Emchap’s Shit from the Internet 12/19/18 🍠
The college I went to was a Methodist college. Most of the time this had no impact on me, except that our chaplain (a great dude!) was a Methodist minister, and many of my friends at school were the children of the same (because of a solid tuition discount). The other main way in which this impacted me is that every year, the school held a 9 Lessons and Carols service which I tried to attend.
Lessons and Carols alternates—as you might guess—short Bible readings about the advent season with carols and periodic hymns. The carols in question are almost universally from like the 1300s, unknown to anyone in the audience, and in weird minor keys; sometimes, if you're lucky, they do "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and you get to be jazzed about something approaching a melody line. Because it is a weird service and seems to vary between churches, the instructions for what to do are very explicit, which is nice if you are—like me—an irreligious Jew who's mostly there for the music and architecture.
Since moving from Atlanta, I've tried to revive the tradition. Both years I lived in New York, I attended Lessons and Carols at a big church in Manhattan, sitting by myself in their upper balcony. This year, I made my way to a tiny cathedral near USC, which was a much more intimate experience. We got to light candles and hold them for the first half of things, which was new to me.
Relatively few of my holiday traditions have survived the transition to the weird liminal period that is adulthood without a partner or children, far away from where I grew up and with one parent having died. As someone who has always been sentimental about both ritual and the holidays, this has sucked. But I'm trying to make my own traditions where I can, and which I can do by myself no matter where I am. So: attending services for a religion I don't belong to, tucked in a back corner of the church, trying to follow along when we're prompted to sing.
There is a lot that is fucked up about most organized religion, but there is something to be said for sitting in a warm place with families and their small children and their old parents and the cluster of grad students who wandered in late, holding onto candles in the dark, listening to people sing about a baby.
Shit to read
Samin Nosrat is the best and I want her to give me a hug.
Please read this longread about the guy who invented the Delorean, because it is BANANAS.
Slave Play sounds phenomenal and uncomfortable; I am hoping I am able to see it when I'm in New York.
As someone who became aware of the idea that the Author Is Dead as a result of JK Rowling writing out the obvious queer romance of Remus/Sirius in the Harry Potter books, I was very here for this article about the same. (I want to reread The Shoebox Project at some point soon.)
IT nerds of my acquaintance, check out how this dude saved a nonprofit six figures by moving their tech stack to mostly off-the-shelf tools.
This is a very detailed analysis of the financial considerations of being a camgirl.
The murderous naked molerats are the new seals with eels up their noses.
This article on the after-hours lives of Chinese immigrants working in Chinese restaurants in NYC is phenomenal.
A complete bummer of a piece on the ways in which our conceptions of the opioid epidemic are failing older black heroin users.
Shit to eat
Bring a dutch oven to medium heat.
Add two finely-diced medium onions (or one and a half, if you're me and had an extra half an onion out already).
After 5 minutes or so, add a half cup of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of berbere spice. (The recipe this is adapted from says 3 tablespoons, but I added that and it's so spicy I can't eat it without yogurt etc. Cut it down and add more if needed later, or buy some less-spicy blend than I did because JESUS.)
Stir everything up, and add half a can of tomato paste and 4 cloves of minced garlic.
After 3 minutes, whisk in a quarter cup of chickpea flour. Add a cup of water. Another quarter cup of chickpea flour. An additional cup and a half of water.
Once it begins to bubble, add two tablespoons of butter, a teaspoon of garlic powder, a quarter teaspoon of sugar, and salt (I wound up adding about two teaspoons of Morton's kosher, which is closer to a tablespoon and a bit of Diamond, so ymmv).
Simmer everything for 10 minutes.
I ate it in a bowl with chopped lettuce and some sour cream to cut the heat, which is deeply not authentic but was good af.
(Adapted from The Gourmet Gourmand.)
Shit to listen to
I'll be listenin to this NPR Poolside Yuletide until the end of the year, tyvm.
Shit to buy
I am 100% certain you don't need to buy anything outside of whatever you've bought this month for gifts. But if you're going to get something, I'm currently wearing this and have received consistent compliments on it and it's VERY soft.