fuzzyhairedfreak

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

mi amor 🌸

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

whatever else you have to say about katy perry i do have to say "do you ever feel like a plastic bag" is maybe one of the all time funniest ways to start a song

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

the sith triumvirate

i just finished playing kotor 2 for the first time!! i enjoyed it sm i have like 55 hours on my save file lol

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

Odo is a way more dedicated fascist than Garak but the fandom doesn't really give him any shit about it

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

Sorry I Spent all mY spoons this week already and it's fucking Tuesday. We're heading to the knives

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

Fuck it, total dramas your garashir

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

Dracula Daily - May 3: Chicken Paprikash!

Welcome boils and ghouls to another year of Dracula Daily. It is the 3rd of May, and as our dear friend Jonathan treks his way across Central Europe, bound for ominous castle of Count Dracula, we encounter the first real star of this most foundational gothic novel: a spicy chicken dish fixed up with paprika. That's right, everyone! It's time for Chicken Paprikash!

Earlier this week, most of you (or at least I'm assuming most of you, because holy cow did a lot of y'all pile in after I posted it) will recall my guide to gathering the ingredients for this most essential of Dracula Daily Dinners. Tonight, we will discuss it's preparation, and whether or not the deviations I have made from the previous cycles rendition will pay off or not. So, if you've got those pots and pans ready, let's go!

Lets begin with the equipment you'll need for preparing Chicken Paprikash.

All the usual suspects are here. Knives, cutting board, some whisks and woodem spoons, a couple of bowls for ingredients. But the real stars of this show are going to be a large dutch oven, and a large building pot. Examples of these can be see in the photo above.

Once you have all your equipment ready, it's time to move on to the most annoying part of every dinner. It's time for...

Part One: Mise En Place

Cooking can be hard, or cooking can be easy. It all depends on how well prepared you are. If you have everything you need ready beforehand, actually cooking the meal can be a breeze. Sadly, this process will usually take up most of the time you spend making dinner. Is it worth the peace of mind later on? Probably, but I've never passed up a chance to gripe.

So, what all must we prepare for our Chicken Paprikash. Let's make a list:

Roughly 2 Pounds of Chicken Thights (salted preferably 1-4 hours beforehand)

2 Cups of Chicken Broth (or Stock)

2 Medium Yellow Onions (Chopped or Diced, to your preference)

2 Roma Tomatoes (Diced this time, with their seeds removed)

2 Hungarian Wax Peppers (Diced as well, be sure to remove those seeds unless you want to go for a ride like dear Jonathan)

2 Cloves of Garlic (Minced) (Don't let your desire to protect yourself from the undead lead you to add more, garlic is one of those flavors that can radically alter a dish in only small quantities)

About half a stick of butter (Though for this task you could substitute with some kind of oil or lard. Lard will make this dish even more rich, but butter is the easier option.)

3/4 Cup of Full Fat Sour Cream

1/4 Cup of Heavy Whipping Cream (make sure to shake your carton beforehand, this stuff gets clumpy if it's left undisturbed)

3 Tablespoons of All Purpose Flour

4 Tablespoons of Sweet Hungarian Paprika + 1 Tablespoon of Hot Hungarian Paprika (Stirred together for ease later on)

Salt + Pepper (To your liking)

1 Bag of Spaetzle

With all this completed, it's time to get started in earnest

Part Two - Get Cooking

Alright, with all our ingredients in hand, its finally time to start cooking.

The very first thing we're going to do is brown our chicken thighs. Set your dutch oven over a large burner, and get the heat up high. When ready, turn the heat down to medium or medium-high. This change is important, unless you want to smoke out your kitchen. Remember, smoky paprika is great, but nobody likes smoky dry wall.

Once you've prepared your pot, and lightly brushed your thighs with a high heat cooking oil (I prefer avocado) begin to brown them. Lay your thighs skin-side down for 45 seconds to 1 minute. Any longer than this risks burning the skin. Repeat in batches until all your chicken thighs have a nice crispy exterior.

(Sadly, this is where the demonstration photos stop. Turns out, a breezier cooking schedule doesn't leave much time for snappy pictures.)

Once you've brown your thighs, remove them and set them aside. Now, it's time for the real corner stones of this dish. Take that half a stick of butter you have sitting around, and give it a good swirl around the bottom of the Dutch oven. As the butter melts (this will be very quick, so you must act accordingly) do everything you can to scrape up the delicious fond left over from browning your chicken. This residue will add flavor to our dish.

The moment your butter has fully liquified, and coated the whole bottom of your dutch oven, add in your onions. These we will stur around and fry until they are a nice golden brown. You can use this time as well to keep scraping up that fond on the bottom of the pot. Make sure to keep the heat on medium throughout.

Once your onions are nice golden brown, add your tomatoes and hungarian wax peppers. Stir these around with the onions and allow to cook for 2-3 minutes. When you begin to approach the last 45-30 seconds, add in your garlic, and cook until fragrant, but not a moment longer.

This next step is crucial. Remove your dutch oven from the heated burner, and allow to cool for roughly 3 minutes. Paprika is something of a tender spice, and it scorches very easily when heat is applied to it. Once the pot is no longer smoking hot, stir in the combined Paprika, and give it a good mix around all the ingredients in the pot. When you have finished, return the dutch oven to the heated burner.

Return your chicken thighs to the pot, and pour in the 2 cups of chicken broth. The thighs should not be entirely covered, but mostly. Bring the pot to a boil, and once boiling, cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and allow to simmer for a little under an hour, about 40 minutes.

Now, while this is happening, we will prepare our dairy thickener. In a bowl, mix the sour cream, heavy whipping cream, and flower. I prefer to use a tiny whisk for this task, as it does a very good job of moving through every part of the mixture, and combating any clumps from forming. A normal whisk should still work.

While you wait, you're going to pour about a quart of water into that steel pot, and bring to a boil. About 28 minutes from the completion of the paprikash, stir in your spaetzle to the boiling water. Allow to sit, undisturbed for roughly half an hour.

Once the 40 minutes are up, once again remove your chicken from the pot, and remove the dutch oven from the heat. Allow to cool once more, which will prevent your dairy mixture from curdling. Once cool, mix in the cream. Return the chicken to the Dutch oven, place the cover back on, and allow to heat through. About another 5-10 minutes.

And just like that, we're done! Now, let's find out how we did, shall we?

Part Three - Paprikash

This is how mine turned out. And I'm happy to report that my experimentation payed off! The heat really comes through this time, creating that good warming feeling you should get from chicken paprikash. The paprika is warm and smoky, and the chicken is tender and delicious. I'd never had spaetzel before, but I really liked it. It's still not as spicy as our good friend Jonathan described, but I think it's time that I stop differing to the opinions of a 22 year-old English orphan when it comes to any kind of cuisine.

The August Kessler Spatburgunder (Pinot Noir) proved to be an excellent pairing. The wine possesses a splendid earthiness, and it makes a beautiful partner for that smoky paprika flavor.

Well, that about does it for this year's Chicken Paprikash. Did you make Paprikash this year? How did it turn out? Anyway, I'll be making a dedicated effort to make more conversational posts with the program this year, and I cannot wait to discover what rocks we'll turn over this time around.

Join me on Sunday when we'll be diving into Tokaji, the Hungarian desert wine Dracula serves to Jonathan Harker at the end of his, if I may, strange journey.

Happy Dracula Daily, Everyone!

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

Dracula Daily Prep: Gather Your Paprikash!

It's that time of year again. Even as we speak, Jonathan Harker has departed for Transylvania, and the unhallowed halls of Castle Dracula. And as he makes his way towards that foreboding country, he will encounter a singular, most enticing of dishes: Paprika Hendl, or as we might know it better, Chicken Paprikash!

This traditional Central European dish explodes in popularity each May as we all gather around our virtual mess hall to enjoy the spirit of this most influential of gothic novels. Perhaps you yourself are considering throwing together a pot this year? Well, if you are, let this be your guide.

So, first, let's discuss the most important of the ingredients here: authentic hungarian paprika. Now, the recipe I first used last year called only for Sweet Paprika, but I personally found that version to be a little bland. I'm remedying this by adding some Hot Paprika as well. However, this is just my personal experimentation. Hungarian Hot Paprika can in fact be very hot, so if you're not comfortable with anything too spicy, feel free to opt only for the Sweet Paprika.

(Both of these I had to order online.)

Next, is another very important addition. As youre gathering your basic cornerstones of cooking (namely yellow onion, roma tomato, and garlic for this recipe) you may find yourself passing up on something that could vastly improve your dish. I'm talking, of course, about Hungarian Wax Peppers. These peppers range in heat, from meak and mild to slightly hotter than you'd average jalapeño. As per instruction, you should only use one. But on my end, I found the single pepper to be a little underwhelming, and I had trouble picking out it's flavor. So, this year, I'll be using two of them.

I got these from Central Market, an upmarket gorcer on Westheimer. They're a cousin of HEB, and you can find one or two in every major city in Texas. If you're elsewhere, try an alternative like Whole Foods, or try to find a European or International food market in your area.

Next, let's talk chicken. You can't have Chicken Paprkiash without the chicken, after all.

You're going to want to go with dark meat cuts for this. Traditionally the dish would use a mix of legs and thighs. Personally, I suggest using only the thighs, which you'll want to get bone-in and skin-on. The thigh provides a flater surface for browning than the leg, as well as more meat.

(A note on food safety, raw chicken will usually only last 2-3 days in the fridge. So you'll want to grab that fairly close to the day you're actually cooking this. If not, you can do what I'll be doing, and sticking it in the freezer until about 24 hours before I start cooking.)

So, as you gather your meat, produce, and spice you're probably asking yourself, "what on Earth am I going to be eating this with?" And the answer to that is spaetzle! A popular dumpling present in lots of Central European cooking, this is exactly what you need to tie this all together.

Now, while you should be able to find some in the international isle of most major grocers, you might also have to visit an international food store, or perhaps something more upmarket. If none of these options work, then there are a variety of other side dishes that work just as well. Egg noodles are a very popular choice, and in my very American attempt last year, I found that mashed potatoes work especially well.

Now that you've got all these things together, you're very nearly done. All that's left is the thickener. Paprikash is thickened using a blend of flour, heavy whipping cream, and sour cream. We'll get onto preparing this mixture in my post on actually cooking the paprikash, but until then, acquiring them should be a cake walk at any place food items are sold.

Now that will conclude the actual grocery list for just the Paprikash itself, but I do have one more pointer on how to really liven up this meal. Now, if you're under 21 or if perhaps you take after our dear, depraved, beloathed Count

Then you can skip this next bit. As a wine professional myself, I find that a well paired glass can add a tremendous flare to nearly any already great dinner. In the case of something like Chicken Paprkiash, and keeping with the Central European theme, I could hardly think of a better match than a good German Pinot Noir, also known as a Spatburgunder. Pinot from Germany typically has a very light body and a refreshing acidity that plays very well with the rich and creamy sauce of Chicken Paprikash. The palate of earth and red fruit should always pair nicely with the smoke of the paprika, as well as being a general good partner for any chicken. I myself am going with this 2020 Rheingau from August Kesseler.

And with that, we are done! Hit those checkout isles and make sure to get home before dark. Terrible things have sway over the world once the sun has gone down. So if the crowd does keep you locked up until nightfall, make sure to graciously accept any crucifixes given to you by kindly, elderly grandmothers and inn keepers. But whatever you do, make sure to pop in on Friday, when I'll be sharing a step by step guide on taking these ingredients and turning them into a dinner that will make our good friend Jonathan go red as a fire truck!

Happy Dracula Week everybody!

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

Darshen is so me

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

usamericans do you realise that a stereotype we have about u is that you really really love ice. like the amount of ice you put in your drinks and all your ice machines are really silly to us. do your fridges genuinely produce ice????

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

Really awesome article, recommend reading the whole thing

"Drive by the multimillion-dollar homes, pools and golf courses of the renowned New York escape, Southampton, and you would scarcely know there is an Indigenous population there. But the Shinnecock have been on Long Island for the last 13,000 years, or as the Shinnecock will tell you, 400 generations.

They are one of New York’s oldest self-governing tribes, and about half of the tribal members live on the 900-acre peninsular reservation. Traditionally, the Shinnecock were a mariner tribe, and their history as expert fishermen, hunters, farmers and whalers has proven critical in the absence of other economic opportunities. Today, however, the tribe faces constant ecological threats.

The more immediate threat is to the marine life that the nation has depended on to sustain them.

“For generations, we were taught how to live off the land, or how to fish for what we need, but it’s just not possible any more because the nitrogen levels in the sea,” said Troge. “It’s killing all of the fish and the shellfish that have sustained us.”"

...

“It really amazed me that so many of the sisters joined us,” said Troge, “They were so respectful.”

When Genia contacted the monastery to discuss collaborating with the kelp farm, Sister Joan was quickly on board.

“How can we deny them that?” she says, “The bay has their name!”

The sisters offered a cottage at their retreat center to serve as a hatchery. When the question of finances came up, Sister Joan was clear: anything profits made from the kelp farm belonged to the Shinnecock. “We’re here to support you and to affirm you,” she said.

Within a couple of months, the cottage was transformed with fish tanks and warming lights. In 2021, the Shinnecock Kelp Farm was launched, and to date, 20 lines of kelp have been planted in the bay. The sisters help check the kelp lines or watching Troge’s one-year-old son when she visits. During the pandemic, they offered a “kind words program”, where sisters sang and recited poetry to the seedlings; now, they’re making it a regular practice.

Success

In the last two farming seasons, Troge has seen an increase in scallops, clams, sea horses, and other species she hasn’t seen in years, sheltering in their kelp lines. “We expanded our hatchery 10 times this season,” said Hopson Begun. In addition to their original farming site, they have since added two more at opposite ends of the bay. They hope, in time, to expand their farm sites deeper into the bay and ocean, and are currently working to secure the boats they would need to do so.

...

As a community in the throes of adversity, the outlook for future generations of tribal members may seem unpromising. But the Shinnecock are placing their trust in the same foundational values that have sustained them for 13,000 years.

“As Shinnecock we are taught to preserve our life for the next seven generations,” said Tela, “It’s what drives us to take action to protect the water now.”

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

every single server with a “vent channel” is awkward, creepy and toxic so i came up with the idea of a “medical status” channel which i didn’t even have to write rules for everyone just read my mind and is perfectly using it as intended and hopefully it speaks for itself

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

GOd okay I went to my neighbor’s housewarming, and don’t get me wrong, I love parties (if everybody doesn’t give me  all of their attention all the time and tell me that i’m smart and funny and pretty I’ll DIE), but I forget how stressful it is to introduce yourself to new people when you work in a politically charged field.  The whole evening was this:

Party Guest:  So, have you lived in the area long?

[Okay, let’s think. White male, thirties, tall, muscle tee, sandals, wedding ring, but here without a partner.  I just overheard him complaining about tariffs, so he’s either left-leaning or a disillusioned republican.  Good sign, definitely not MAGA.  Ah, that’s right, he brought his daughters – ages 5 and 7, well-behaved in a crowd – and they’re wearing princess dresses… doting father with an active role in raising his kids, lets them choose their own outfits… my gut is telling me heterosexual male feminist.  That could be good or bad – statistically speaking, he believes in climate change… but that means 50/50 odds of anti-nuclear sentiment.  I need more information, but I must answer carefully.  We’re rapidly approaching the Question.]

Me: Not long!  I just moved down from Boston a few months ago –

[Ball is in his court.  Boston has been in the news lately for being an immigrant sanctuary city, but that’s mostly local news – I’ll get information based on body language.  Oh, I may have made a tactical error.  This is an opportunity for sports rivalry to come up, and I am ill-educated on the subject.  Quick, I need a counter maneuver.] 

Me: – but I actually grew up in the area.

[Good save, and a decent delaying action.  If he takes the bait, I can redirect the conversation to local childhood reminiscence.  He’s had two margaritas, and they’re starting to affect him – talking a bit too loud, and his expansive hand gestures bespeak more than typical New Jerseyan gregariousness.  That could be to my advantage… unless it makes him too bold].

Party Guest:  Coming back home for family, or is it a work thing?

[Shit, okay, he asked about work.  This could be the endgame… but he’s foolishly thrown me a lifeline.  I can’t lie, the hosts already know the real answer, but I can dissemble by playing to his fatherly conversational weak spots.]

Me:  I moved for work, but my family does live nearby, so that’s a nice perk as well.  I get to see my nephews a lot more often!  The eldest just turned five.

[That should do it.  My nephews are about the same age as his kids, which will build a rapport and redirect the conversation back to himself.  It should be easy to get him talking about his daughters.  Unless… oh no.  He’s two drinks in on a Sunday night and working on a third in front of his children, while his wife stays home.  She wakes up earlier than him, potentially much earlier.  He’s been talking about the economy a lot.  Damn, recently laid off?  He’s going to focus on work.]

Party Guest: That’s awesome.  What sort of job?

[The brilliant bastard.  He’s good, he’s very good.  Truly a worthy opponent.  Pierced right through every single gambit and went straight to the Question. Have I met my match? Will I finally be humbled?  It’s do or die.]

Me:  I’m an engineer at an energy company.

[Alea iacta est.]

Party Guest:  Energy?

[Last chance.  He's intelligent and fiendishly clever, but hope against hope that he’s more well-read in Aristotle than Rutherford.  This should dead-end him]

Me:  Nuclear, kind of. Fusion, not fission.

Party Guest:  Oh, that sounds cool.

Me:  Mhm.  So, how do you know Bill and Stephanie?

Party Guest:  I was in film school with Bill.  Have you seen his documentary?

[Ha. Another victory, all the sweeter for having been hard-fought. Time for a celebratory cornichon, maybe some crackers]

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

ily beautiful transgenders on my phone

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

WHO IS USING THIS

AN APP??? THEY HAVE A FUNCTIONING WEBSITE

THE LAST FUNCTIONING WEBSITE

[fuzzyhairedfreak]

i’m starting a collection