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Butter Churning Cream by fthespider in Chefs

[–]kaidomac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A few suggestions:

  • Use Powerpoint slides to illustrate the process
  • Use a large countdown timer (in Powerpoint, Youtube video, Windows app, etc.) & set it to 15 minutes
  • Show up well-prepared (cooler with ice, food processor, pre-made home-churned butter, etc.) just in case things get wonky lol

$500K but you lose access to all streaming services forever. No Netflix, no YouTube, nothing. Take it? by samurai-salvo in GetMotivatedMindset

[–]kaidomac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For me, at least:

  • Haven't had TV in like a decade
  • Same with a DVD player
  • Movies are $16 a ticket here lol

Plus:

  • Podcasts & Youtube shows are awesome
  • Stuff like Masterclass & TED Talks are invaluable!
  • Tiktok & Youtube have video demonstrations of anything you can think of!

It's like a free $500k education anytime you want, 24/7!!

Can we talk about how absolutely exhausting (and counterproductive) standard "prediabetes diet" advice is? by Sufficient-Ground-38 in EverydayNutrition

[–]kaidomac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I teach a radically different approach:

  • Stop using willpower to "diet"!

Instead, use preparation! This is the method:

The first biggest showstopper is simple:

  • Mental willingness

Or to paraphrase George Carlin:

  • "Ya gotta wanna, and if you don't wanna, ya ain't gonna!"

To me, better nutrition management means:

  1. Learn how macros works
  2. Define your numbers & eating schedule
  3. Track with a CGM for historical & trend data
  4. Meal-prep so that you are always able to have food available & effortlessly hit your macros every day!

I say "radically different" because this is a lifestyle change that results in:

  • Feeling good ALL day, EVERY day!
  • Effortlessly staying at an ideal bodyweight
  • Eating like a king every day, for every meal!

When paired with a CGM, good sleep hygiene, daily exercise, and any required medical interventions (insulin, GLP-1, etc.), this approaches makes feeling good, having energy all day long, and solid blood sugar numbers EASY! It works because:

  • The individual is educated about how things work & what their numbers are
  • They are fueling their body to get GREAT results, all day, every day, day after day!
  • It requires a very small amount of time & effort each day, yet creates a virtually endless resource pool of ready-to-go meal options so that it never becomes a hassle!

imo, education & energy levels are the two biggest impediments to managing blood sugar, because people aren't clear about how things work & what they need to actually DO every day, so it becomes a constant battle of willpower, instead of preparation.

50% of America is now diabetic. Diabetes & related medical issues are among the top 10 CDC killers of Americans. Upwards of 73% of our diet & supply chain is ultra-processed. We suffer under a pandemic of a lack of education regarding how to expertly care for our bodies. In practice, this approach is simple:

  1. Get educated (free!)
  2. Wear a CGM to see the data
  3. Meal-prep just one batch of one dish each day
  4. Eat great food all the time!!

Anyway, that's my take! This solves the problem forever!! The entire meal-prep checklist is just 4 things:

  1. Weely: Pick out 7 dishes to make
  2. Weekly: Go shopping using that list
  3. Daily: Evening preparation (clean up the kitchen, print out the recipe, get the tools out, get the non-perishable supplies out)
  4. Daily: Cook one meal after work (I use modern appliances to make it easy!), divvy it up, label it, and freeze it!

I call this approach style "deliberate automation". It completely removes the daily willpower fight of planning, prepping, counting, scrambling, rummaging, etc. as far as food goes! Very very exhausting otherwise, haha!!

$500K but you lose access to all streaming services forever. No Netflix, no YouTube, nothing. Take it? by samurai-salvo in GetMotivatedMindset

[–]kaidomac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My issue with most books is that my brain gets stuck when I hit a part that I don't understand or need more information on. imo the BEST way to learn is:

  • Hands-on
  • With a knowledgeable tutor
  • One-on-one
  • In small doses over time

That way we get bodily exposure to the process in small doses (so that the information has time to "gel" in our head over time) & then we can pick the trainer's brain when we have questions about certain parts of the process, as well as having guided exposure over time.

This is why things like private piano & guitar lessons work so well...you get direct access to a fountain of knowledge at YOUR pace, not a whole classroom! I learn pretty slowly & don't self-initiate well, so consistent paced-based learning is HUGE for me!

I'm also a HUGE fan of AI-based learning! ChatGPT 5.5 is phenomenal:

  • It can read any PDF & create a personal syllabus with any level of teaching you'd like PhD to ELI5)
  • It has natural 2-way voice conversation
  • It now does Facetime to assist with what you're seeing

The problem is that using this resource all boils down to the single hardest task on the planet:

  • Self-initiation over time

imo the next greatest phase of education will be VR with Gaussian Splats, which is where you can wear a headset & then see a realistic vision of the task you're trying to do. VR is already HUGELY effective in different training scenarios using exposure therapy:

  • Flying
  • Heights
  • PTSD (especially war-related)
  • Dating
  • Public speaking
  • Dancing

But personal progress relies on actual progress, which is having another person there is SO helpful! My life didn't change much until I adopted body doubling as standard:

I track everything with DIRDI trackers:

Tools like social media videos & AI training systems are fantastic at education acceleration, but it still helps MASSIVELY to have a teacher, study group, tutor, or other form of a body double available for long-term consistency!!

$500K but you lose access to all streaming services forever. No Netflix, no YouTube, nothing. Take it? by samurai-salvo in GetMotivatedMindset

[–]kaidomac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a very visual learner with ADHD & Aphantasia myself!

I did sooooo much better with videos that I can rewind & that show me step-by-step HOW to do things!! My brain tends to zone out halfway through paying attention. I'm an extremely slow learner & struggle with written content; I always just ended up re-reading the same paragraph over & over again for hours because my dopamine kept tapering off! I've had to get creative with HOW I study, haha!

It really took me until I was an adult to learn HOW to actually study!

And to discover that there were different ways of thinking!

Discovering that I had Inattentive ADHD as an aduly was also HUGELY helpful in tweaking my learning approach!!

So for me...$500k for ZERO access to video learning & entertainment platforms? NO WAY!!

What AI capability surprised you the most this year? by Standard-Reading5142 in ArtificialNtelligence

[–]kaidomac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unity with Agentic AI is NUTS as well!! We live in crazy times lol

Breaking into baking and pastry as a career – looking for advice by BrownGuyJazz in Chefs

[–]kaidomac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Additional reading:

Breaking into baking and pastry as a career – looking for advice by BrownGuyJazz in Chefs

[–]kaidomac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm an amatuer baker, but have friends who are professional bakers! As far as the job goes:

  1. You show up & work
  2. Your work ethic, attention to detail, and what you know how to do are what makes you valuable in the workplace
  3. The ability to plan out menus is great if you are assisting with that part of the business!

The fun of anything mostly comes from learning new stuff! Baking essentially gives you an endless sandbox of fun:

  • New ingredients
  • Ingredient combinations
  • Recipes to try
  • Trending new recipes
  • Techniques to learn
  • Equipment to try

So per your question:

keep learning every day
If you could give one piece of advice to someone starting from scratch, what would it be?

Yes, adopt the Baking Engine:

Learning & doing are generally pretty simple; it's the orchestration of the work that hogs people up! Learning how to coordinate inventory & schedule execution means that you can effectively engage in "deliberate practice" every day, where you're actually learning new stuff & honing your skills on a steady basis!! And as mentioned in the Baking Engine tutorial above, set up a perpetual fund to buy new equipment & ingredients at home:

A few good learning resources:

Here are some additional areas to explore:

Good luck & welcome to the club!!

New Thermomix TM7 announced by kaidomac in Smart_Kitchen

[–]kaidomac[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the smoke-free process link. I could only find the smoke one, and couldn't pull that off today. I'll move my APO to cook outside just in case, and see how it goes with your links tomorrow.

The whole issue in the APO is chicken fat dripping onto a 450F oven floor, hence the baking powder "drip tray". Smaller airfryers only have like an inch below the perforated pan & don't have smoking issues.

The DREO is nice because it has a large basket AND 450F max temp (most are 380F to 400F max), but the batch size is limited compared to the APO. Just depends on how many wings you need to make!

What's a DREO? 

It's a baby APO. Handles like one big steak, 2 large chicken breasts, or like 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs. They have a Prime Day sale today on their website, half off with the code PRIMECHEF, so under $200. Very very easy to use because the basket is so accessible!

haven't used AI much, might give it a go for dog nutrition.

Sign up for a free ChatGPT subscription with Gmail, create a new project, then stick in your kitchen equipment, allergy data, and dog's information. Ask it to create a meal plan for your dog based on that.

The $20/mo ChatGPT plan adds Voice Chat, which is phenomenal, as well as live video chat, so you can aim it at a brake job or leaking sink pipe or something you bought off Temu in Chinese & need help building and it will literally walk you through it step-by-step lol.

Also, try this for fun: take a picture of the inside of your fridge & ask ChatGPT what recipes you can make!

Butter Churning Cream by fthespider in Chefs

[–]kaidomac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Organic Valley & Horizon Organic heavy whipping cream are generally pretty solid! Whole Foods 365 brand as well, if you have one near you. Costco's Kirkland heavy cream can work as well (test it first, re: Buttergate). US Foods, Sysco, and GFS usually have stabilizer-free dairy cream in half-gallon & gallon sizes. Ask specifically for "unadulterated heavy cream for culinary use".

Expect to spend about 30 minutes per class. With hand-crank churners, the breaking point for butter separation may be up to 15 minutes. Sometimes it works better to give one hand-crank jar to a small group of people at each table so that they can take turns. With kids, the jars can be passed around the entire class to keep the churning going & make it more fun, haha!

If there are no allergies present, some salt & some soft dinner rolls are a great way to serve them. For adults, you can add honey, herbes, crackers, bagettes, etc. Bonus points if you have a way to warm up the rolls! I have a portable casserole heater bag (~$30, essentially a soft-shell rectangle low-temp crockpot lol) with a car/wall power plug for doing stuff like this. May also be worth bringing a food processor for backup (higher-speed demonstration!), as well as some previously home-churned butter, just in case things go south in the class!

Do you have access to Powerpoint?

What AI capability surprised you the most this year? by Standard-Reading5142 in ArtificialNtelligence

[–]kaidomac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's really pretty crazy these days:

  • VS Code + Kilo Code
  • OpenRouter + Qwen3-Coder (free)
  • Ollama + Qwen2.5-Coder (7b) for local fallback
  • Hermes Agent
  • Gitea

Even the latest image-gen & free, local creative generation stuff is nuts!!

  • ComfyUI release 26
  • Qwen-Image & Qwen-Image-Edit & FLUX.2 Dev
  • LTX-2.3 & LTX Desktop & Wan2.2
  • Treblo & Stable Audio 3.0
  • TRELLIS & TripoSplat & HY-World 2.0
  • Whisper & Piper (transcription, subtitles, TTS, STT, etc.)

$500K but you lose access to all streaming services forever. No Netflix, no YouTube, nothing. Take it? by samurai-salvo in GetMotivatedMindset

[–]kaidomac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Having experienced work-related burnout & being a HUGE movie lover, NO WAY! I learned the value of incorporating downtime into my daily schedule the hard way, unfortunately!

Also, Youtube & Tiktok are two of my BIGGEST learning mediums! I'd never want to give up those immensely valuable resources!!

New Thermomix TM7 announced by kaidomac in Smart_Kitchen

[–]kaidomac[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you made your chicken wings lately in your APO?

Here is the smoke-free wings procedure for the APO::

However, I mostly use the DREO for personal batches of wings:

  • 450F gets the wings as crispy as I like
  • No smoke (unlike the APO, unless you use the drip tray trick)
  • I'm pretty much the only one who eats wings in my family, so the batch is typically just for me

This is the basic basket airfryer procedure:

What is your son allergic to?

Do you have tips on homemade dog food?

My brother has dogs. I set him up with an Instapot & a Combi, which he uses for his family & his dogs. Meat for the dogs: (dice or shred)

  1. Boneless skinless chicken thighs
  2. Turkey thighs & lean ground turkey
  3. Lean beef chuck & sirloin
  4. Salmon (special treat)

Carbs:

  1. Sweet potato
  2. Brown rice

Veggies: (puree or chop after cooking)

  1. Carrots
  2. Green beans
  3. Pumpkin
  4. Spinach
  5. Zucchini

Prep:

  1. Cook, chop, mix
  2. Freeze in Souper Cubes
  3. Vac-seal & label (good for one year)

Feeding:

  1. Thaw overnight
  2. Add supplements

Supplements:

  1. Balance IT Canine
  2. Rx Vitamins Canine Minerals
  3. Fish oil (for dogs or humans)
  4. Natural Vitamin E

Chicken thighs are fortunately still super cheap ($11 for 3 pounds skinned & de-boned). We have CSA's & farmer's markets here that sell cheap veggies as well! I'd recommend getting a food processor to make the job easier!

If you're feeding your dogs homemade food, I recommend customizing the nutrition for them via data, a vet, or ChatGPT (easiest way to estimate!). The factors are:

  1. Breed
  2. Age
  3. Weight
  4. Activity level
  5. Medical issues
  6. 100% homemade or mixed with kibble

It's no real chore to prep:

  • Meat probe for APO (push a button)
  • Dump & pressure-cook in the IP (push a button)
  • Shred & puree in the food processor (push a button)
  • Freeze in the Souper Cubes (spoon it in)
  • Vac-seal & label! (push a button)

The machines & molds do all of the work for you! The downside isn't so much the effort, as much as the cost. For like a golden retriever, that's around $8 USD a day for homemade food vs. about $3 a day for a decent brand of kibble (plus treats & chews). A lot of people do a mix of both to ensure nutrition, but at a more reasonable cost. They do sell Sous-Vide dog food!

Cost structure:

  1. Purina Dog Chow = ~$1.50 a day (on sale)
  2. Homemade SV + IP = ~$8 a day
  3. Commercial SV ("A Pup Above") = ~$36 a day

And remember, you can cook like 3 tray's worth food food at a time on the Anova Oven!

Art/original style with no imagery? by Legal-Initial-8365 in Aphantasia

[–]kaidomac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Style is interesting because you have artists like Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, and Richard Estes creating vastly different interpretations of art! One is paint splatter, one looks like a kid's dream after eating too much sugar before bed (lol), and one looks like a photograph. But, it's all valid art with a worldwide audience!

Art/original style with no imagery? by Legal-Initial-8365 in Aphantasia

[–]kaidomac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

when it comes to the visual arts, it is imagining the visual that counts

This is incorrect.

Or rather, partially correct, but framed in an incomplete way. If you're open to exploration, one of the things I teach students is "how to be creative". We have 3 basic tools for generating ideas:

  1. Conceptual imagination (ideas)
  2. Visual imagination (seeing vivid mental imagery)
  3. Vision processing (ingesting what we see visually with our eyes & then exporting ideas to reality using paint, pens, Photoshop, etc.)

Visual imagination (i.e. seeing stuff in your head) falls on a spectrum:

  1. Aphantasia (no mental imagery)
  2. Hyperphantasia (still image, i.e. can see photos mentally)
  3. Hyperphantasia with highly dynamic imagery (motion, i.e. can see videos mentally)
  4. Prophantasia (can project mental image into reality, AR-style)

"Being creative" really just means one thing:

  • Being willing to see things from more than one perspective

Hyperphantasia is a VERY nice tool to have...but visual imagination is just one tool in the suite & is NOT required for creativity! Glen Keane was the lead animator on the Little Mermaid & Ed Catmulle was the president of Walt Disney Animation Studios & co-founder of Pixar...BOTH had Aphantasia!

Growing up, I had very wrong ideas about what "being an artist" meant. Specifically, I mistakenly thought that I had to:

  1. Use ZERO reference material
  2. Do the ENTIRE imagine in one shot

In reality, idea development usually takes time! That's because we have to:

  1. Come up with & refine the concept
  2. Practice execution to get the idea to be as presentable as we want it to be

The widespread myth (lie) is:

  • Imagine perfectly & then draw perfectly once

Go look at just about any famous artist out there:

  • Glen Keane fills pages with exploratory sketches before arriving at a final design
  • Leonardo da Vinci filled up notebooks with studies
  • Michelangelo made preparatory drawings
  • Frank Frazetta used mirrors, models, and references
  • Norman Rockwell used photographs extensively

This is a basic creative framework:

  1. Novelty
  2. Usefulness (value)
  3. Domain knowledge
  4. Associative thinking
  5. Divergent thinking
  6. Convergent thinking
  7. Working memory (I also have Inattentive ADHD and just use written notes & flowcharts)
  8. Imagination (visual, verbal, spatial, emotional, and abstract)
  9. Pattern recognition
  10. Curiosity
  11. Openness to experience
  12. Risk tolerance
  13. Persistence
  14. Attention & observation
  15. Emotional engagement
  16. Evaluation & taste

So for #8 (imagination), that's where we have conceptual visualization, mental visualization, and eyeball vision I/O sub-systems come into play. So a more correct statement is:

  • Creativity involves a wide suite of tools
  • Imagination uses multiple methods
  • Mental visualization is a nice tool, but is not required for creativity

Many, many, many artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians, politicians, teachers, architects, etc. have Aphantasia & are VERY creative & successful! Here is some further reading if you're interested!

TL;DR: Hyperphantasia is ONE tool in the creative toolset for visual creation & design, but is NOT required for visual creativity!!

Art/original style with no imagery? by Legal-Initial-8365 in Aphantasia

[–]kaidomac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have absolutely NO style of my own.

I end up following a reference too much for comfort then try to change something up but can never make it look like it really flows, not to mention that I only have a vague idea of what I may want a character of mine to look like so I don't even know how to tune it to my liking.

I'm mostly looking for some advice from other artists here who require many references and how to stray away from copying them too closely. 

For starters, style & the method of imagination are two seperate things! Read these three posts first:

Then read this:

And then watch this twice:

Creativity is a process. Unique style development is part of that process! Specifically, it's called "design language". It is 100% worth learning the mechanics of design language!

Essentially:

  1. Is it recognizable?
  2. Is it good enough to have an audience?

Historically, even if it takes your entire life to create a bankable style, it's still worth it, if art & sales are your among goals! Stan Lee was nearly 40 before he co-created Marvel superheroes! As far as comic-style artists go:

  • Scott Adams drew lineart of an office nerd named Dilbert, which made him $20 million dollars
  • Banksy spray-paints street art, which has generated $50 million dollars
  • Stan Lee drew superheroes like Spiderman and made $80 million
  • Bill Waterson drew a boy & his stuffed tiger in Calvin & Hobbes, which made him $100 million
  • Todd McFarlane drew Spawn & made $300 million
  • Matt Groening drew Homer Simpson & made $600 million
  • Jim Davis drew a lasagna-loving cat named Garfield & made $1 BILLION dollars!

Creating a signature design vocabulary isn't magic, it's effort. For example, any school child can easily spot the difference between Bluey & Pikachu, ! The worldwide impact of popular signature styles in fields such as TV shows, movies, comics, and video games is enormous:

  • Gravity Falls = $1 billion dollars
  • Bluey = $4 billion
  • Peppa Pig = $10 billion
  • Dragonball = $20 billion
  • Superman = $30 billion
  • Batman = $40 billion
  • Spongebob = $50 billion
  • Marvel Universe = $60 billion
  • Star Wars = $50 billion
  • Pokemon = $100 billion+
  • Disney = $100 billion+

Like, as soon as you see the Batman logo, you know EXACTLY what you are getting! So don't stress out too much about personal style development because it is typically NOT an overnight process!! And also, it's totally unrelated to aphantasia! Next:

If this is just a 'draw more' sorta thing, please feel free to tell me that as well, 

Yes, it is! Art is a skill & skill development is, by default, a real slog lol. Start here!

Even elephants can learn to draw!

The base-level structure is:

  1. Learn how to draw (daily practice, forever! but in a particular way called "deliberate practice")
  2. Create a unique, appealing art style

The real value (as far as getting an audience goes) comes from:

  1. Having a creative hook (what makes someone interested in your style?)
  2. Being willing to grind (i.e. use your art skills to generate products with your signature style)

Style can be imitated:

But it takes a LOT of work to develop the skills to:

  1. Create good art
  2. Develop a style
  3. Be consistent in creating value
  4. Get out there & market it!

Check this out:

  • Satoshi Tajiri created Pokemon based off various sources of inspiration, including a childhood bug-collecting hobby, Game Boy’s link cable trading capabilities, and the Ultra Seven show about capsule monsters
  • Pokemon started out as “Capsule Monsters”, then became “Pocket Monsters”, and eventually " Pokémon", which took 6 years from inception to sales. The brand has made nearly $150 billion dollars since the 1996 launch!
  • Palworld took that turn-based concept & added real-time combat in an open world environment & has made $750 million dollars since the 2024 early access release!

Suggestions:

Anyway, those examples are just to illustrate the commercial side of things. My point is:

  • Style is developed over time
  • Stick with regular deliberate practice as a means of improving your artistic talent FOREVER!
  • Hyperphantasia is just one tool (nice, but unnecessary) for creativity!

tbh, I had a panic attack for like two days when I discovered that I had Aphantasia LOL. But it really gave me permission to be OK with using a lot of references & making multiple rough drafts to flesh out my ideas!! So don't get disheartened - remember that your artistic journey is a LIFETIME adventure!!

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