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[selenite-drywall]

Malenfant Secret Ingredient Gravy

I've been making biscuits and gravy a lot lately so I figured I'd share the recipe. The best biscuits for this are the Pillsbury kind out of the can but they're so easy to make on your own anyway. I'll put some biscuit stuff at the end of this post but for now it's Gravy Time.

Sausage gravy is an Acadian condiment and it's good on everything. The dominant flavor is black pepper, but the stuff that comes out of a can (the stuff they use in a hometown family diner) is absolutely disgusting because it lacks the Malenfant Secret Ingredient: garlic powder. Garlic powder adds a little bit of tang and reconciles the sweetness of the roux and the sharpness of the black pepper. It's not healthy, nor can you make it healthy.

Before you start, make sure you have:

A deep-walled frying pan

A sturdy spatula (metal is best, but use wood on a nonstick pan)

Milk

Flour

Ground meat (I prefer bacon and breakfast sausage, but I've done it with vegetarian substitutes. Just make sure the meat is seasoned)

Someone (preferably a friend and lover, but a family member works just fine) to prepare biscuits while you make this gravy– trust me you won't be able to do it at the same time.

Black pepper

Garlic powder (real garlic actually doesn't work for this— the texture and flavor profile is different)

How do you do it?

Brown your meat. Like I said, I like breakfast sausage and bacon; about two strips of bacon to a pound of sausage. Put a little butter in the pan and chop the bacon into little pieces. Cook it almost to edible before you add the sausage, breaking it into small pieces. Cook the sausage on pretty low heat, making sure you don't have any bits sticking to the bottom of the pan. Do Not drain the grease out of the pan; we will need it.

Add black pepper and garlic powder to the meat. Don't wimp out here! The rest of the gravy will be flour and milk, so you need the flavors to be strong. You literally want to add ~2 tablespoons of each per pound of meat. That's not a typo. Just cover it in pepper and then add maybe half that amount of garlic. My dad likes to put smoked paprika in at this stage, but it turns the gravy pink so I prefer to sprinkle it over the top when it's on my plate.

Now this is where the flour comes in. Sprinkle in about a tablespoon at a time and mix it until you can't see any more flour. Make sure the flour is toasting, but not burning. Repeat this process until the meat is no longer palatable and looks like it's covered in a grey film (about maybe six to eight tablespoons per pound of meat, all depending on how much grease is in the pan. Don't try to put it in all at once, though: you'll end up with clumps and a gravy that's way too sweet).

Toast the flour for a hot minute and then add in the milk a healthy splash at a time, stirring and scraping the bottom constantly. The milk will thicken around the meat almost instantly, which is when you add more milk. Keep this up until you get a nice thick gravy. Remember you can always add more milk (as long as there's heat under it). If it's too thin, don't try to add more flour. Just keep it on the heat until the milk boils off and thickens up.

Serve it on literally whatever. Fries, biscuits, a hamburger? The possibilities are endless.

Biscuits?

The most obvious thing to put sausage gravy on is biscuits. Like I said, storebought biscuits are great. If you don't have them, you can make them yourself. Or, if you just don't feel like it, slap this gravy on some sliced bread for a special treat we like to call Shit on a Shingle.

Our family recipe for biscuits is as follows:

These can be drop biscuits, but by following good technique you can get a nice flaky biscuit. Use cold butter, chopped real small, and cut the biscuits out of the dough instead of clumping them into balls.

Now go, and enjoy the least healthy breakfast human hands can make. And then maybe eat like a green salad for dinner. Stay frosty.

-s-d

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Good news guys just got kicked out of every paleobio class ever!

[selenite-drywall]

19 March 2020

Time: 19:01

Mood: moonsick

I love art. I got to go see an artist’s workshop today because he’s one of Kelsey’s relatives. Greg Johnson, who did the finishes on a lot of Wendell Castle pieces and who now does restoration of a lot of them, was showing us some pieces he was making for Wendy Maruyama, and it was soooooo cool! I’m not gonna say anything more about it because I’m sure it’s not like public and I could get in trouble blah blah blah but just keep an eye on Wendy Maruyama coming up cos what I saw was super sick! She makes furniture art and statuary stuff and it’s super sleek and fun and I’m definitely excited to see it. 

But enough bragging about my girlfriend’s connections lmao) I was thinking about impressionism earlier today and I realized the difference between impressionism and just a bad unfinished painting, and what a lot of art education misses, at least in primary school, is that it’s not just giving the impression of the scene. You don’t see, like, impressionist still-lifes (still-lives?) because it’s not about just showing what’s there. Impressionism came about when photography started to become feasible. Cameras can just show you what’s there at a specific point in time; impressionism is about showing you what it’s like to be there. How the light moves, the way fabric shifts, the clouds drifting. It’s the attempt to compress a short period of time into a single instant and extend that for hundreds of years by painting it in the real world. Good use of exposure in photography, and good photography in general continues to try to do this. And by teaching it in schools as just “oh that’s when it’s all blurry innnit?” is doing a disservice to the art form itself as well as to kids who are frustrated because they see ‘bad’ art being made and making people lots of money while they are focused on ‘good’ art without success. Art education is essential.

As always, feel free to chat, stay frosty, and wash your hands. 

-s-d

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18 March 2020

Time: inexorable

mood: also inexorable

It’s been a long time, been a long time, been a long boring, boring, boring ti-hime! So I hiatus’d for all of last semester because I was taking a poetry class for which I had to write fifteen minutes a day anyways so I fell off writing here and now it’s time to catch my dear readers back up to speed!

Kelsey was off on her Arch Away Semester tmtmtmtmtm in Houston Texas all of the fall semester, so I missed her a lot. She was working as an intern at some sort of engineering firm where her dad worked, so she got to CAD all sorts of things. I, meanwhile, took Field Methods at school and learned how to use a Brunton compass-- I’ll probably write an explanation post for them at some point because I’m love a Brunton. My poetry class went well, and it culminated in a set of poems that I wrote about my experiences growing up in Alaska and my sadness at leaving it as well as some emo shit about committing suicide by walking to the edge of the tidal flats at low tide and standing out there while the tide rises to consume you, so you can expect to see a lot less of my sadboy garbage, dear readers, because I’ve gotten a lot of it out of my system!

Now on to the present. RPI has cancelled all in-person classes due to the Corona virus, so we’re going to online classes and they kicked us all out of the dorms. I moved all my shit into Kelsey’s apartment, and I’m actually living with her and her mom in Rochester for the rest of Lent, functionally. I’m going to switch my flights back to Fairbanks so I can be home for Easter, because Will is bringing his girlfriend (!) back from his first year of college in Utah (NOT byu, you’ll be happy to hear). I’m worried about online classes at home, but I’m sure it’ll all pan out. I’ve been overall doing great, actually. I’ve started a bunch of little projects, and am excited to continue working on them with the increased free time I have now that I’m not going to class all day!

As always, feel free to hit me up. My ask box is open 24-fuckin-7 and I’m sure you’re all going stir crazy with me during this quarantine! Stay frosty, y’all, and wash your hands. 

-s-d

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August 4, 2019

Time: of endings and beginnings

Mood: energized?

I just finished reading Fullmetal Alchemist. The last little bit there made me cry harder than I've cried in a very long time. Good stuff.

Finishing a book always puts me in a wierd headspace. When I go back to school here in twenty-two days, I may not come back to Fairbanks for years. For all this, I know that it'll be more convenient to me, but I still can't help but feel like this is a bigger change than going to school in the first place was. I've changed so much since my first day of kindergarten. The world has changed around me. I don't want to leave it all behind, but... I know that I have to. I want to get out and explore. My world has to be bigger than the hundred and sixty acres I got to walk around in before they announced the subdivision.

I just hope that some day I get to come back and explore this, too.

Despite my melodramatic attitude, I'm really quite approachable! I swear. If you want, my ask box is open. And as always, dear readers, Stay Frosty!

-s-d

[selenite-drywall]

Out of curiosity – why do you say a PhD would make you less hireable? How does a PhD work for you? (7 years! is a long time! I do geology in England; we don't have accelerated programmes, as far as I'm aware, and PhDs here last 3 or 4 years.) Also, what would your PhD be on? Good luck with decisions and all, if at all you want to compare degree schemes and the like from across the pond I'd love to chat

Howdy! I say a PhD would make me less hireable because (at least in the US) a lot of the career options for Geologists are in oil and mining, and because those are such big companies they do tend to be picky about who they hire. Being overqualified for a position is a pretty sure way to get your resume ignored, so traditional wisdom here is that a master's is most hireable, and a PhD sets you up for a job as a professor or in research. Which aren't bad things! I would love to do either of them, I just don't know how good is be at them, you know?

As for the timing, it would be seven years total, counting the year of school I just did. That would make it four-ish years for my bachelor's and three years for my PhD. Here in the US a PhD typically takes five years after undergrad, so saving two years would be great.

As for what it would be on, most of the research faculty at RPI are looking at paleoclimates or geochemistry (like early Earth geochemistry) so I'd probably end up doing something along those lines. I would love to do something with exoplanets! But again, idk if I want to actually get a doctorate¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We'll see! I still have at least two years of undergrad to go anyway!

I'm curious to hear about your geology programs over there, though. How does college work there?

[selenite-drywall]

The 22nd of July

Time: 4:bed

Mood: present

Howdy n'yall! I'm done apologizing for my inconsistent update schedule to my nonexistent followers, so jot that down in your little notebook.

Sorry about that; I didn't mean to take such a hostile tone but I'm experimenting with not ever rewording. The results? It allows me to be lazy while also causing me to think in line with my writing is that makes sense and I know it doesn't, but hey. I'm not rewording it.

Anyway! I received an email from my school today. This is not surprising in and of itself; I receive a morning mail from them pretty much every day. However! This one invited me to apply to their accelerated PhD program.

Prose:

Writing that is not poetry

Pros:

PhD in seven-ish years instead of nine

Still graduate with a bachelor's when you finish undergrad

Extra financial aid during undergrad years

Grad school free with a research stipend and I don't have to apply

Research opportunities starting pretty much immediately

Cons:

Have a doctorate at the end; I excel in academic environments and I don't know how I'll do in a less-structured research situation

Have a doctorate at the end; less hireable

I'd be a bad proffessor

Big time commitment; my summers would be spent on research instead of coming home to Alaska

Big time commitment; I'm already committed to the Players TCom for this year

No summer jobs

No pfd money

No opportunities outside RPI for a while

I don't know. I have until the end of September to make a decision. I'd love to be a doctor but I'm scared of how to do it.

Comments? Advice? Wanna argue? My ask box is open. And as always, even as I struggle with this decision and you my loyal readership suffer knowing that I am in pain, I enjoin you to Stay Frosty.

-s-d

[selenite-drywall]

July 6

Time: late, so I'll make this quick

Mood: If anyone wants you/ Why isn't anyone callin'?

I went to a wedding today. It was a beautiful ceremony and I teared up at a couple points– especially after everyone toasted and the mic was passed to the groom and he choked up as he asked "Have you seen my wife?" On the outside I was just a little teary but on the inside I was crying like a bitch.

The whole thing made me realize a couple of things, though:

I want to get married. Like, really bad. I don't know if Kelsey's the person I want to get married to, but I want to be married. Which leads me into the next thing,

I'm not normal. I'm not going to settle down with a nice Catholic girl after a romcom romance and a gradeschool meetcute.

I want to be married in the Church, but a number of things complicate that, namely:

My own complicated relationship to the structure of the Church as it relates to my faith, as well as

My significant attraction to men,

My difficulty relating to other people and sharing my emotions in a situationally appropriate manner,

And my self image issues r.e. whether I'm actually capable of love it, deserving of it, capable of raising a child, ect...

But I'm still a hopeless romantic. What can you do? If you want to talk to me about any of the above, or about weddings, or about anything, shoot me an ask. And as always, Stay Frosty.

-s-d

[selenite-drywall]

July 26, 2019

Time: A bright summer evening

Mood: Calme

It’s been a bit since I wrote, yeah? I haven’t had my computer for a lawng time. Sent it in for repairs, but the darned replacement they sent in got sent to the wrong house. Now, a month or so later, after working with both Microsoft and UPS, and eventually (reluctantly) the troopers, I got it back!

I cannot recommend Microsoft customer service enough, though! The package being sent to the wrong house was entirely due to the fact that I live on the ass end of nowhere. 

In other news, I’ve been mowing pretty much constantly at work, which I hate. Now that July is coming, it’s getting hot here all day, and I have to wear a damn hard hat! Also I need new insoles for me boots, cos the last little felted wool numbers I put in there are wore flat, and I need arch support.

Speaking of Hot! I miss Kelsey a lot! I want to be back at school! I’m not doing enough fishing to want to be here in Alaska anymore! 

I did get my room assignment for next year though. Stackwyck with three randos. I’m lucky I don’t have any 8 ams, cos I’d have to be up at four to make them in time. This summer’s work will be good training for walking there and back every day. Well, at least there,))

My update schedule will probably get more consistent now that I have my lap top back top, so feel free to reach out for advice or questions. As always, Stay Frosty.

-s-d

[selenite-drywall]

June 3

Time: simultaneously before and after lunch

Mood: credulous

I suppose I should give you all (meanin Ralph and the pornbot) a special Pride Month Update!!!!

I'm still working sixty hours a week, which sucks, but all is temporary. Grace is back in town! She goes to St. Olaf in Minnesota, and their academic schedule means that she didn't get back until last sunday, so I hadn't seen her since Christmas Break! We went longboarding around town and talked a lot about everything. I wiped out pretty bad, but luckily didn't scrape anything up, so you can tell the haters I'm still in tip top shape.

It was good to talk to her again, but it was hard. She was a big part of my life for such a long time. But she's happy) She's dating this dude named Duncan back at St. Olaf, and I'm genuinely happy that she has someone there. We talked about our experiences dating again, and we're both glad we're still good friends.

Kelsey wanted to FaceTime yesterday so I have her a your of the house after dinner and she chatted with Grace. It wasn't the ideal timing to introduce my girlfriend to my ex, but it seemed like it went okay.

The weather here has been great, and I'm gayer than ever. Over the weekend it rained pretty hard, culminating in a five minute thunderstorm, but now it's nice and sunny with a breeze to keep the bugs and the edge off the heat.

This pride month I'd like to remind everyone to be kind, be kinned, and become the best you can be. My ask box is open, and as always, Stay Frosty.

-s-d

[selenite-drywall]

May 16

Time: Bedtime

Mood: Sleeby

For the last nine months or so, I've been listening to The Mountain Goats, as any dadly young queer boy is wont to do. The lyrics speak to me on a personal level, both because I'm at least a little emo sometimes and because I live in Alaska. Here's a little taste:

Mosquitos suck the blood out of my body/ Why don't they finish the job??

I live way out where no one beleive anyone could live

Where all summer long it's so hot that you can't think straight/ Where we pump water out of the well by hand/ Half a world away from the old Promised Land

I beat down the new path to the castle/ I come naked and alone

I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here/ Someday burns down/ And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away/ And I never come back to this town/ Again/ In my life

Anyway, enough of my musical taste. Work has been good! I got my first paycheck the other day, and while I'm voluntarily putting my money somewhere that I don't know I'm making good money. I'll have to ask someone about where that's going sometime.

I'm so close to finishing Ocaraina of Time, but the last boss fight here is so long and persnickety that I'm having trouble finishing it in one sitting. I'll get it one of these days. I'm ready to sleep now, and Mom is in the tub with G so I'm gonna head to bead, as they say.

And as I say, Stay Frosty.

-s-d

[selenite-drywall]

May 14

Time: almost seven, west virginia,

Mood: ridge mountains, shenandoah river

I would apologize for my recent short hiatus, but it turns out no one cares because I'm writing this for me, Ralph, and the porn bot.

Been Workin. The ten hour days drag on me a little bit, and I got mildly chastised today for walking too slow so there's that. The old guy in working with, Tony, is Catholic like me so he knows the Simards. He's chill. Taught me a lot about using ratchet straps already.

Speaking of the Simards, had a bike ride with Will on Sunday to get out of mom's hair for Mother's Day. It was fun getting to chat with him. That man is so cute when he has to interact with anyone in a service environment. The gal at Bagels and Brew thought we were a couple and bagged our stuff together even though we payed separate. Maybe that's wishful thinking. I don’t know.

Dad took me and G up to Weller twice this weekend so I could practice on my longboard. Turns out dad's better at it than I am! He had a skateboard when he was younger, apparently. Ridiculous, getting shown up as a poser by my own dad!

I'm going to change into pjs now. If y'all want to talk, my ask box is always open. Stay Frosty.

-s-d

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business casual.jpeg

done in Krita

[selenite-drywall]

May 9

Will is graduating tomorrow! And I’m gonna show up covered in dirt and grime because the ceremony starts at 5 and I get off work at 5:30! But Mass ends and Commencement starts at 6 so I should be able to make it in time. I’m proud of him, even though I have no right to be. 

I’m getting so annoyed by my siblings. Specifically the younger three. I should never have brought that damn longboard back. The novelty is irresistible to these fools so Georgi has not gotten off the thing for the last three days. I have said in the past that I enjoyed the noise of the house and that I missed it when I went to school but I realize now that that sentiment came from a time where I was not getting any positive human contact at all, or much less than I needed, because not only did I not seek it out but I actively avoided it. Now that I know I can just choose to have a positive human interaction when I need it, the predominantly negative interactions around the house aren’t as interesting or attractive. Not that things were this bad when I was in Euro and really needing a hug. Mom has driven Franzi to spend all of her time in her room, only coming up to eat before immediately going back downstairs. Of course, Franzi is in Euro now, so she’d probably be doing that anyways. I don’t know. I used to think they were mutually antagonistic and that it was just whatever, but now I realize that while they are for sure mutually antagonistic, one of them is fifty goddamn years old and abusing a position of power over her sixteen year old daughter to make up for the fact that she lost control over her two oldest.

Speaking of which, as a person now in control of one of her two oldest, I thought about dyeing my hair today. I would want it in a solid color, and matte, not shiny. I want really vivid color. I’m not sure if/ where I might stand on wearing skirts. I’m so self conscious about my clothes even when I wear just a tee shirt and jeans that I would never have the guts to do something that drastic. 

I wonder if my porn bot follower wants to weigh in on this. It must be lonely, having a consciousness consisting of a list of improbable women’s names and the same six photographs and headline structures with which to communicate. The poor thing probably doesn’t even know that there’s literally thousands of others like it, all dying to share their loads of provocative material with us. And if it did know, would it have the facility to feel anything about it? No.

I tangentially referenced Homestuck up there, and I do ask that you’ll forgive me. It was to segue into the fact that While I Was Waiting for the good lord to grant me the sweetest release from my consciousness, I decided to create a portrait. *Kurt Russel voice* Ralph, porn bot, (Wow if I’m gonna keep talking about you you need a name. Dear readers please send in suggestions) expect the unexpected. And a portrait of HIC. Soon.

If you want to name the porn bot, you can do it by sending me an ask. Please. I’m so lonely. It’s beginning to be difficult to Stay Frosty.

-s-d

[selenite-drywall]

May 8

Time: Almost 8

Mood: Fair

First full day of work today! Sorry for the radio silence, as it were, but seeing as my readership is a single bbw porn bot and someone’s bible verse twitter crawler, I don’t think anyone will fault me for it.

I got paired up with this old guy Tony today at the job site, ferrying things back and forth to Eilson. He hooked me up with all the hot Tips and Tricks about using ratchet straps. After two trips to the air force base, he said he was going home cos that was his eight hours. Then he talked to Kedrick and said we were going to his shop to put a pipe rack on one of the new fleet trucks. 

It only took two hours, which was unbelievable to me, someone who frequently does jobs like that with my father, but for whom those jobs would never take the expected amount of time. 

Dad’s talking to me about fishing for sheefish now. I would love to catch some sheefish. I haven’t yet and it would be fun. One of these weekends.

If you want to talk to me about fishing, or about anything, my ask box is open. And as always, Stay Frosty.

-s-d

[selenite-drywall]

May 6

Time: 14:21 AKST

Mood: Sonorous

Finally home! The jet lag times line up just perfectly so that I was able to wake up when the girls went off to school today and not feel unbelievably tired all day.

Went on a field trip with Georgi’s class to Creamer’s Field migratory waterfowl refuge here in Fairbanks. It’s a great place for an elementary school field trip because it’s outdoors, but the distances between things to see aren’t so long that the kids lose interest. Georgi’s class is full of hooligans though. Not a single one of them can keep their feet still and their mouth shut while an adf&g employee tries to keep them entertained. And they’re all wierdly obsessed with Bald Eagles, despite having no clue what one looks like (they kept pointing to random taxidermied birds of prey and saying they were baby bald eagles. Pathetic)

I had fun, though. Geo was a little cold, because there was wind and it snowed briefly on us while we were there. We got to see a red fox, and I got to see an ermine while I was waiting for the bus to show up. There were no birds in the mist nets, though, and I was hoping there would be because when I did this field trip as a kid we got to see the guy tag and release the bird right out of the mist net, and it was probably the coolest thing ever. 

I’m still playing phone tag with this guy over a job offer, and it’s frustrating because A) phone calls give me so much anxiety and B) it makes me look incompetent when I call and have to leave a message or I just miss his email and then have to call to confirm he’s still there. It’s rough.

Anyway, y’all, my ask box is open. And as I always say, Stay Frosty.

-s-d

[selenite-drywall]

May 5, 2019

Time: 12:10 local, 13:10 EST, 09:10 at home. T+ 6hrs since I woke up

Mood: impatient

I’m finally on my way! Just took a flight from Albany to Chicago, survived that. Two hours isn’t that long, but when the whole plane is the size of a school bus only half as tall and your seat doesn’t recline and your head is above the headrest because you have a long torso, two hours is a little longer than you want, yeah?

McDonald's has some of the worst chicken tenders ever made. Keep that in mind, Ralph. I have sitting next to me a “Louisville Dog” from an America’s Best Dogs and I’m looking forward to mowing down on it a little closer to my flight time. I’m all grody to day, a side effect of having packed all my shit a day too early and not being able to get to it after spending the night on top of a dorm mattress. 

My bag was three pounds overweight and they charged an extra hundred dollars for it. I was and am quite put out by it, but I didn’t have the energy to unpack and try to cram stuff in my carryon. Ah well. C’est la vie. 

Georgi is anxious for me to get home. I’m anxious to get home, too. She keeps harassing me over the voice message function of iMessage. I want to get home and sleep well so I can go an that field trip with her tomorrow. Creamer’s Field is a fun field trip, and getting out into the world is what I plan to do all summer, so this will be a good start.

As always, dear readers. Ralph. My ask box is open and ready to listen. Stay Frosty, y’all.