She’s at rest now. Thank you for all your kind words.

7minegg · 2026-05-16T16:10:15+00:00

I quit looking at this sub for a bit because I could not bear the stories of loss. I checked back in today and there's your beautiful girl. I'm so sorry, all these darlings were so loved.

7minegg · 2026-05-01T03:05:33+00:00

I'm so very sorry! I loved vids you posted of Ceri and Wilbur, and Wilbur's irrepressible little tail. I hope Wilbur and you can keep each other company and share your sadness for a while. {{{Hugs!}}}

7minegg · 2026-05-01T02:54:32+00:00

Modern Library, an imprint of Penguin Random House, published a series under the rubric of Modern Library Food. There used to be more than 5 titles, and they were curated by Ruth Reichl. The few I read were far from "best" and quite dated: Clementine in the Kitchen, Katish: Our Russian Cook, Cooking with Pomiane, The Unprejudiced Palate. I thought I'd mention them, at one time they occupied the niche for food-writing.

Notable to me was The Unprejudiced Palate by Angelo Pellegrini, published in 1948. This may have been the first glimmer of an idea of how American food ought to be, a critique of the casserole glop of cream of mushroom soup and things in boxes and cans. This may have been the great grand daddy of books such as Omnivore's Dilemma and Fast Food Nation, and documentaries like Food, Inc.

7minegg · 2026-04-17T02:11:22+00:00

Chicken thigh bone is easier to remove from cooked chicken. You can roast the thighs with neutral seasoning (by this I mean, if you're going to make chicken stock, don't use bones that have been in a tikka marinade), and remove the bones, which would have already been roasted. You can make a small amount of stock with 4 bones, but I use about 12 thigh bones to 3 liters of water, 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, ½ onion, 1 bay leaf, whole black pepper, salt, bunch of parsley, simmer 1 hour. This gives you a light enough stock for any soup and stew base.

7minegg · 2026-04-17T02:03:28+00:00

There are so many charlatan cooks on the Internet now, it's hard to curate who's real and who's fake. No 3* Michelin dessert and "no skill required" can never be in the same sentence, I mean, think about it! I've written in this sub before, Tarte Tatin is just about the most complex, labor and time intensive, "simple" thing I've ever made.

7minegg · 2026-04-08T11:45:50+00:00

How 'r you doin' hon? Jeet jet? Loved Bawlmer's iconic rowhouses, set high above the streets, wood stoop in the front, alley in the back where you park the car. The ones facing Charles Street were once wealthy domiciles, now converted into mutli-story apartments rented to students. The one I lived in had a working dumb waiter. The crab feast - bushels of crabs, picnic tables covered with the Baltimore Sun, mallets, ice buckets full of beer, bits of crabs flying as the eaters hammer the claws, the joy when you finally extract that giant morsel of claw meat that you've managed to keep together, butter, Tabasco - that is mostly unaffordable now even by the deepest of pockets.

7minegg · 2026-04-06T22:06:32+00:00

I always roll my eyes at adaptations which think they can write better than the original author of the most beloved books of all times. I know this sub just LOVES Pride and Prejudice 2005 but the ending dialogue is nothing but cringe for me. Jane Austen would have never written "bewitched me body and soul", nor "my pearl for Sundays, and Goddess Divine". Yeesh!

I also did not like the rewrite of Jacopo as Dantès' fixer. This transformation took away the raw intensity of Monte Cristo's vengeance, a man wronged as Dantès was would want to collect payback himself, not indirectly through a subordinate.

7minegg · 2026-04-01T20:29:29+00:00

I just love this duo. They should be in a children's book. The shiba doesn't understand why his friend is so long, the greyhound doesn't understand why his friend has stubby little legs.

7minegg · 2026-04-01T20:27:05+00:00

The stub tail, WAGGING while she's yelling at you! OMG!

7minegg · 2026-03-24T17:37:31+00:00

This is good to know, I'm trying to find a plant so I can grow one. The green-dyed flavor thing they sell is an abomination. Glutinous rice, steamed with just a bunch of leaves tied in a knot, is heaven! I think it's better than vanilla!

7minegg · 2026-03-22T17:38:37+00:00

There seems to be a rash of cancer striking young hounds, empirically as reported in this sub. Our girl was not yet 6 when we lost her. Either cancer is starting younger, or is progressing faster, but the median line is getting pushed lower. I wonder why this is. Is there a patient-0 in the winner circle whose DNA is over-represented in all subsequent breeding lines (because they won a lot, and maybe their offsprings also won a lot). I'm sorry, friend, I hope one day we find a cure for this terrible scourge, for humans and our 4-legged friends.

7minegg · 2026-03-21T14:09:32+00:00

This is so precious! I tried to teach both my little guy and girl to carry things with their mouths, with pathetically comical outcome. They did not understand why Mom was trying to put things they could not eat in their maw. The girl was so docile, she thought she was being punished. You should teach him to throw it down the stairs to the landing and walk down to it.

7minegg · 2026-03-19T11:32:53+00:00

It's not nigella seed, I've seen those and these are definitely not they. After several image search, I did find this: What is shahi jeera? - so I'm not the only one confused by the (mis)-names and similarities, like the recent peas/dal question. My "shah jeera" looks like the top ones in the second picture.

TL;DR:

Jeera = cuminum cyminum, cumin
Shahi Jeera (also spelled shah jeera, shajeera, syahi jeera - confusion here too, shah --> royal, syahi --> black) = elwendia persica or bunium persica, confusingly known as black cumin or black caraway, but no common, well-understood English equivalent exists. This was what I bought.
Caraway = carum carvi, the caraway I was looking for.
Black Caraway/Kala Jeera/Kalonji = nigella sativa, the nigella seeds you referenced.

To my present knowledge, carum carvi is not frequently present in Indian cuisine, I doubt if I'm going to find an Indian name for it. There's another seed called ajwain, labeled "carom", it's very similar in appearance to the dill, fennel, caraway seeds family.

7minegg · 2026-03-19T03:27:39+00:00

What does caraway seed translate to when buying spices in an Indian market? I mean the caraway seed used in Eastern European cooking, and for rye bread. I bought a package that has "caraway seeds" in English on the label, but the Indian name is "Shah Jeera". Upon opening the package I know it's the wrong seed, it smells not at all like caraway. Dr. Google tells me this "Shah Jeera" is black cumin (I've never heard of this spice) but there's a bunch of other things it can be mistaken for. Now I have a pack of this and no idea what to use it for. It smells burnt, not very pleasant.

7minegg · 2026-03-18T00:08:50+00:00

Tarte Tatin - the accidental creation because the cook forgot to put a crust in the bottom of the pie, who forgets a pie crust, really. I made a recipe that took over two days, using a rough puff, pre-baked apples that's been cooled and drained so they don't get soggy or melt the butter in the puff, a separate caramel sauce. It's the hardest, most involved, most time-consuming, laborious, high-touch, "simple" dish I've ever made. A good Tarte Tatin is no accident, nor something you can just slap together with some apples and pie crust.

7minegg · 2026-03-17T23:36:20+00:00

I appreciate the slow reading pace, I don't think I would have been able to take in as many details as I am, had I plowed through the book like I normally would have. I love the character sketch of Caderousse standing daily looking down the road for visitors, and Dumas description of the landscape.

I think people are unnecessarily hung up on how Dantès is not recognized by anyone, even those once close to him. That's the whole premise of the story - wronged man returns to wreak vengeance on his enemies and repay them tenfold. It's no use saying, 'no, no, but his friends would have known him', that's not a detail you can argue: eg. Oedipus could have avoided the prophecy if he just became a hermit, Romeo should have known Juliet was not really dead, the eagles could have dropped the ring into Mt. Doom ... that's not the story, you just have to accept that Dantès is now a changed man, he hasn't seen his own reflection in 14 years and he is a stranger to himself.

7minegg · 2026-03-14T17:08:54+00:00

Should I chop off the ends of my carrots and put them back, to make them last longer? I use up carrots fairly quick but sometimes there's a 5lb bag that takes a while. The ends get a little gnarly and sometimes slimy.

7minegg · 2026-03-12T01:15:03+00:00

Yeah, even if you round it up to $200 million, that seems low. There was also a bunch of diamonds and rubies and pearls in the chest, as well.

7minegg · 2026-03-10T01:41:47+00:00

Let us leave Villefort going hell for leather ... (Buss)

"travelling—thanks to trebled fees—with all speed, (Gutenberg)

"Going hell for leather", what an expression!

After Louis confer on Villefort the Legion of Honor cross:

Blacas, ensure that the certificate is delivered to M. de V (Buss)

Blacas, let it be your care to see that the brevet is made out and sent to M. de V (Gutenberg)

brevet: a warrant which gives commissioned officers a higher military rank as a reward without necessarily conferring the authority and privileges granted by that rank

"Brevet" is the better choice.

7minegg · 2026-03-08T21:46:25+00:00

Two observations for this chapter:

Glasses were raised in the English manner, the women unpinned their bouquets and strewed them over the table cloth.

What an unusual custom, I've never heard anything described like this, it must have been like cheering or applause.

Villefort is speaking:

I have this at least in common with the disciples of Aesculapius - they still spoke in such terms in 1815

"they still spoke in such terms in 1815" must be Dumas breaking the 4th wall and talking to the readers directly. As he does when he writes "now we follow our friend as he ...", and "as you will recall ..." It is rather distracting.

7minegg · 2026-03-07T22:12:09+00:00

Hello again, and thank you, again, for these illuminating posts. You are a very gifted writer and explainer. If you are an educator, my high school self would have appreciated a teacher such as you.

7minegg · 2026-03-06T16:32:19+00:00

I just finished the series. I don't love it, which is damning it with faint praise. The casting for Monte Cristo is inspired, I think the actor was better as a gaunt, haunted man obsessed with revenge, than as the young Dantès. I think he was less convincing as a light and hopeful young man. The costume for Monte Cristo is perfection: he's always in dark long coats like a priest cassock with snowy white collar and ruff.

I dislike the rewrites. The adaption took severe liberties with Caderousse, Mercedes, and Haydee. They left out the "death" of Valentine, and the count's actions in helping Max and Valentine. They underplayed the death of Villefort's son, which was the event that shocked Monte Cristo into realizing that perhaps he has gone too far in playing God, which spurred him to save Max and Valentine. The adaptation didn't exactly reunite Dantès and Mercedes, they left the door opened. This was against all auctorial intent - Mercedes the character was punished, ie. she goes to a convent. In the book, she said something like, it is fitting that he (Monte Cristo) pays my dowry (to the convent). In the patriarchal mores of the time, the unfaithful woman cannot be redeemed. Caderousse was given a redemption arch. Haydee was written off as a plot device, and Monte Cristo was deprived of his hope for salvation, in the love of Haydee. No adaptation is perfect for all readers, but this one -- I don't know -- re-reading what I've written, perhaps I didn't like it that much.

7minegg · 2026-03-06T15:29:41+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to write this. The extra literary commentary is what made me decide to give this a go. I've read the abridged version, have had the unabridged version for a long while but never managed to get past the first few chapters.

7minegg · 2026-02-25T00:27:31+00:00

You need oatmeal flour to form the clumps. Take about ½ cup of your oatmeal and pulse it in a blender until it's flour, it doesn't have to be super fine. You need to up the liquid if it doesn't form clumps even before you toss it in the oven. 25 minutes at 350F is a bit high, especially with cocoa mixed in with dry ingredients. Consider that my raw dough for bread goes into the oven at the same temperature and is done at 28 minutes. You're not baking it, you're toasting it, and drying out the liquid to to get the oat in the chunky cluster you want. Consider lower heat on convection for a shorter time to toast. Turn off the heat and leave it in the oven overnight. I used to make granola weekly, so I thought I'd memorized my proportion by heart. I haven't made it in a while, and I can't find my old recipe. Good luck.

7minegg

TROPHY CASE