#Cookbook Recipe Binder

[ringbinderdepotus]

Stay organized and stylish in the kitchen with our Cookbook Recipe Binder. This 3-ring binder is designed to hold your recipe cards securely, with matching cards included for a cohesive look. Say goodbye to scattered recipes and hello to effortless meal planning!

[byoakleaf]

Here we are 👀

[cosmicsmoony]

remus grew up in a very hands-on at the kitchen family. they were fortunate enough to be able to afford many exotic ingredients and different spices. the lupins are "try it all once and give foods a chance" people, so their stove is always simmering something and their cookbook is a treasure.

fast-forward to when remus began dating regulus and finds his only flaw: that boy won't eat. regulus is so scared of trying new foods and eats the same meals every single day. remus won't have none of that.

so the "expand my boyfriend taste palette" project starts! remus spends hours on hours at their shared kitchen, facetiming his mom and creating a curated new dietary plan for reg. every plate is extensively thought about, made for experimenting new flavors and supplying all needed nutrients.

regulus is scared to death but soon realizes everything his boyfriend cooks is heavenly. he buys remus a large recipes binder and makes sure to write all the ingredients and steps down while remus cooks, so they can preserve all his recipes for their future children.

(regulus adds a cute description to every recipe. the sweets are usually described as "as sweet as the chef's kiss" or "felt like a warming hug".)

[vxmpyree]

CHUBBY NIKTO. IN THIS ESSAY I WILL-.

chubby nikto my beloved :] <3 \\ tw: mention of fat shaming / fatphobia (not from reader)

[ pp1 - frakkur ]

chubby! nikto who likes baking for his neighbor.

after retirement, he packed up his things and flew somewhere balmy and quiet. after a life of running guns and slaughtering the enemy, he wants something simple-- a life where he doesn't need to comprehend the minds of others entirely.

when he moves in, you come over all smiles, a dish of banana bread in your hands. it hurts to admit, but he really does like it-- loves it, even. the dish is licked clean and then scrubbed by his shaky hands as he considers you.

nikto decides that he must bake you something in return. when he isn't busy, he's at the library, perusing through forums of recipes and printing out digitized cookbooks. he doesn't stop until he has a thick binder of ideas and the librarian starts giving him uneasy looks.

he comes to your doorstep one afternoon, your empty dish in one hand and a mississippi mud pie in the other. and he nervously retells the tale of how he indulged in your baking, expecting you to scowl and say that someone his size shouldn't enjoy eating. but you laugh, pleasantly, not meanly, and say that it's fine, really.

you let him into your warm home, and let him sit at your table, not knowing how blood is perpetually etched into his hands. you cut him a slice of his own pie and sit with him. the radio hums as he chews, and birds chirp over the slow trickle of thoughts in his mind. maybe moving somewhere warm really was a good idea.

[fuckingrecipes]

How does one actually build a useful repository of recipes for different cuisines? Like, I have the Silver Spoon which is a pretty good cross section of Italian cooking. I know more than enough variations of the typical french mother sauces to get the principles without a need for a recipe. I know from various Euro cuisines particular flavors that pair well I could build a dish around (like, I could make a goat cheese and caramelized onion soup without the need of someone telling me a recipe). I don't have any such data sets for other cuisines, and you know the recipe website world is a hell scape.

Tried and true method is: Cook often, try new things, and save it if you like it.

Get a blank notebook (or a 3-ring binder) and collect recipes yourself as you try them. You can write recipes in by hand, or print them off & punch for the 3-ring binder.

Go to restaurants which serve food you want to explore, and take a picture of the food, record the name of it on the menu, and note some of the ingredients that you can identify in it.

If you live in a small town with not many places that serve 'foreign' food nearby, get off google. Use DuckDuckGo or Brave as a search engine. They have very few ads and the search algorithm prefers when you get to the point in your recipe blog, rather than dicking around with your life story.

Do a little tour on your world map. Focus on countries, search for food from that country, then search for specific kinds of food from that country. Search for things like "Authentic Turkish Stewed Chicken" "Traditional Brazillian Goat Recipe" "Hong Kong Street Food Recipe" "Collection of Taiwan Recipes" "25 amazing Korean dishes" "10 best Cajun Soul Food Recipes" "Dominican Republic Cuisine Recipes"

Go watch cooking tiktoks that aren't european-centric; go out of your way to find them.

Go down a list of spices and pick one you've never tried before. Look up where it's traditionally used, and try to find some dishes that use that spice!

Go to your Local Library and dig into their cookbook section. Every library has one! Look for cookbooks focused on cuisines you don't know yet, and try those recipes!

If you're cool spending money on this, go to Half Price Books or other book-reselling stores where you can find cook books at really low prices. Again, explore the cuisines you're not familiar with.

If you have grocery stores for other cultures near you, go into their grocery! Check out what spices have a shitload of different brands on display, and pick one at random. Seek out a recipe that uses that new spice you just bought.

And remember: Write that shit down!

You can always have a little guide at the front or back of your recipe collection that explains different spice blends, or explains key sauces, or anything else!

You can keep a little guide on how roasting spices changes them, and your experiments with that.

You can keep a list of bread recipes, or cooking hacks like how to make really good naan without a woodfire grill.

---

Personally, I'm forgetful. I forget sites exist, forget logins, and lose passwords all the time. I have about a hundred recipe collections across about as many websites, and I know where like, 3 of them are right now. Many of those websites have gone down, and my lists are lost forever.

The book of recipe & food-tips collection I've kept & used the longest - my Food Grimoire - is a physical item that I can misplace in my house but never truly lose. It can't have its server crash or website maintenance suddenly be abandoned and blip out of existence.

[carolrain]

Bookshelf Snoop Cruise

@mostlyinthemorning asked us to share our bookshelves so we can all look at one another's books, so here I am.

I didn't dust even though it was badly needed, and I just moved in have been in this house five years but can't seem to get it together, so this feels a little imperfect and vulnerable.

This is an old photo (now it has a stack of dusty books on the top too!), but the picture books are organized all by color. Some are from my childhood but most are not:

More children's books, but these are all mine. This is also an old photo taken when I first set them up, as evidenced by the lack of dust and all that empty space. These are mostly by author's last name:

Cookbooks, recipe binders, sheet music, cheap little photograph books, random green tiger (??), broken Rainbow Dash mug, years-old child-made diorama, stack of book covers, arranged by vibes and neglect:

Okay, I have twelve more photos, so I'll make a break here and hope this is intriguing enough that you click through.

This is a small, unresolved disaster that requires an explanation, I think. I made this bookshelf out of an old set of drawers. I got the idea from Pinterest! It was very cute! However, I am not a woodworker. Or a physicist or an engineer. Or someone with proper tools. But here it was in happier days in a crowded little apartment that also looks extra junky because I was in the process of moving out:

Then I moved it halfway across the country in a truck and it became even less stable:

Which is why my nonfiction collection looks like this:

The books don't even all fit, and I want to put a piano where it is. So I need a new bookshelf and a better location.

The nonfiction is in Library of Congress call number order (I do not have spine labels, just a spreadsheet):

Mmm, well, a lot of psychology, religious studies, marriage and family, women's studies, words and writing, and a surprising number of books about cats.

And then my main collection is organized by birth year of the author. So it is a march through time (Homer through Casey McQuiston). This is fiction, literature, biography, some literary criticism shelved with its subjects, etc.

Here's the first shelf. I will zoom in a little for better snooping, and then I'll show you the other shelf.

(I really think this is the exact bookshelf that Noah Reid has in some of his Instagram videos? The green shelf behind his piano? Am I making that up?)

So that was The Odyssey through Sarah Vowell (b. 1969), and then it continues over here on the second and third shelf from the top, where the order starts to disintegrate. I haven't decided if I'm keeping the horizontal ones, so they are not interfiled, and there are a few authors I can't find birthdates for.

The top shelf is anthologies and a little bit writing-related.

And then, down here, reference books, and a bit of oversize and miscellaneous.

Not pictured: Maybe a dozen books in various places around the house (nightstand, table, next to two different chairs) that I'm "currently" reading; a small stack I just bought at a library book sale; a handful of oversize nonfiction; approximately thirty craft books in a tub; two more bookcases and a raskog cart full of my preteen's books, a tub of YA books from my youth in the garage; and, inexplicably, a collection of my ex-husband's childhood books (also in the garage) that he thinks the child should want to read and cherish, but she disagrees.

Well. Does anyone else want to share their bookshelves? I'll tag @jamilas-pen @a-noble-dragon @trickiwooao3 @characterassassination-at-9am @flowertrigger but anyone should jump in.

And I'll tag back @mammameesh, who has already posted and tagged me as well.

[lilacliquors]

pairing: matt murdock x reader

word count: 968

inspo song: a holly jolly christmas

notes: on the second day of ficmas, lilacliquors gave to me ... matt murdock at a christmas party!

the restaurant was packed, full of chatter, the clinking of glasses, and the scraping of silverware against plates. everything felt cozy, the atmosphere was cheery, and you felt good. you were sitting at the end of the table, across the table from your boyfriend, matt, and you could tell he was also enjoying himself. good food and good company was always the perfect combination, no matter what time of year it was. 

your friend had been kind enough to host a christmas dinner party for all of you and your favorite hang out spot, and you couldn’t deny that it was fun to get together and see everyone again. catching up with people, finding out how their years had been, what their other holiday plans were, it was always a great time. plus, there was still the secret santa portion of the evening to get to, which was always your favorite part. you were a gift giver by nature, and shopping this year had been fun. you’d been lucky enough to get your best friend, and shopping for them had always been a breeze. you shared a lot of the same interests, and you knew they were going to love what you’d gotten them.

as the eating and drinking died down, and the servers had cleared the plates, it was time for the gift exchange. everyone had gift bags with them, and one by one, they were all set on the table where your plates had been moments before. one by one, your friends swapped gifts, and you were surprised at how orderly it was. the host had been smart about the gift exchange, especially since the previous year was fondly referred to as a fiasco. it had been fun, but chaotic, and thankfully there would be no repeats.

when it was finally your turn, you got up and gave your gift to your friend, and their eyes lit up with excitement.

“i should have known!” they exclaimed reaching into the shimmering gift bag you’d brought. they pulled out a custom made recipe book that you’d spent weeks gathering materials for. it was a black binder that you had attached mini kitchen utensil pieces to, and inside were dividers that separated the various sections most cookbooks would have. there was an appetizers spot, mains, desserts, drinks, breads, and a few others. and already in the slots were recipe cards of their most used dishes.

they quickly got up from their seat to hug you, and you smiled as you returned it. you squeezed one another for a moment, then they let you go so you could sit back down. only a few more bags remained on the table, and as you sat down, matt smiled over at you.

“i knew they’d like it,” he whispered, and you took his hand in yours.

“i’m like a psychic,” you murmured, and he laughed softly.

“matt, since you’re all giggly and gossiping over there, maybe you’d like to go next?” the host asked, and he sat up straight, turning in the direction of the sound of the voice. he smiled, then nodded and reached down to grab his own bag. it was small, and a few people tilted their heads as he moved around in his seat.

“well, this year, i was lucky to get this one,” he gestured to you, “as my gift recipient. which made everything a lot more exciting.”

you could feel your face warming as he carefully eased himself down onto the floor. suddenly, it you two sitting at the end of the table made much more sense, and your heart started to pound. your friends all gasped, and few made some excited, squeaky sounds as he tilted his head towards your seat.

“i can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that you’ve been the best thing to ever happen to me,” he began taking one of your hands in his. some people around the table ‘aww-ed’, and you smiled a bit.

“you’ve made me a better man, you’ve always had faith in me, and not once have i ever felt like i couldn’t confide in you. when i wake up next to you in the mornings, whether it’s in bed or on the couch, and i hear you sleeping so soundly, i know i’m the luckiest man alive. and i can only hope that, for the rest of our lives, i can keep feeling that kind of comfort. i don’t want there to ever be a day that i’m without you, i don’t think i’d survive. so … would you do me the absolute honor of marrying me, and letting me make you the happiest person on earth for the rest of our lives?”

you could feel yourself tearing up as he pulled a small velvet box out of the bag he’d brought, and opened it up to reveal a dainty, gorgeous engagement ring that sparkled in the warm light of the restaurant. your heart threatened to beat out of your chest, and you swallowed before answering, not wanting your voice to be too thick.

“matt, oh my god,” you whispered, and he grinned.

“is that a yes? i hope so, it’s not comfy down here,” he said, and you laughed a bit.

“of course it’s a yes,” you said, and his smile got impossibly wider as he slipped the ring onto your finger. you admired the sparkle before he got back up, and you stood to press a kiss to his lips as your friends clapped and cheered. one of his arms wrapped around your waist, and your had settled on his chest as you pulled apart.

“merry christmas, sweetheart,” he said, his forehead resting against yours.

“merry christmas, matt,” you replied, hugging him tightly.

it was surely a holiday you would never forget.

[fuckkbrunch]

The final recipe! I saved it for new year's eve dinner. The one that isn't even really a recipe, but if I didn't do it, it would have felt unfinished.

In the very back of the book, there's a 3 page fold out poster on how to make the perfect Bourdain approved burger.

I won't lie, I don't own a meat grinder attachment for my KitchenAid mixer, and wasn't going to buy one just for this. He suggests grinding your own meat, specifically a combo of rib eye, short rib and hanger steak. I settled for a high quality pre ground beef chuck, and a frozen veal cutlet that I chopped up real small by hand.

He claims that the flavour is best if you salt the meat one hour before cooking. There's also no mention of fillers or binders like egg or breadcrumbs, or any seasoning besides salt. So, that's what I did. Just meat and salt.

Other requirements were a store bought bun that wasn't a brioche or ciabatta (too soft and too hard, respectively). Sesame seeds are optional according to taste. A single slice of a large tomato, like a beefsteak. Specifically shredded iceberg lettuce, so that it doesn't yank out when you bite it and slap you in the face.

American cheese. The thin, individually wrapped kind that melts if you so much as look at it. Melt factor is crucial as other (higher quality) cheeses just get soft and greasy on a burger, even if their flavour profile is more desirable.

Since my meat combo was lacking compared to what Tony suggests, I also baked some bacon until just crisp to turn this into a bacon cheeseburger. Which means - in my opinion - that there also needs to be dill pickle slices and onion rounds. The poster does include a burger with pickles on it, so I felt this fit. Unfortunately and hilariously, my last yellow onion had mold hidden under the dry skin layers, so I chucked it.

You can go thin smash burger style, or thick mid-rare patty style, both are acceptable by Tony's standards. I went smash burger style, since I like the browning aspects more than the juicy wet burger style.

He does specify that if you want more than one patty, it must be smash burger style. I went for a single 3oz patty, and my partner requested two 2oz patties with double cheese.

They honestly tasted just like a good, simple, take out style bacon cheeseburger. It didn't have that sub par homemade burger feel to it, I was actually shocked. We had these for dinner two days in a row.

| Bourdain Perfect Burger |

Taste is a 5 out of 5. Even though my meat cuts weren't the same, this was fantastic.

Difficulty is a 1 out of 5. Maybe a 2 if you really grind your own meat.

Time was a little over an hour, only because I waited the hour after salting my meat.

If I ever do invest in a meat grinder, I'm definitely going to try the meat combo he suggests. Considering this comes together so quickly, and tastes so good, it's really a great bang-for-your-buck recipe. Who doesn't love a good burger?

------------

And that's that! We're done! I still can't believe I did it. Some weeks I was doing 4-6 recipes at once just to make sure that if I missed some weeks, I would still keep up. 114 recipes in a year is no joke, that's more than 2 per week! Even during a two month 40+ degree heatwave, I kept it up. I'm damn proud of myself.

So as a gift to myself, I'm going to be getting a Bourdain themed tattoo sometime in the new year. Obviously I'll be posting it here once it's done.

I'm also going to do a final rundown of the cookbook and of my notes I've kept during this whole process and select a top 5-10 recipes. Maybe a top 5 and bottom 5, I'm still undecided. So this won't be my final post.

But I will close this with the final page of the cookbook...

[gamerbearmira]

Stuff I got 🤯🤯🤯🤯

Ya girl bought more stuff 👍👍

First, I got the Encanto cookbook. Y'all may or may not know this, but I oove baking, and cooking is fun for me <3333 been wanting to get my hands on it, might have to try some of the recipes frfr

More funkos!!! Been lookin for Miles, but I want movie Miles; they only ever have game (which is cool but not what I'm looking for). I got Asha (+Star), Mama Odie and Moana!! Still very proud of them though <33

Also I finally got a binder for my Lorcana cards! In total I have about 468, give it take. I have enough space for one more starter deck, and I want the other Ursula's return on. Hoping to get it in the future <333 small video of flipping some pages, hand reveal💥💥💥

[apeekintothepantry]

Happy Pokémon Day! February 27th is the anniversary of the first two Pokémon games’ release in Japan, and it’s a minor holiday in my house, as a fun excuse to make Pokémon inspired food, watch some Pokémon shows or movies (we’re going to watch Netflix’s new Pokémon Concierge this year!), and get excited about upcoming games and releases. This year, we’re making a Pokémon Sword and Shield inspired burger-steak curry and I’m making a dessert from the Pokémon Cookbook by Victoria Rosenthal. It’s one of my favorite fandom cookbooks – all the recipes are vegetarian or vegan, to get around the awkward question of where does the meat in the Pokémon universe come from?

But that’s not all we’re making! Ever since Nicki and Isabel were released, I’ve been dying to do a post about them and Pokémon’s infamous “Jelly Filled Doughnuts”, better – and more accurately! – known as onigiri.

Pokémon was released in the United States in 1998 via two Gameboy games: Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. The games quickly caught on to be one of the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the late 90’s and early 00’s, and as a kid at the heart of this explosion, I can’t overstate how much of a big deal it was. One of the great things about Pokémon – and probably why it has such lasting, widespread appeal – is that there are so many ways to interact with the franchise, and the marketing doesn’t skew hugely towards one gender or the other. Cool, tough Pokémon like Charizard got pretty similar billing to cute, pink Pokémon like Jigglypuff, and there were so many options for potential favorites that it was easy for any kid to find some creature to attach themselves to.

One of my petty complaints with Nicki and Isabel’s collection and books is the almost complete lack of mention of Pokémon and other anime that was really popular among kids in 1999. I know AG probably didn’t want to shell out for licensing deals with Nintendo or The Pokémon Company, but their stories just don’t feel accurate without discussing their prized binder of Pokémon cards or begging their parents to take them to see the Pokémon movie in theaters. Maybe the authors were just a little too old to get caught up in Pokémania?

I’ve also always thought its close overlap with the Beanie Babies crazy helped get millennial children like me very into the “gotta catch ‘em all” aspect of the franchise. Is this why I’m such a crazy toy collector as an adult? Who knows.

The Pokémon anime was one of the main ways kids like me got hooked on the franchise, because not everyone was allowed to have a Gameboy of their own (me), and not everyone liked video games, but even if you didn’t like video games, the cartoon might appeal to you. Although it was far from the first Japanese cartoon to air on US television, Pokémon was one of if not the first truly mainstream favorites of the 1990’s. 4Kids, the company in charge of dubbing the show into English, decided that American kids wouldn’t understand or be open to certain aspects of the show that reflected its Japanese roots, and so made a lot of strange choices in rewriting the script. One of the most notorious was deciding Brock’s rice balls were actually jelly filled doughnuts:

Onigiri – also known as omusubi or nigirimeshi – are balls of rice with a variety of fillings inside. They’re often compared to sandwiches, as an easy, quick, cheap meal or snack that combines carbs and other ingredients. While the concept of taking a rice ball and stuffing it full of other tasty treats goes way back to ancient Japan, the triangle shape became popular in the 1980’s thanks to a new machine that automated the filling process. Further developments over the last 40 years have created unique ways to prepackage onigiri without making the nori wrapping sticky. The ones we made were an attempt at recreating the “Hawaiian” (spam and pineapple) rice balls from our favorite food hall back in DC. One of my favorite pandemic indulgences was getting take out from the food hall, which often included a sampler of some of my favorite onigiri, and I haven’t been able to find anything close to similar where we are now. One of the many reasons I’m excited to move!

Even as a kid, I wasn’t convinced the food in the anime was fried dough with fruit jelly inside, because they sure look like rice. I also think 4Kids didn’t anticipate that Pokémon’s widespread popularity would inspire many of its fans – including me – to become absolutely obsessed with Japanese food and culture. I would’ve been more excited if they’d just been straight with me and shown more Japanese food on the show, and then probably begged my parents to make it or take me to a restaurant that made it. While I can’t confidently cite numbers of how many other people were first exposed to Japanese culture and food through Pokémon and franchises like it, I do think it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to highlight how things like this exposed kids like Nicki and Isabel to parts of a culture outside their own!

[sleepingasimdead]

This post covers two topics. First, the common types of "magic books" and second my personal advice for when making your own. The "read more" includes a link to a tutorial and the amino post I am quoting myself from.

Books of Shadows, Grimoires, & Books of Mirrors

Modernly these terms are often used interchangeably for personal spellbooks/witchcraft based journals; however, originally they had three distinct meanings.

I originally read about the differences in my moms older books circa late 80s - late 90s.

Books of Shadows:

First, the term you are likely to encounter most often. A Book of Shadows (BoS) was originally specifically a Wiccan term in reference to a shared book containing spells, rituals, basic theory, and associations. It was meant to be used as a reference and teaching tool between a Coven as well as a place to record Coven specific practices. Usually, the High Priest(ess) would look after, control what is added to, and control who has access to this book. It was not shared with people outside of the Coven and was considered a sacred object. With the rise of solitary practice valued over Coven based practice, the term has lost its Coven, and often Wiccan, associations.

Grimoires:

Next, Grimoire was originally in reference to a personal book of spells, theory, and associations that had a textbook or cookbook tone of writing. This term is older and doesn’t have religious connotations and is usually used as a reference or teaching tool. This was basically a Witches recipe book. However, it was still usually in a more neutral to formal format.

Books of Mirrors:

Lastly, a Book of Mirrors. This term is not as popular as the other two despite, modernly, being what many people have and are actually referencing when they say BoS. The term is in reference to a journal outlining or recording a person’s experiences and path in relation to witchcraft. This book was highly personal but was not required to be kept secret. 

As mentioned before, these terms are modernly used interchangeably due to people just having one book that is more of a mix of all three. They range from a fancy homemade leatherbound book to a cheap planner, there are no specific rules on their construction or what a Practitioner puts in them and not everyone calls their Witchcraft book by any of these terms.

It is usually a very personal item, and so each person has their own rules for it. There are many theories behind the item ranging from it being sacred and having magic of its own to its significance being rooted more in a personal nature.

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

Dead's Advice for When You are Making Your Grimoire, Book of Shadows, Book of Mirrors, and/or Magical Tome(s)

The Materials

As tempting as buying a really pretty stylized notebook is, they simply rarely work well if what you want is equally stylized pages. They are too easy to mess up, misplace, run out of space, and tend to be expensive.

Instead try binders + laminate pockets. Binders allow you to remove and reorganize pages. This eliminates the pressure of making the page perfect the first time and lets you remove out of date info with ease. Stylizing is made so much easier when you can safely remove pages.

Not to mention the pockets allow for you to include things like pressed plants with 0 risk of destroying your whole book thanks to rot, protect your pages from water damage, and make making "secret pages" much easier, allows you to make pages digitally first. You can personalize binders with fabric, paper machete, cardboard, hot glue, wood, clay, etc.

Personally, I made 3 "book sleeve bags" out of scrap leather and fabric that allow me to switch up the style and determine how many pockets are necessary that day. On top of just making an embroidered cover and gluing it to the cover of the binder.

The Writing

• Always write full notes before you even open your book and then condense the info like you would if you were rewriting notes for test/exam purposes to act as your Rough Draft.

• Don't use hard to read/made up script unless you are fluent in it. Elsewise the book becomes 20× harder to actually use.

• Make a laminate sheet for base "step by step" sheets for things like sigils or spellmaking and pair with dry erase to make it easier on the environment when you make new ones. Then if they work give them their own page.

• Try to keep one topic / subtopic to a couple of pages and succinct.

The Art

• Do any motifs or small artwork first and then use a tracing method to add to your book so that it can be consistent.

• Section out space on the page for large artwork/diagrams before writing, but don't do them until after you have written your text.

• Try using tracing paper / see-through sticky notes for any 3d diagrams. Diagrams as watermarks are also a good idea. Or if you don't intend to make a Symbarium section you can make them into watermarks as well.

• Don't be afraid to "hide" diagrams behind things like stickinotes + flaps to mixinmize possible text.

OG Amino Post:

http://aminoapps.com/p/dltsku

Below is a quick tutorial video on making fabric covers with handles that I actually used myself (although I adjusted my measurements to fit a large binder). However, tbh you can find quite a few on youtube, as well as tutorials on making your own binder.

[byoakleaf]

[loosesodamarble]

Welcome to the Black Bird Part 10: Christian the Sinister

Summary: Introducing Zora as Christian, Black Bird's sassy and sadistic butler. Watch out, he bites. Genre: general Word count: ~850 A/N: @cringeyvanillamilk is to thank for the commission of Zora.

..........

“I’ve got it!” Zara laughed when he burst into the kitchen. “I’ve got a name for the business! ‘The Ideale Place’!”

Zora blinked a couple times before sarcastically remarking, “That sounds like home realty and not a restaurant, Dad. Maybe you should change it to ‘The Ideale Plate’ instead.”

“Ha! That’s genius!” Zara dashed up to where Zora sat and ruffled his hair against Zora’s protests. “What would I do without you, little man?”

The man in Zora’s memories and the man passed out on the living room couch seemed like two different people. But Zora knew they were the same, mostly. One still had a dream burning in his soul. The other had the dream stamped on and snuffed.

“Hey Dad…” Zora set a plate of food—oven-roasted vegetables and a pan-fried chicken breast— on the coffee table. He nudged Zara’s shoulder.

“Huh…” Zara groaned and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Yeah? Wassup, Zora?”

“I made dinner.”

“Aw, thanks.” Zara sat up, grunting as he did so. While by no means an old man, his body must’ve ached from being overworked. He smiled and nudged Zora’s arm. “What would I do without you?”

“Dunno…” Zora rubbed the back of his neck. Then, he shuffled back to the kitchen. Maybe if I wasn’t around… Zora’s eyes drifted from his own serving of dinner on the counter to a thick binder, a cookbook compiled by Zara, from which the recipe for dinner came from. Then you would’ve been able to live your dream instead.

…..

If there was one thing that Zora enjoyed about his job, it was that he didn’t have to worry about his customer service skills. At least, not as much as other people in the industry had to worry.

Zora sauntered up to the table he would be serving while tapping his server booklet against his shoulder. A familiar woman with coffee brown hair sat with a man with dark auburn hair and an eyepatch over his left eye. They looked to be dressed for a date, wearing clothes that would’ve been too nice for a casual outing between friends.

“Oh? You’re back again?” Zora asked while eyeing the woman up and down. “What a persistent little insect you are, Mistress Erika.” He sneered at her, making Erika giggle behind her hand.

“Sorry, Christian, I can’t help but find my way back here,” Erika remarked bashfully. “Plus, I promised Gilbert that I’d bring him here for our date.”

“Tch. I don’t need your excuses. Just apologize and get it over with,” Zora said brusquely.

“Better stop it right there, buddy,” the man, Gilbert, finally spoke up, a sharp gleam in his eye. “I know she’s playing along, but I’d never forgive myself if I let you torment my cute date.”

Erika’s eyes went wide and she blushed redder than a tomato. “G-Gilbert…”

“Don’t be so surprised,” Gilbert chuckled then grinned softly at Erika. “And I keep telling you just ‘Gil’ is fine.” To his reminder, Erika squeaked and nodded.

“Hnn… Right. If we’re done with the mush…” Zora sighed. “Christian’s the name and I’ll be your butler this evening. Better be good little customers, Master Gilbert and Mistress Erika, or I’ll make you regret my service,” he said with a practiced smirk.

Gilbert raised his brow and his own grin seemed to challenge Zora. Good to know that even if he wasn’t the target audience, this Gilbert fellow was able to go with the flow of the cafe. Because as much as he liked his freedom to throw typical customer service out the window, he still prided himself with entertaining the cafe’s guests.

…..

Fiend’s Firework Stew. Beef stew with a punishingly strong spice to it. The heat is thanks to being made with the country's spiciest pepper.

It was a dish that Zora adapted from one of Zara’s recipes. Zara used a combination of jalapeno, sweet heat, Korean chili peppers, and cayenne to give his pepper stew a medley of vegetal, smokey, and lightly sweet tastes. He would swap in other peppers for different flavors, such as cascabella for nuttiness or firecracker peppers if he was looking for fruitiness.

For the stew served at the Black Bird, Zora knew he had to turn the level up as the cafe’s sadist butler. There was cayenne and habanero used in the new recipe. The real star of the stew, though, was the shinigami pepper, a new breed of pepper cultivated by a farm right outside of the city.

I wonder what Dad would think of the stew, Zora mused as he de-seeded a pile of peppers to turn into a paste for the stew. While he mainly served as a butler, he did work in the cafe’s kitchen too. I wonder what he’d think of all this. I hope he’s happy, that he’s proud.

All of Zara’s skill, knowledge, and passion, Zora learned from them and built off them. He did it to honor his dad, to give back to the man that gave Zora everything. 

Zara’s dream would come true.

Zora swore to himself that he’d make it so.

His vow was all that kept him going.

[mariacallous]

Every year in the weeks leading up to Passover, I start to feel a little flutter in my stomach. It makes sense. With seder menus to plan, loads of groceries to buy, a kitchen to scour and turn inside out, and hours of cooking ahead, Passover’s to-do list is simply overwhelming. And this year, I have an extra item to add to my Passover anxiety checklist: the price of eggs. 

As anyone who has been grocery shopping in recent months has surely noticed, eggs are wildly expensive right now. Thanks to a combination of avian flu outbreaks amongst egg-laying chickens (which led to a decrease in overall egg production), ongoing supply chain shortages, and general inflation woes, egg prices have risen 70% over the last year. I tend to buy cage-free, organic eggs whenever possible, so I am already used to paying a premium for gorgeous, sunset-colored yolks. And yet I still did a double take when a dozen eggs at my local grocery store was accompanied by a $9.99 price tag. I decided to skip the eggs that week.

But here’s the question at the source of my anxiety: Can I really skip eggs for the entire week of Passover? Like many Ashkenazi American Jews that do not eat kitniyot (I’m not super religious, but old habits die hard!), eggs factor heavily into my Passover menus. Without them, the potato kugel, vegetarian chopped liver and matzah balls served at my family’s seder would simply fall apart. In the middle of the week, when my body is crying out for something other than plain matzah (again) topped with almond butter and bananas (again), eggs offer welcome variety in the form of hearty frittatas, shakshuka and the binder for matzah meal pancakes.

And then there is dessert. With glutinous wheat flour off the table, eggs — and especially stiffly beaten egg whites — provide necessary structure and lift to countless Passover sponge and chiffon cakes, airy nut tortes, flourless cookies and creamy custards. My favorite coconut macaroon recipe calls for egg whites, as do my mother’s crunchy-sweet cocoa meringues. Without even realizing it, I can easily make my way through 3 or 4 dozen eggs while prepping for Passover meals.

The markets have shown some signs of reprieve over the last few weeks as egg prices have begun to dip, but they are still nowhere near back to pre-inflation prices. That means, when I’m loading up my grocery cart with yet another dozen eggs, I’m going to feel it. So while I am not ready to give up eggs completely this Passover, I am definitely planning to scale back — especially on the dessert table. 

When life brings me added stress, I tend to jump to planning overdrive. I find that well-organized lists help to tame the anxiety beast and break impossible-feeling scenarios into manageable pieces. So while planning my Passover menu this year, I’ve been searching cookbooks (my own and many others) and the internet for a list of tempting, egg-free confections. It turns out, with a little creativity and a willingness to try something new, Passover can be sweet — even without the eggs. Here are seven egg-free Passover desserts I’m looking forward to making this year:

[mybikesurly]

For years I’ve used the Moosewood Restaurant cookbook and made their tofu meatballs. Great tasting but wanted to try someone different..

I stumbled upon a meatball recipe which is based around the use or green or brown lentils. Oatmeal as a binder plus other ingredients.

Pleased with the results. Next time I’ll grind the oatmeal into a flour and maybe bake them for 3-5 minutes shorter.

I can live off spaghetti and any form of sauce. Decent end of weekend meal.

[nerdyqueerr]

what they don't tell you about going through your parents' cookbooks and recipe binders for stuff to make at your apartment is you will get so emotional about it