've been cooking, of course, and have gotten back into making little watercolor doodles. It's a nice reminder that I can google "hey how do I paint flowers" and get 800 useful YouTube tutorials. My stomach has, at least for the last few days, held itself together even though I decided to live on the edge and get noodles from outside my home. I've gotten my cat to begrudgingly accept having eardrops applied in the afternoons, with the hope that it will stop him from trying to shove his own foot in his ear. I bought leggings with pockets.
I hope everyone is staying safe where possible and is staving off dread/boredom/fear. Let me know if you want the in on some sweet watercolor tutorials.
Shit to read
I read and very much enjoyed Uncanny Valley, and would love to chat about it with anyone else who's made the humanities-to-tech pivot.
This essay from Daniel Lavery on his estrangement from his father is bitter and funny and worth reading.
Call Your Girlfriend is my favorite podcast and I enjoyed this interview with the hosts.
We're all getting through this as best we can.
Shit to eat
Decide, upon seeing a retweeted recipe, that you want cinnamon rolls.
(Eat some carrot cake beforehand, it's about to mold and you need sustenance.)
Fortified with cake and coffee, begin.
Put a tablespoon of yeast in a cup of warm water. (Do not do what I did, which is totally forget the yeast until everything is already a dough, even though it doesn't really seem to matter.)
Take 3 1/3 cups of bread flour; whisk in 1/4 cup sugar and a teaspoon of salt.
Add the yeast water, 2 tablespoons of Crisco, and a quarter cup of yogurt after googling "yogurt good how long?".
Mix it until it's, y'know, dough. Looks dough-ish.
Cover and leave it for an hour while you drink more coffee. If you remember, pull the dough out of the bowl and half-assedly oil the bowl first, but y'know, do you.
After an hour, punch the dough down.
Roll it out to a 12" x 15" rectangle on an oiled cutting board with an oiled rolling pin. Just, oil, generally, is your friend here.
Cover the dough in a layer of Crisco. I did this by pulling a glob out of the container with my hands and just sort of wiping it on the dough, but you may approach life with a greater sense of dignity.
Stir up 1/3 cup sugar (I used white, but honestly brown would probably be better) and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. Sprinkle it over the margarine dough.
Roll it up into a cigar—when you're done it should have a cigar that's 15" long.
Cut it up into 12 slices. The original recipe will say that you should cut 1 1/4" pieces. This is a silly way to describe this.
Place them into a 9"x13" pan that's been oiled. Cover and leave them for half an hour.
At that point turn your oven to 350 and kill another 15 minutes. Get the coffee jitters.
Pop them into the oven for 25 minutes. You will think they aren't big enough, but they will fill the space.
Mix up some powdered sugar, vanilla, soft butter, and yogurt. Regret buying the yogurt, but admire that it really does pull its weight in this recipe.
Once the rolls have cooled (or not, I mean, live mas) cover them in your sugar yogurt frosting goop.
Eat an embarrassing number of cinnamon rolls, enjoying your life as it stands.
(Adapted from this tweet. Thanks, OP's grandma!)
Shit to watch
The BA test kitchen folks are good and so is this video about coffee.
Into the Spiderverse. No reason, it's just good.
Shit to buy
If you work in tech and have savings and things are otherwise okay for you, donate at least some of your stimulus check to a local food bank, if you got one.
Noodles.
Chickpea flour. Partially because next week's recipe is probably gonna be the shiro I made tonight, but also because it's cheap, less in demand than wheat flour, and can be used to make an egg-ish scrable and fries.
If you're buying normal flour (or grits, etc), consider War Eagle Mill.