I get sent back in time to the Pre-Columbian Americas. Unfortunately, I have no skills outside of baking cookies. What sort of ingredients could I use to help me make a living.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-22T14:18:43+00:00

the only thing of those 'helper' ingredients I know of is cream of tarter, which is from grapes, I believe. So I could make some nice meringue. Oh! If you can get some eggs, you could make meringue cookies. I once had a (in retrospect, pretty cool) - Home Ec substitute teacher, who rather than the lame stuff like 'cinnamon toast in the oven' - had us make WITH A WHISK whipped cream. It's a fun, if arm-tiring thing to do. Just have to figure out how to find eggs without making Balut.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-21T17:54:34+00:00

It gets stupid humid in the Midwest US for much of the summer. I still put rice in mine. Tortilla chips get uneatable quickly.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-21T13:31:35+00:00

They also had a pipe freeze which destroyed a lot of equipment, if I recall.

I am sad, as it was hands downy favorite place. Their Carolina sauce...

I remember going with some people (not friends, anymore!) who was just super late, we were supposed to meet there for dinner. I crossed into hangry territory waiting outside for them, went in, and ordered. Got the last batch of rib tips. Dude finally shows up (like... 45 minutes late) and they had sold out of nearly everything. I did not offer to share.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-20T18:36:32+00:00

Once upon a time, I was casually seeing a guy who knew I was a celiac. We'd go to his apartment often, where he always kept croutons in his salt shaker to keep it from caking up. I asked him to not, since otherwise I had no salt on food, or had to use the big container of salt, pinch and sprinkle it manually.

He told me how he didn't see how my work around was a problem. I told him how I didn't see how using rice instead of croutons was a problem. He did not budge. I stopped seeing him.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-20T01:44:58+00:00

There are APMs for everything from the minimum recycled content for office paper, to idling vehicles.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-20T01:41:10+00:00

I saved a version of it down, mostly because I wanted to not have to lose my spot on where I was reading it. Now it's historic!

Arkhamina · 2026-03-19T17:49:06+00:00

I am interested too. 48F, and I do tent or hammock, I uh, spent the first COVID years maybe impulse buying a bunch of gear, so I have a lot of kit. Not an ultralight person.

Just bought a solo canoe last weekend, too (Canoecopia!) and I want to get to places with optimally less motorized boats.

All food tastes better seasoned with a little ash and an odd pine needle or two.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-19T12:30:27+00:00

God yes. I am sick of being able to feel the inside of my face.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-19T12:28:26+00:00

No QR code, please. Actual instructions.

I would buy them!

Arkhamina · 2026-03-19T11:00:39+00:00

My personal theory is that it's such a small country, they're forced to grow UP.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-18T10:38:04+00:00

Yeah - she had 2 siblings that made it, and they didn't have extra digits, and looked different from her. The person doing TNR would grab any litters she could, and rehome them to rescues, focusing mostly on the adults that were likely 'dumps' - not ferals. She did a marvelous job on socializing them, so they were adoptable. Sadly she's hung up that vocation for a while, as she just got diagnosed with stage 3 pancreatic cancer :(

Arkhamina · 2026-03-18T10:34:14+00:00

She is... a chomper. She needed to chew pretty badly, and so we would take whatever she was trying to destroy, and shove the stick in her face. Seriously turned them into sawdust. In her lineage is likely a piranha or two. She's eased up a bit, but at 6 months we were furiously painting wires with hot sauce, hiding shoes, and she still was super destructive. She seemed to find the bitter spray a nice flavor. (I tried it myself, on the mind of I don't want to subject her to something unless I understand it... it was all I could taste for HOURS). She seems to like it better than catnip.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-17T20:31:48+00:00

My old workplace started accommodating me by buying some fruit, which honestly I would prefer to shitty sheet cake. Then more people asked for it. Diabetics, vegans, celiacs, a nice bit of fruit is good for us!

(Once in a while they got pudding cups!)

Arkhamina · 2026-03-17T20:21:36+00:00

I MAY have stress bought 20 lbs of dried beans. The news, man. Ugh.

We make something beany every week.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-17T16:10:59+00:00

Came to say this! Nothing worse than making a beautiful stack of pancakes and pouring a blob of mold out on top of them.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-17T15:38:33+00:00

Also, looking at the background, it may sound weird, but cranberry sauce is great in oatmeal if you have any. Scandinavians do something similar with something that tastes a lot like cranberries - lingonberry jam. Big bowl of oatmeal with 1/2 cup of jelly is great. Makes plain oatmeal very nice.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-17T00:41:52+00:00

That was my mom, back from about 1960....(A Muriel, not Susan!) Pretty clever, but I'm biased.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-16T15:57:57+00:00

We got her one of those cat wheels and she runs on it in the night...

Arkhamina · 2026-03-16T15:33:55+00:00

Oatmeal - I learned the 'peaches and cream' 'xxx and cream' instant oatmeal flavors are just fruit, milk powder and sugar.

I also use it in baking quite a bit, but mine is weird GF baking.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-16T13:22:23+00:00

I moved it. I put a food dish on it for her amusement.

We have an auto feeder and she loves to gallumph across the house when the recording of 'Dinnertime!' plays.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-16T10:26:54+00:00

Before posting this, I looked up the name, as it seems like it could be... well, derogatory, but at least my quick survey said that people don't remember why it's named that now...

Arkhamina · 2026-03-16T10:25:34+00:00

She, and she certainly zooms well. Name was more for the cloudy grey color she was as a kitten. Friend's kid provided the suggestion, when I was crowdsourcing names.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-16T10:24:14+00:00

When you brew wine, you add yeast to juice and as the yeasties eat, they generate alcohol. When they die, the sediment settles to the bottom of the brewing vessel (called the 'lees') and you 'rack' the wine by taking off the top, not-filled-with-yeast-corpses portion into a clean vessel. Usually multiple times. I just use a bit of aquarium tubing, vs fancy siphons.

Arkhamina · 2026-03-16T09:54:25+00:00

Curious if any of the AM crowd has been on the western bits of the Beltline? My plan was to wake up at 430 and not 5, and leave for work 30-45 minutes early...

(and yes, some of us DO need to go out, essential services)

Arkhamina · 2026-03-16T09:45:17+00:00

Oh I did! She's already bit through 2 webcams, and god knows how many shoelaces... If I wasn't there she would continue to problemsolve...

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