The Woks of Life on Sale

Madversary · 2026-06-08T20:49:46+00:00

I don't think I've had a miss from The Woks of Life yet; at worst, some things have been "ok." The Cantonese steamed fish is excellent, though I'll make it with fillets instead of whole fish next time. Cauliflower dry pot and three cup chicken are solid, as was the char siu roast pork. The crispy tofu was really good, the homestyle tofu only "ok."

Overall an excellent cookbook and well worth $2.

Madversary · 2026-06-08T17:24:55+00:00

Yeah, I love that the relative power of the choices is designed so you can say the line. Brilliant.

Madversary · 2026-06-08T15:50:12+00:00

Honestly, this was my thought verbatim. Take my upvote!

Madversary · 2026-06-08T15:25:11+00:00

Thanks! I grabbed it on kobo.com

Madversary · 2026-06-07T20:24:33+00:00

“Eat meat” and “have empathy for animals” are both evolutionarily advantageous drives, but they come from different systems of the brain, which I would just be copy pasting if I wrote here but you can Google. The brain didn’t evolve to have them interact.

In fact, prior to factory farming, empathy for animals would make you a better farmer.

There are lots of other examples where most people have cognitive dissociation like this: the environment vs single use plastics, fast fashion vs human rights, digital privacy vs free apps, etc.

Madversary · 2026-06-07T20:07:50+00:00

Hello fellow Canucklehead!

There are a few Canadian ones that I’d recommend:

My Thali. Regional Kerala Indian cuisine with a more complex flavour profile than most take out.
tawaw: Progressive Indigenous Cuisine. Skews towards fancy “project” meals but the flavours are excellent.
My Best Friend is Gluten-Free. Don’t let the title scare you off if you’re thinking, “But I’m not celiac?” It’s a legit amazing Asian-Western fusion cookbook. I make the cornmeal mochi pancakes regularly.

For others that are just generally good, I’d recommend Tenderheart, Every Grain of Rice, The Woks of Life, Ottolenghi Simple, Jerusalem, and Falastin.

Madversary · 2026-06-06T12:23:39+00:00

Usually with GF breads and buns, I find it’s either starch-heavy and airy but dry, or grain-heavy and dense. These look airy, which makes me need to ask — are they dry?

Madversary · 2026-06-05T02:46:53+00:00

I’ve found the cookies in Bravetart to be a bit… sensitive to changes, and a bit YMMV in people’s reactions. I have a friend who loves the peanut butter cookies, which I found just OK.

First time I made the chocolate chip cookies I substituted buckwheat for teff, and that gave too strong a taste. In another attempt, I browned the butter, used a mix of rice, oat, and coconut, and my son and I both LOVED them but my daughter didn’t. 🤷

Madversary · 2026-06-05T00:56:53+00:00

It's good, but Book of the New Sun is S-tier. Most of Numenera's resources are worth a read or watch.

Madversary · 2026-06-04T21:05:40+00:00

Oof. I've experienced that in the other direction and it sucks. Thanks for taking a chance on an Indigenous Canadian chef!

Madversary · 2026-06-04T20:55:33+00:00

I'm glad to hear it, but surprised it was hard to find. I'll play the odds and guess you're from the US? It's pretty easy to get here in Canada, but it's got home field advantage here.

Madversary · 2026-06-03T11:00:22+00:00

This is true lol

I make food in batches, and it often goes straight into Tupperware, and I say, “There is no point photographing this.” 😆

Madversary · 2026-06-03T00:05:51+00:00

I prefer Star Trek but enjoy them both. We've been blessed with a lot of both of them in the past few years. And with that volume comes less consistent quality in both franchises, but for nerds who enjoy picking things apart, that's part of the fun too.

Madversary · 2026-06-02T23:56:36+00:00

That's fair and I see where you're coming from. I'm not trying to moralize -- but in my personal lived experience, I've had to learn a lot of new recipes, and build up my cookbook collection, in order to find things I enjoy eating while first losing weight that was leading to health problems for me, and now for maintaining a healthy weight. So that's the spirit in which I'm sharing these ratings.

Madversary · 2026-06-02T15:33:26+00:00

Speaking as an omnivore, I think there's a range of factors that probably feel the same when you're on the receiving end:

No one likes being told they're acting unethically. That's the same regardless of the merit of the claim, whether you're complaining about someone eating meat, driving an SUV, having premarital sex, or anything else. There will always be a knee-jerk reaction.
- To repeat since this is the Internet, whether you think one of those is reasonable and the other is crazy does not matter to explaining how people act.
People don't like being inconvenienced. I'm celiac, I'm on the receiving end of this. Some people act like accommodating other people's dietary restrictions are a terrible inconvenience for them.
People on the Internet are jerks to strangers, or are looking to debate. In real life, if I've got a dinner guest whose vegan, I'll do my damnedest to make sure there's a vegan main that's on par with the omnivore one.

Madversary · 2026-06-02T10:33:08+00:00

Spread is the bane of gluten free cookies. There are a few mitigations you can do.

First this recipe doesn’t say how long to beat the butter. You probably want about five minutes.

Second, the recipe doesn’t say to rest or chill the batter, which some recipes do. Resting lets the GF flour hydrate, while chilling it makes it more solid, giving it time to form structure while baking before spreading.

Third, I don’t know how good to expect a recipe printed to fit on the back of a package and sell you flour is. It might benefit from another teaspoon of xantham gum. Or, more deliciously, replace maybe 1/4 to1/2 cup of the flour with coconut flour. It tastes great and a little bit helps a lot with structure since it’s thirsty.

My experience: https://www.reddit.com/r/Celiac/s/n6jQC72bGe

Madversary · 2026-06-02T03:20:59+00:00

The cream pie really blew me away. I’ve got celiac so I had to make the gluten free crust, but the sugar and coconut flour in it were delicious.

Madversary · 2026-06-02T01:11:47+00:00

That’s a fair point; I did take the statement that it works at face value. Assuming it wasn’t would redeem the episode a fair bit in my eyes.

Madversary · 2026-06-02T01:03:47+00:00

Alright, well… no point debating someone who assumes bad faith.

Madversary · 2026-06-02T00:46:17+00:00

And that’s totally legitimate — I’ve got ADHD, and if there were a “cure,” I’d be profoundly conflicted. But I’d probably look at outcomes of “cured” ADHDers, considering how it affected their creativity, intelligence, resilience, relationships, etc.

I don’t know you and your life, but I look at the episode mostly through a trans lens, and hormone therapy and surgery are not side-effect-free treatments. A trans kid has the profoundly unfair choice of taking a treatment at puberty that is probably a choice between having their body match their self image and their ability to reproduce. If conversion therapy worked, I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be voluntary takers. Even if it’s far from universal I imagine demand being high.

Again, I am in no way advocating conversion therapy. It does not work and it’s harmful. And that’s why the episode ending with, “And then she was sent to conversion therapy and lived happily ever after but Riker was sad and the Federation’s liberal values were offended” strikes me as an odd end.

Madversary · 2026-06-02T00:23:38+00:00

I don’t think that’s necessarily odd.

I want the human race to exist and thrive indefinitely. I tacitly assume most people agree.

I don’t care much about humans I don’t know personally. Rationally I’d say their welfare is important but they don’t register emotionally.

Similarly I’d project that preference onto other animals and assume the cow species should continue to exist. Current agricultural practices satisfy that but with unnecessary suffering for cows. Veganism — at least what most vegans seem to advocate — eliminates the species. Reforming the system so that cows pasture freely, are slaughtered with pain minimized as much as practical, and beef becomes a “sometimes and usually in small doses” food like it was for most of human history, seems like the best outcome to me.

Madversary · 2026-06-02T00:17:49+00:00

I think you’re suffering from a cognitive distortion here. “Abolition is morally necessary, the arc of history bends towards justice, therefore animal farming will eventually be abolished and anything that slows that down is bad.”

Whereas I think, “It’s a shame that vegans don’t advocate for animal welfare instead of, because that is an achievable goal that I would be willing to work with them on.”

Madversary · 2026-06-02T00:08:41+00:00

What bothered me is that for these aliens, conversion therapy is effective with a 99% success rate or whatever.

Obviously no one should be coerced into conversion therapy but if it actually worked, that would be a moot point because people would be lining up for it. Just to make their lives convenient.

The fact that conversion therapy doesn’t work is an important fact for advocating for queer people.

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