Emchap's Shit from the Internet 12/9/20 🍠
As a mildly Professional Sad person even under non-plague conditions, winter is an interesting experience. Being locked away and eating and napping and lounging is sort of the order of the day, even in California where it is objectively quite warm and we still get sun through 4:30pm (a luxury!). Rounding the corner into winter is on some level the most normal I’ve felt all year, because this is the time of the year where I’d normally be hibernating and eating jam.
It’s both nice to have a tiny little reprieve against the constant awareness of non-normalcy and distressing to realize that I could (have?) gotten used to this. I’m a crab who has made my personal pot of boiling water nicer to be in, a little bit.
All of that feels very dramatic, but of course this is a year with completely weird stakes for anything at all. It’s like living inside of a CW show without the whimsy/jingle jangle.
But I’m trying not to look the gift horse in the mouth too much; I’m sad and anxious and tired but in the normal ways I would be in normal years. I have much more jam than I would have under other circumstances, which is I think an improvement on the whole. Pandemic or not I’d have a cat screaming at me and breathing very loudly into my ear at night.
Shit to read
Female red-pillers, sort of.
I just loved this roundtable about labor organizing and creative work in NYC.
I love Desert Oracle and thought this press piece for the release of the book was a good example of why.
Movies about rats.
The pandemic pretty much sealed the deal on me not having kids, I think.
I loved this piece on how to recreate the smells of history.
This woman definitely killed this dude with her car.
Ted Lasso! On my energy for once I finish up with Letterkenny.
Shit to eat
Buy skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs because you are a fool.
When you receive them, realize that the recipe calls for boneless/skinless, because they all do unless you’re pan-cooking them.
Badly and with knife skills that would make other people anxious for you, skin and debone the half-frozen thighs.
Chop them into pieces and put to the side for a moment.
Put a third cup yogurt, tablespoon of garlic, teaspoon of powdered ginger, teaspoon of garam masala, half a teaspoon of turmeric, half a teaspoon of cumin, half a teaspoon of salt, and if you are me and weenie no red pepper into a plastic bag or a mixing bowl.
Smoosh it all up. If your yogurt is too thick, add water.
Dump the chicken in there and put in the fridge while you do everything else.
Chop up half an onion and a tablespoon of garlic and put them in a bowl together.
Put half a teaspoon powdered ginger, a teaspoon of cumin, a teaspoon of garam masala, and half a teaspoon of coriander into their own bowl.
And finally put 7 oz canned tomatoes, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and chili powder if you’re not me and a coward into their own bowl.
Heat oil in a pot over medium-high heat, and when it is warm, dump the chicken absent the marinade in. Toss the marinade.
Cook the pieces 3 minutes a side, until browned. Take them out and keep them warm in the oven.
In the same pan, add some butter and more oil if needed, and dump in the onion bowl.
Fry up the onions for six minutes.
Once the time is up, add in the spices and cook for another minute or so.
Once that is done, add the tomato bowl and bring everything to a simmer for 15 minutes. Use the acid in the tomatoes to deglaze the pan.
As you stack your prep bowls together in the sink, finally understand mise en place.
Once everything is cooked up, immersion blend it until it’s a smooth consistency. You could sieve it, but you won’t.
Put it back on the heat and add half a cup of half, half a tablespoon of sugar, and a half a teaspoon of maple syrup. Stir it in until everything’s mixed up.
Pop the chicken out of the oven, toss it in with the gravy, and stir everything up into a food.
Eat with the pitas you made that failed to rise which makes them basically flatbread and call it a night.
(Recipe adapted from Cafedelite’s butter chicken recipe)
Shit to listen to
This video of Canadians very politely breaking.
Shit to buy
It’s cozy season!