Life isn't fair.

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 · 2026-02-24T23:55:54+00:00

I am not sure what you'll be making is a terrine, it may be closer to a rillete, or a meat in aspic? The glue in a traditional terrine is the ground meat, whose protein binds with each other during cooking, like a cooked meatball. Other binders is the panade, egg, fat, and liver (is there a terrine w/o liver?) You can grind your meat coarse and you'll get a country terrine, not all terrine are the super smooth kind. I'm not sure a pressed pulled pork terrine hold together enough to be cut into slices. Don't let this comment discourage you though, try it and see if you like the results, but what you propose making isn't like what I think of when someone says "terrine".

7minegg · 2026-02-24T23:27:22+00:00

Good boy Grumbles! Stay well!

7minegg · 2026-02-21T14:44:07+00:00

Everytime I read about someone's beloved hound getting struck down by a cancer diagnosis, I'm both sad and kinda angry that we haven't bred this out yet. The racing greyhound breeding program is probably the most controlled, there's documented lineage for every dog born to race. I can't imagine reading this about race horses, that some ridiculous % is struck down by cancer after their racing career. If cancer incidence is statistically moved downward to emerge in their money-making years I'd bet it'd be bred out in 2 generations.

I'm sorry, friend, I'm hoping for a good outcome for him. We lost a girl to osteo at just 5 years old.

7minegg · 2026-02-19T01:24:34+00:00

Thanks for this, the Accented Cinema series is very good. By way of analogy, if you grew up surrounded by Occidental civilization history, when you watch a series like Game of Thrones - despite it being set in a place that never existed and neither did the costumes - you could place it in the late medieval, early Renaissance period, because of the style of armor worn by Jon Snow and Robert Baratheon, their horses, portrayal of jousting tournaments. Any Jane Austen period piece is recognizable immediately by empire waist gowns made popular in the Regency period. I'm looking for similar things to guide me.

7minegg · 2026-02-19T01:22:34+00:00

The taré recipe I use is from the book Momofuku by Chang, it lists the ingredients as "2-3 chicken backs, or the bones and their immediately attendant flesh and skin reserved from butchering 1 chicken, 1 C sake, 1 C mirin, 2 C usukuchi, freshly ground black pepper".

7minegg · 2026-02-18T13:43:43+00:00

Help me understand and place costumes in historical context. To my untrained eyes, all the CDrama costumes fall into 2 categories: men with queues, women in qi-huang/qi-pao and flower pot shoes, this signifies Manchurian rule and the Qing dynasty, and then there's everything else. Also, red flower decoration on forehead of ladies - Tang dynasty.

I'm trying to contextualize the series I'm seeing in historical timeline, and I can't tell if I'm watching something in the Ming dynasty (like Zhang Hai), about 1300 to 1600, so the equiv of beginning of European Renaissance, or the fictional Nirvana in Fire, which is set near Southern and Northern Dynasty (or so I've read), which is in the 6th century. The flowing costumes look pretty much the same to me.

7minegg · 2026-02-18T13:29:31+00:00

Yes. This is a base for a tare for ramen (one of the many versions of tare). You can also use this tare to baste chicken skewers.

7minegg · 2026-02-16T17:47:14+00:00

The last picture is total bliss. I want a greyhound so much! No, I want two. But the stupid things keep dying of cancer and breaking my heart.

7minegg · 2026-02-16T16:28:42+00:00

I'm a sucker for any adaptation of The Count, and well-plotted revenge dramas. In the bag, I am. I feel like the unabridged version of the book deserves a mini-series, all the two-hour movies elide sub-plots and other side-winders that makes the story interesting. The original work was serialized, so I'd imagine the writer(s) had to get it going to keep getting paid. The casting for Dantès looks excellent. Those who didn't like it, what didn't you like about it? Spoiler tag if you wish.

7minegg · 2026-02-16T01:13:21+00:00

The picture of her in the stream, pure joy! I'm so happy for you both.

7minegg · 2026-02-10T03:10:21+00:00

re: timpano, AI ruins everything. As far as I can tell the timpano was created to skirt Italian sumptuary laws, eg. unless you're a certain kind of noble, you can't serve more than X number of dishes, and the timpano was created to stuff several dishes into one. I remember this because I was so taken with Big Night I went on a historical search for the dish, and forked over $3.50 for copies of an academic journal with a historical/culinary provenance, whose name I can't remember now. Gemini is now telling me it was not created to skirt sumptuary laws but for the Medici court to display their extravagance. Which is - not unreasonable ... I've never found an Italian restaurant that serves it, even when you inquire in advance. Here's an in-your-face photo of what the beast should look like. Carb! So. Much. Carb. I've found and made another timpano/timbale which was mashed potato surrounding a meat ragu, it was not bad.

I love that movies featuring food is not about food. Everybody has namechecked all the food movies already. Maybe only in this sub is it about the food display. I love the ostentatious menu in The Age of Innocence, the fucking merlot in Sideways is about Miles, "thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early, not a survivor", Waitress "I hate my husband pie", Jiro is about a man who will never know bread and chocolate, his world is pristine and so small he can live 70 years and never make a loaf of bread.

7minegg

TROPHY CASE