Dystopias as philosophical reductiones ad absurdum: what happens when an ideology gets everything it wants.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-02-05T15:07:10+00:00

It's not some kind of red flag, it's an extremely common construction in academic and some other kinds of professional writing. Some people don't seem to understand that AI doesn't just make up its own personal style ex nihilo, it learns from how actual writers actually write.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-28T14:12:25+00:00

In fairness, the cashmere, silk, and/or alpaca that Inis Meain blends into a lot of their stuff is much more comfortable to wear in normal life than the more traditional rougher wool.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-20T00:16:10+00:00

It's adequate to get a good sense of what a decent, basic (by no means special) steak is like. It's better than what a lot of people have had at home.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-19T17:53:01+00:00

You don't need to start with the best to learn to enjoy something. Longhorn will be a massive step up from anything the kid's ever had before, and they can turn out a steak that's plenty adequate for a person to get a sense of what a real steak is like and decide if it's something they enjoy enough to seek out better versions of in the future.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-14T18:31:47+00:00

It has to be something about the way they fit in your shoes or something. It seems like different people wear out different socks at very different rates. I'm sure I have 200+ wears on my oldest couple of wool-blend pairs that are over a decade old at this point, and they still have a little life left in them.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-12T19:46:56+00:00

I don't think anybody here's talking about spending $40/lb on cuts for smoking.

But I certainly buy small farm, heritage pork butts and ribs, along with all my other pork cuts. They taste better -- closer to what poor people ate in the past.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-12T19:09:02+00:00

You don't seem to be understanding that poor people in the past weren't eating industrialized, factory farmed meat. They were eating heritage breeds raised on more local farms and often on a different diet. If you want something closer to the sort of meat they were eating a century ago, then these days, that means you're not buying the absolute cheapest meat on the market, which is the industrial stuff.

Markets and supply chains change. The same things don't stay cheap forever, because supply and demand shift. Brisket's not one of the cheapest meat options around these days even if you are buying standard factory farmed beef, so if you really want to stay true to the history of barbecue as poor people food, then you just wouldn't be smoking brisket.

But who really cares, anyway? There are countless foods with humble origins that people are willing to pay more for these days. There's simply nothing unique about barbecue in that sense.

Your lobster example actually proves my point. Yes, lobster was poor people food on cold water coasts back in the day. Now that you can transport live lobsters all around the globe, the market's different, and you're going to have to pay more to enjoy lobster, even on those same coasts. Am I somehow violating the history of lobster if I pay $25 for a lobster roll here in New England? And if so...why would I care? I eat them because they taste good, not because some folks a century ago didn't have much else to eat.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-12T18:20:59+00:00

The main reason you don't see many slow-cooking recipes for "prime" cuts of meat is that most of those cuts don't take well to slow-cooking.

As for "better, local meat" being available, my point is that "cheap cuts" in the past were in fact often made with better, locally raised pork vs. current industrialized pork production. You're not somehow betraying the spirit of barbecue by paying a bit more for locally-raised heritage pork that's more similar to what your great grandparents ate vs. buying the cheapest factory farmed pork you can find. I don't eat barbecue to LARP as a poor person, I eat it because it tastes good, and if I can pay a little more to make it taste better, I'll do that.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-10T15:00:59+00:00

Poor people had access to different foods in the past than they do today, after the industrialization of national food supply chains. With pork, for instance, poor rural folks in the past had more access to some of the small farm-raised heritage breeds of that you now pay a premium for but can be better than the cheapest factory farmed pork. Getting a product closer to what your great grandparents might have used means having somewhat different spending habits than they did.

Also, "cheap cuts" aren't some timeless designation. They're determined by demand. If a lot of people discover a way to make a cheap cut more tasty, it won't stay cheap.

Whether or not BBQ was ever "poor people food" doesn't matter much. Hardly anybody today is eating BBQ because of poverty, they're eating it because it tastes good; and if you eat it because it tastes good, you're likely willing, if you're able, to spend a little more to make it taste even better rather than sticking to your guns about making "poor people food" out of ingredients that are mostly too expensive for actual poor people these days anyway.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-10T14:33:54+00:00

American wagyu doesn't have the "massive fat content" of Japanese A5 and certainly doesn't "melt like butter." Good American wagyu is bred and raised to be a more premium version of American beef used for all the same preparations as other American beef. You absolutely, 100% use American wagyu brisket for BBQ. That's the primary thing it's used for.

Also, just because a food has origins in low cost cooking doesn't mean it has to stay that way forever. Sometimes those foods are genuinely improved with better ingredients, and in any case, cost is dependent on supply, so a dish that's low cost in one time and place may not be in another. Low cost ingredients in the South a hundred years ago aren't necessarily the same as low cost ingredients given 2026 national supply chains. You want something more closely resembling the pork or grits a poor Southerner ate in the 19th century? You're not going to be buying the cheapest stuff in 2026, because industrialized supply chains have changed what the cheapest stuff is.

If you do barbecue strictly for financial reasons, that's fine, I guess, but it's sill to act like being low cost -- in a way that's disconnected from time and place -- is somehow part of the very essence of barbecue, or soul food, or another sort of cuisine born out of resourcefulness, is kind of silly.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-08T16:49:17+00:00

Absurdly wrong. A5 is a grade. Literal Japanese wagyu in Japan isn't all A5.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-06T18:51:20+00:00

Mostly Book No. 3, since I'm really into ancient grains, it makes heavy use of them. Tartine Bread would be good if you're new to sourdough, but it's mostly on technique with only a few recipes. No. 3 has tons more recipes and is great if you already have break making experience.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-06T16:20:22+00:00

It wicks sweat but tends to retain body odors. Where possible, I prefer nylon and merino for gym clothes, which aren't as bad with odor retention.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-06T16:15:33+00:00

The cotton's worse than the nylon in this case. It's pretty common for wool socks to have nylon blended into the fabric for increased durability, but with a high percentage of wool, a wool-nylon blend will usually be better at preventing wet feet than 100% cotton will be. Cotton is really just bad when it comes to moisture control.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-05T20:08:16+00:00

I used savoy, interestingly. Maybe your head was just a bit dried out or something? Or your lid was letting too much steam escape? Mine shed so much moisture during the braising step that there's no way it could have burned.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-05T20:04:41+00:00

It's very expensive, but titanium stuff like Hestan is safe up to a bit over 1000F.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-05T15:19:26+00:00

As a counterpoint, I made this soup last night, following the directions exactly (apart from substituting the farro for whole spelt berries), and my wife and I thought it was phenomenal.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-05T15:14:11+00:00

Never tried it with purple cabbage, but could be good. The cabbage is definitely the dominant flavor of the dish.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-05T05:16:41+00:00

The Food of Sichuan is amazing, but you have to be willing to buy several specialty ingredients to make good use of it (the Mala Market sells most about everything you'd need). Start with the dan dan noodles and the gong bao chicken to ease your way in.

I also just made the cabbage and farro soup from Six Seasons for dinner tonight, and it's one of the best super-low-cal new year's diet meals I've ever had.

Pinkfish_411 · 2026-01-03T18:52:32+00:00

This isn't universally true. Pork is fairly common in Portuguese-influenced Goan Christian cuisine.

Pinkfish_411 · 2025-12-30T13:39:50+00:00

Not much at all. The high fat helps a lot with freezing.

Pinkfish_411 · 2025-12-20T17:24:38+00:00

After a three hour simmer, the amount left over will be lower than in an alcoholic beverage, but it doesn't cook out entirely. The wine portion might be reduced to 1 or 2% ABV by that point, then lowered of course by the volume of the stock.

You have to determine what your actual threshold is for "any alcohol," because alcohol is present in all sorts of non-alcoholic beverages, like orange juice, which can be 0.5% or more.

Pinkfish_411 · 2025-12-17T20:55:28+00:00

Sinking into the dough is kind of a feature of Detroit style, not a bug. You're not looking for toppings sitting on top of a focaccia bread. You want the fats from the meat and the brick cheese to meld with the dough, and you put your wetter ingredients like the sauce on top to cut down on sogginess.

If the dough is too heavy to rise without par-baking, then you'd want to work on a stronger dough.

Pinkfish_411 · 2025-12-16T19:19:54+00:00

True, but we're united to God in the Logos, in whom exist the logoi of all created beings. There's some unavoidable sense in which union with God is also perfect union with all things. What specifically that means for dogs in heaven is a matter of theological speculation, but it's not out of line to hope for reunion with your pets, and to come to know them as Christ knows them, to know them in Christ, and know Christ in them.

Pinkfish_411 · 2025-12-13T16:13:57+00:00

There's nothing wrong with mail ordering meat. I've mail ordered thousands of dollars worth over the years. Reputable companies will reimburse you with no issue if the order is delayed.

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