#Indian Food challenge

[thedreadvampy]

white americans will be like oh british food is so unseasoned and underspiced and then talk as if taco bell is extremely flavourful. this is true I've seen it happen multiple times.

[cosmermaid]

If you had told me as a kid that I'd grow up to like spicy food, I wouldn't have believed you.

[thetockablog]

Cabbage and Potato Curry

Cabbage & Potato Curry Ingredients4 tbsp oil1 tsp mustard seeds1 tsp cumin seeds1 tsp ginger and garlic paste200g tomatoes, grated1/3 tsp turmeric powder3 tsp curry powder300g potatoes, cubed400g cabbage, washed and slicedSalt to tasteSugar to tasteFresh coriander, for garnish Method Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the mustard seeds and allow them to pop. Add the cumin seeds and allow to fry…

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #7

Feb 23-March 1 2024

The White House announced $1.7 Billion in new commitments from local governments, health care systems, charities, business and non-profits as part of the White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities. The Challenge was launched with 8 billion dollars in 2022 with the goal of ending hunger in America by 2030. The Challenge also seeks to drastically reduce diet-related diseases (like type 2 diabetes). As part of the new commitments 16 city pledged to make plans to end hunger by 2030, the largest insurance company in North Carolina made nutrition coaching and a healthy food delivery program a standard benefit for members, and since the challenge launched the USDA's Summer EBT program has allowed 37 states to feed children over the summer, its expected 21 million low income kids will use the program this summer.

The US House passed a bill on Nuclear energy representing the first update in US nuclear energy policy in decades, it expands the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and reduces reducing licensing fees. Nuclear power represents America's single largest source of clean energy, with almost half of carbon-free electricity coming from it. This bill will boost the industry and make it easier to build new plants

Vice President Harris announced key changes to the Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program. The CCDBG supports the families of a million American children every month to help afford child care. The new changes include capping the co-pay families pay to no more than 7% of their income. Studies show that high income families pay 6-8% of their income in childcare while low income families pay 31%. The cap will reduce or eliminate fees for 100,000 families saving them an average of over $200 a month. The changes also strength payments to childcare providers insuring prompt payment.

The House passed a bill making changes to the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program. The 8(a) is an intensive 9 year program that offers wide ranging training and support to small business owners who are socially and economically disadvantaged, predominantly native owned businesses. Under the current structure once a business reaches over 6.8 million in assets they're kicked off the program, even though the SBA counts anything under $10 million as a small business, many companies try to limit growth to stay on the program. The House also passed a bill to create an Office of Native American Affairs at the SBA, in order to support Native-owned small businesses.

The White House and HUD announced steps to boost the housing supply and lower costs plans include making permanent the Federal Financing Bank Risk Sharing program, the program has created 12,000 affordable housing units since 2021 with $2 billion and plans 38,000 additional units over ten years. As well as support for HUD's HOME program which has spent $4.35 billion since 2021 to build affordable rental homes and make home ownership a reality for Americans. For the first time an administration is making funds available specifically for investments in manufactured housing, $225 million. 20 million Americans live in manufactured housing, the largest form of unsubsidized affordable housing in the country, particularly the rural poor and people in tribal communities.

The Department of Energy announced $336 million in investments in rural and remote communities to lower energy costs and improve reliability. The projects represent communities in 20 states and across 30 Native tribes. 21% of Navajo Nation homes and 35% of Hopi Indian Tribe homes remain unelectrified, one of the projects hopes to bring that number to 0. Another project supports replacing a hydroelectric dam in Alaska replacing all the Chignik Bay Tribal Council's diesel power with clear hydro power. The DoE also announced $18 million for Transformative Energy projects lead by tribal or local governments and $25 million for Tribal clean energy projects, this comes on top of $75 million in Tribal clean energy projects in 2023

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg put forward new rules to ensure airline passengers who use wheelchairs can travel safely and with dignity. Under the planned rules mishandling a wheelchair would be a violation of the ACAA, airlines would be required to immediately notify the passenger of their rights. Airlines would be required to repair or replace the wheelchair at the preferred vendor of the passenger's choice as well as provide a loaner wheelchair that fits the passenger's needs/requirements

The EPA launched a $3 Billion dollar program to help ports become zero-emission. This investment in green tech and zero-emission will help important transportation hubs fight climate change and replace some of the largest concentrations of diesel powered heavy equipment in America.

the EPA announced $1 Billion dollars to help clean up toxic Superfund sites. This is the last of $3.5 billion the Biden administration has invested in cleaning up toxic waste sites known as Superfund sites. This investment will help finish clean up at 85 sites across the country as well as start clean up at 25 new sites. Many Superfund sites are contained and then left not cleaned for years even decades. Thanks to the Biden-Harris team's investment the EPA has been able to do more clean up of Superfund sites in the last 2 years than the 5 years before it. More than 25% of America's black and hispanic population live with-in 5 miles of a Superfund site.

Bonus: Sweden cleared the final major barrier to become NATO's 32nd member. The Swedish Foreign Minster is expected to fly to Washington to deposit the articles of accession at the US State Department. NATO membership for Sweden and its neighbor Finland (joined last year) has been a major foreign policy goal of President Biden in the face of Russian aggressive against Ukraine. Former President Trump has repeatedly attacked NATO and declared he wants to leave the 75 year old Alliance, even going so far as to tell Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" with European NATO allies

[inquisitive-june]

Separatist Swaps: Home Cook Youtubers

This week’s theme from @radblrthemeweeks is  Separatist Swaps (suggesting equivalent female artists/musicians/creators/etc to support as well as or instead of men)

I’ll admit I don’t read or watch TV much, but I do watch a lot of YouTube.  I added some of my favorite channels to this post in the past (X).  This will be an expanded list in no particular order.

Initially, I wanted to compare each channel to a similar male-led one, but I opted to just summarize what I think is unique about each one.

Food and Cooking

Note: I prefer vegan/plant based cooking, so I’ll specify which of these channels are exclusively vegan.

Cheap Lazy Vegan (V) Rose makes a lot of Korean food, but the ingredients are pretty easy to find at a regular grocery store.  Many of her videos feature high protein, nutritious meals that can be ready in 20 minutes or less.  I’ve also found her recipes to be shockingly simple without getting boring.

Rainbow Plant Life (V) Nisha is one of my favorite youtubers.  Her recipes are a bit more involved that Rose’s, but I’ve made several of them myself so they’re still approachable for a home cook.  Her recipes are primarily American or Indian inspired with advice for meal prep and saving time.

Pick Up Limes (V)  Sadia is a nutritionist, so her recipes tend to be wholesome and nutritious.  However, she still has a lot of recipes for comfort food and desserts.  I don’t make her recipes as often, but her videos are enjoyable.

Sierra Ann  I like her easy “recipes” (more like meal ideas), but she sometimes posts about fashion as well.  Her content is more akin to a vlog than concrete recipes or cooking tips, so I find myself watching her YT shorts more than her longform content.

Lisa Nguyen  I’ve only ever seen her YT shorts so idk if she makes longer videos or not.  She does instant ramen challenges where she tries different brands or ramen hacks.

Morgan Drinks Coffee  Morgan releases a mix of recipes and other content like appliance and coffee reviews.  She has a lot of advice for people just getting into coffee or those who want some fresh ideas.

Inga Lam  When I made the other post she was still working for Buzzfeed, but she recently decided to focus on her own channel.  I’m not sure what she has planned but she’s very creative and ambitious.

How to Cook That  Ann Reardon mostly makes baking videos, but I prefer her debunking videos.  She seems to have shifted more toward debunking dangerous videos in general, not just food related videos.

June Xie from Delish  June makes long videos creating a week’s worth of meals, often on a budget.  My main complaint about her content is that some of the food she makes is either not for everybody or uses ingredients that aren’t readily accessible, like produce from specialty shops.  However, that also means her recipes tend to be unique and interesting.  Her boyfriend also comes off as kinda rude, but he’s only there when they’re tasting the food.

Beryl Shereshewsky  People from around the world submit ways they eat a particular food, like instant ramen or onions, and Beryl makes and reviews them.  These videos are helpful when I feel stuck in a routine and want to see ingredients from a different perspective.

Alix Traeger  Alix used to work for Tasty, but now she makes content on her own channel with her girlfriend Zoya.  Zoya is Persian, so it’s been fun watching Alix try to master Persian dishes.

Here are some others I saw in my Watch Later list that I don’t watch often or haven’t seen yet.

Mina Rome (Cooking)

Doobydobap (Cooking)

Flo Lum (Cooking)

Sarah’s Vegan Kitchen (Cooking)

Sweet Simple Vegan (Cooking)

Julia Pacheco (Cooking)

Feelgoodfoodie (Cooking)

Anne of all trades (DIY)

The busy brown angel (Gardening)

Gardening and Homesteading

Girl in the Woods  I just found her channel last week, but it was too interesting to leave out.  Usually I don’t like homesteading YouTubers because they focus on the aesthetics, but I’ve actually learned a lot about off-grid living just from watching a few of her videos.

HannahLeeDuggan  She bought a property with a run-down cabin a few years back.  Before that, she was living in a van and selling handmade clothes online.  I can’t say I’ve learned much about van life or homesteading from her videos, but I haven’t given her a fair chance yet.  Last I checked, she was planning on documenting the process of fixing up and weather-proofing her cabin.

Learn Something

Answers in Progress  This channel is run by three people, two of which are women.  They answer random questions with a surprising amount of research and interviews with professionals.

The Take The Take claims to be “ the leading female-led entertainment analysis channel on TV, Movies & Pop-Culture”

Cheyenne Lin  Cheyenne focuses on feminist analysis and film analysis through a feminist lens.

Jessica Chou  She isn’t active anymore but she has some basic videos on car maintenance.

Micarah Tewers Micarah sews a combination of beautiful and insane clothes.  I’ve never tried to recreate any of her patterns but she’s so entertaining to watch.  She made fake eyelashes out of her dog’s hair and that’s not even the craziest thing she’s done on her channel.

Since this is intended to be a discussion, I’m also including a list of channels I’d like to find that are usually male dominated.

Game News and Lore I like watching lore videos for games like the Fallout series, RDR2, and TES.  So far, the only female gamers I’ve seen on YT are overly sexualized and don’t make the content I’m looking for.

Food Science There are a few channels that break down food science like Adam Ragusea and Kenji Lopez-Alt.  The closest female equivalent is How to Cook That, but it’s not quite what I’m looking for and she primarily posts baking videos.

I’ve been watching a lot of Ethan Chlebowski’s videos lately because he makes meal formulas and focuses on high protein meals.  If anyone knows who I’m talking about, I’d love to see female-run channels that make similar content.

Gardening and Homesteading  I want channels that actually teach me something new and don’t focus on pseudoscience or religion.

[thatanimewriter]

HOMEMADE HUGS.

➳ request: Can i make a request? I want Soma, Ryou, Akira, Alice, and Eishi (from the anime food wars) with a S/O who is neutral to fancy food or anything that is the opposite of homemade food because for them homemade food is just the best for them. It’s like they don’t the food to be like the best they just want the food to be made with love and thoughtfulness. apologize if this is too much for you to ask

➳ character/s: yukihira soma, kurokiba ryo, hayama akira, nakiri alice, tsukasa eishi

➳ warnings: swearing, hayama being homeless and orphaned as a kid, marriage fever (soma)

➳ notes: food wars is love, food wars is life, people should get over the weird foodgasms so they can actually watch art ._. (also soma is my ideal man, when can i find one-)

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬 / 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭  / 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 / 𝐰𝐢𝐩 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

── 𝐘𝐔𝐊𝐈𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐀 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐀.  

talk your shit

he'll get you a megaphone to say it again

he agrees with you 100%

now you have to marry him btw :))

constantly trying out any new yukihira diner recipes on you

he may be at totsuki, but he still wants to take over the diner and make happiness affordable and memorable

you don't need fancy shit to bring people joy >:((

he also drags you to tons of festivals n markets to try the street food and festival food

if unhealthy, why taste good??

screaming if you ever make him something homemade

and he will scoff that shit down

he gets sick of fancy food too, so he's more than happy to have your homemade things in between classes

constantly leaning over your shoulder at the dorms to see what you're making

always licks the bowl if it's a cake or something

personal dish washer

will make you a yukihira diner dish in bento form every time you have to be away for something

comfort food and a movie at least twice a week

jokingly calls you 'wifey' regardless of gender because he's determined you'll get married for the homemade food thing

joichiro approves-

── 𝐊𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐊𝐈𝐁𝐀 𝐑𝐘𝐎.

a lowkey judgmental squint at you

-.-

he's unsure if he agrees with you

but he's never gonna say no to trying anything homemade that you offer him

will give you the hum of approval every time

maybe he's starting to see your point-

you're not always the one making him homemade food though

sometimes he comes to you to go on a cute little picnic date and has made you a special dish from denmark to share with you

will just listen to you talk while he eats and occasionally pitches in

don't challenge him too much though, because if you make a joke that your homemade food is better, you're in for it

can you have a shokugeki with 'peasant food'??

alice's words, not yours-

he's not very open with emotions but you can tell from the little smile he's suppressing that he feels loved when he eats homemade food

and it also lets him relax after classes and outside of trying to destroy soma

he gets to make cute and quaint dishes for you and not stress about the quality of the dish

n he gets to see that smile of yours :))

not that he'd ever admit that-

but like soma, he's hovering over you while you cook

probably snacking on the leftovers

── 𝐇𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐌𝐀 𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐑𝐀.

ask and you shall receive

he has probably never had a homemade meal before-

and homemade meals are now your love languages

also probably cried when you first made him something homemade

just a couple snivels and tears

that's also when he first fell in love but you won't catch him saying that to anyone else

makes you a lot of indian street food to connect more with his culture and introduce you if you're not already familiar

always makes you something if you feel upset or down

and it's always very urgent??

he's a very attentive lover

he hears you're upset and he's speed running a lil curry n naan for you and he's COMING OVER RIGHT NOW-

y'all always make lunch for each other because if you're not with each other, you feel the love you have for each other either way

and if you have lunch together, compliments (and kisses) to the chef

unlike the others, who snack on whatever is leftover while you cook for them

hayama feeds you your leftovers

gently feeding a lil carrot stick to you ;v;

he made his own spice blend that he thinks encapsulates you as a person and you definitely can't find that in stores-

people have asked him what the spice is called

n he just called it by your name

── 𝐍𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐑𝐈 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄.

she doesn't get it-

homemade food isn't as exquisite???

what are you on??

this is entirely because her parents are elitists and she never got HOMEmade food

got professional food only

and she doesn't know what homemade food actually tastes like

and that's kinda dumb tbh-

how does one survive without a lovingly made dish??

loving the cooking is different to making something BECAUSE you love them

so now it's your mission to convert her :))

it didn't take very long, you gave her breakfast in bed and she was sold

now she knows what love actually feels like and this is a pivotal moment

to be fair though

she can't really replicate homemade cooking for a while

because she never got taught and she can't get the strict training out of her system

how do you make molecular gastronomy homey??

it's fine, you'll just have to teach her

bonding time in the kitchen

she'll get the hang of it eventually, but for now she's fine with just having you cook loving meals for her

── 𝐓𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐀𝐒𝐀 𝐄𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈.

somehow it's more nerve wracking making a homemade dish than a fancy one

because you like homemade things more ;v;

and he doesn't want to disappoint you

also probably doesn't know how to make a homemade meal-

are you sure you can't just treat him??

he's baby

he can't handle this shit :((

gladly takes homemade food from you though

but he wants cuddles while he eats your cooking

will also learn to make more homemade things and let go of the reins a little bit with PRESTIGE

probably also cried when he first tried your cooking

and this is lowkey what he wishes totsuki was

less stressful, more time with you, no more panic attacks-

the first time he ever gave you a homemade meal he was sweating bullets and shaking like crazy

but he got rewards, so now he does it all the time

kisses

"you could just ask for a kiss, you know."

"...'s so embarrassing..."

you now know a homemade meal means he wants kisses

[canary-prince]

Hey Guys It's Indigenous History Month

Consider donating to some of these great organizations, yeah?

First Nations Development Institute; highly rated by Charity Navigator, FNDI attempts to lift Native communities out of poverty through a wide variety of grants and programs. This is a link to info about their programs and impact.

Native American Rights Fund; a legal collective fighting to preserve tribal sovereignty, challenge systemic racism within the American legal system, and educate the greater public about the conditions Natives live in. Here's their about us.

Native American Heritage Association: focused on rez communities in South Dakota and Wyoming, NAHA provides heating assistance, food, tools, and other vital household goods to combat the effects of poverty in these vulnerable communities. Here's a list of their programs.

Association Of American Indian Affairs: this year is their centennial! That's right, these guys have been working since 1922 to fight assimilation, return stolen artifacts, and make cultural connections with Native youth. These days, they even host summer camps, because everyone deserves a childhood. Learn about their history on ongoing impact here.

Contribute directly to help the Sioux Tribe at Standing Rock; this will also help Sitting Bull college, a higher learning institute on tribal grounds.

Ojibwe Cultural Foundation; fighting to preserve and grow the language, art, and culture of the Anishinaabe nations of Canada. Check them out.

[ixlander]

Family Abolition

Ozzy: Totally. Well, you're talking a little bit about this, I think, but could you maybe say how you would define family abolition and kind of what this vision of the future is?

M.E.: Sure, so first I'll define family. I provide three definitions of family at the beginning, and they don't cover everything people mean by family at all. The first is a unit of social reproduction. So this comes out of Marxist feminist theory, it's thinking about how are new workers created, how is a worker sort of fed and clothed and cleaned from one day to the next, right? And recognizing the tremendous role that the household plays in raising caring children, taking care of people during periods of unemployment and illness and disability and aging, and preparing a workforce every single day. And I think this is one of my most challenging arguments in the book, that a free society would not be organized around private households. We might choose to form them, but they wouldn't be economic units in the way that they are now.

The second definition of family is a sort of normative ideal that's really deeply tied up with white supremacy, colonialism, and heterosexuality, right? So, some families as being legitimate, being respectable, being approved, and other efforts and people caring for each other not counting as family, right? So, the separation of children in Indian Boarding Schools, what scholars call "natal alienation" during slavery, the long history of Child Protective Services in the family policing system violently intervening, particularly in Black people's lives, separation at the border.... So these are all like an apparatus of determining whose family counts and whose doesn't, and inflicting violence on those that doesn't. And this sort of normative ideal, I also link to the violence within families. The organization of personal domination that really characterizes so many families, and the vulnerability of people within families–– that families are the place we're most likely to be raped, or murdered, or beaten up, or harmed. You know that family is a site of such tremendous violence. And so breaking, overcoming, and destroying this racial normative ideal, and freeing people from the site of violent constraints they might experience in their families.

And then the third definition of family in chapter three, I talk about George Floyd, calling out to his deceased mother, as he's being murdered. And that the way we speak of family as sort of our greatest yearnings––our like love, our care, our desire for refuge, and making the argument that like, in order to fulfill this, we'd have to discover something more, something beyond what the family is now, and that we, you know, we turn to family at our most vulnerable. And when we speak of family, for some people we're speaking of like, our really deep need to feel cared for and loved, even if we didn't ever find that in our families.

And so part of what I argue family abolition is... so I provide a lot, an overview of a lot of different meanings of what family abolition can mean. But I end up focusing in on three, and they correspond to those three definitions. So the overcoming of the private household as the primary unit of social reproduction and survival. So that who you love and who you happen to be related to, and who you happen to live with, should have no material consequences for your well-being, who you have sex with shouldn't determine whether you have housing, or food, or health care, right? [laughs] This is ludicrous as a way of organizing a society. And if you happen to be born to transphobes, or you happen to be born to a violent person, there's actual, respectful, supportive, effective means to address that. And to grapple with that.

Two, that we radically overcome this sort of normative ideal of what counts as family, by radically transforming the regulation of families, by overcoming the sort of systems of racial terror, and they're destroying them, that do so much harm against certain kinds of care relations. And then three, that the love and care that we look for in families be universal and widely accessible throughout society, and built available to everyone. That we all need it, and we shouldn't have to only depend on who we're having sex with in order to find it. We need to build a society built on caring for people and not on the impersonal driving, violence of profit. So generalizing, unleashing and generalizing the care available in the best families as universally available throughout society. So those sort of three definitions are a big part of what I mean by family: the overcoming of the private household, destruction of family policing system, and the unleashing and universalizing of the care that we depend on in the family.

m.e. o’brien on gender reveal podcast episode 151

[fatehbaz]

In the 19th century, British colonists faced several challenges in India, [...] [including] malaria. [...] The imperialists needed an answer to the problem and they found it in quinine. [...] [T]he British promptly embraced quinine, consuming tonnes of it every year by the mid-1800s. [...] Quinine was so bitter that soldiers and officials began mixing the powder with soda and sugar, unwittingly giving birth to “tonic water”. [...] [I]t prompted Winston Churchill to once proclaim, “The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.” [...] If by some good fortune malaria did not claim them, plague, cholera, dysentery, enteric fever, hepatitis or the unforgiving sun could. Preserving and protecting the body was [...] crucial to the success of the colonial project. As historian EM Collingham aptly summarised in her study, “The British experience of India was intensely physical.”

One way the colonists tried to deal with this challenge was through food and drinks. “The association between food and the maintenance of health was a concern of Anglo-Indian doctors, dieticians and the British authorities throughout the duration of colonial rule [...],” writes Sam Goodman in Unpalatable Truths: Food and Drink as Medicine in Colonial British India. [...]

---

The Medical Gazette, for instance, recommended treating dysentery with a “low diet” comprising thin chicken soup [...]. Botanist-physician George Watt too extolled the virtues of sago. In A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (1893), he wrote that sago is “easily digestible and wholly destitute of irritating properties” and in demand [...]. For fever, weakness and sundry ailments, beef tea [...] was considered an ideal remedy. And for cholera, The Seamen’s New Medical Guide (1842) prescribed brandy during the worst of the sickness and half a tumbler of mulled wine with toasted bread and castor oil [...]. Ship masters and pantrymen would stock their vessels with foods with known medicinal benefits such as sago, arrowroot, lime juice, desiccated milk and condensed milk (the iconic Anglo Swiss Condensed Milk tins, later known as Milkmaid, enjoyed a permanent spot on British ships).

---

Businessmen too recognised the precarity of life abroad and realised that therein lay a perfect commercial opportunity. By the 19th century, numerous companies had cropped up across Europe, including in England, that would sell food in hermetically sealed tin containers.

One of these was Messrs Brand & Co. Recommended highly in Culinary Jottings for Madras by Colonel Robert Kenney-Herbert, Messrs Brand & Co had several offerings [...]: essence of beef, concentrated beef tea, beef tea jelly, meat lozenges, [...] potted meat, York and game pie, and A1 sauce [...]. Another company, John Moir & Sons, focused mostly on canned soups [...], selling oxtail, turtle, giblet and hare.

---

By the late 19th century such was the popularity of canned foods that rare would be the pantry in a colonial home that didn’t store them along with medical provisions like opium, quinine, chlorodyne and Fowler’s solution (an arsenic compound). [...] As Flora Steele and Grace Gardiner wrote in The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook, “A good mistress will remember the breadwinner requires blood-forming nourishment, and the children whose constitutions are being built up day by day, sickly or healthy, according to the food given them; and bear in mind the fact that in India, especially, half the comfort of life depends on clean, wholesome, digestible food.”

To assist the British woman in this ostensible duty, there were a number of cookbooks and housekeeping manuals [...]. The Englishwoman in India, for instance, published in 1864 under the pseudonym A Lady Resident, had a whole section with recipes for “infants and invalids”. These included carrot pap cooked into a congee with arrowroot [...] and toast water (well-toasted bread soaked in water). Steele and Gardiner too had a few recipe recommendations [...], including champagne jelly (“most useful in excessive vomiting”) and the dangerous-sounding Cannibal Broth (beef essence), which they said should be consumed with cream [...] to treat extreme debility and typhoid. [...]

---

One dish born of this encounter was the pish pash. The pish pash is considered an invention of the colonial cook, who adapted the kedgeree – the colonial cousin of khichdi – into a light nursery food. The famous Hobson-Jobson defined it as “a slop of rice soup with small pieces of meat” [...]. None other than Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of Bengal, gave confirmation of its efficacy when in 1784 he wrote to his wife from the sick bed [...]. There are enough records to show that the imperialists counted marh (starch water from cooked rice) and bael (wood apple) sherbet among their go-to remedies and benefited from the medicinal qualities of chiretta water and ajwain-infused water.

---

Text by: Priyadarshini Chatterjee. “How food came to the rescue of the British in India.” Scroll.in (Magazine format). 26 April 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[daydreaming-en-pointe]

⌦ .｡ guys, the desis are at it again… .:*♡

Pairing: Pavitr Prabhakar x fem!Indian!Reader (Platonic!!) (Gwen, Miles and Hobie are there too)

Type: Oneshot - Fluff

Word count: 1.1k

Warnings: Usage of Hindi ig? (It’s all translated dw) Some cussing, Indian-British jokes and I think that’s it

A/N: I had this in my drafts for a while and only finished it now after eating the spiciest samosa I have ever had in my life so yay :D

I know it makes more sense for Pavi to be a strictly vegetarian Hindu considering how he got his powers, but here he eats chicken and mutton because some of the spiciest Indian dishes I’ve ever tried have meat in them (COUGH COUGH LAAL MAAS)

Also uh I hc that Pavitr’s middle name is Bhim after his uncle bc yk Peter has Benjamin so he has Bhim

“How the hell are you doing this?!”

Gwen forfeited by chugging a glass of water after a bite of the biriyani, joining Miles on the couch where he was still wheezing slightly, his eyes watering and throat burning from the spice.

“They’re bloody insane, Gwendy. They’re Indian and they ‘ave a spice tolerance that could put dragons to shame. Wha’ d’ya expect?” Hobie, sprawled precariously on the edge of the sofa arm, stole a piece from the bowl of butter chicken that lay forgotten on the side, gleefully watching you two. He had done the smart thing and quit fairly early into the round, before the food actually got spicy.

You faced off from Pavitr across the coffee table, sitting cross-legged and eating a bowl of the spiciest biriyani you both had ever tasted. You could see small tears pricking the corner of his eyes. You were almost tempted to call him a coward, but you figured that wouldn’t go so well since you could feel your eyes watering too.

See, if he hadn’t challenged you to a spice-tolerance taste test contest then this wouldn’t be happening. He could’ve kept quiet while you accidentally choked on a samosa and not assumed it was from the spice level (which wasn’t even that high), but noooo. He had to make a comment about how he could take more spice than you could.

So, technically, this whole thing was his fault.

And that was why you both were kneeling at a coffee table in Maya Aunty’s house, stuffing your faces with the spiciest foods you could find. So far, you had gotten through Maya Aunty’s saag paneer and dal makhani without any rice, which would have been a feat in itself… to anyone less competitive.

Hell, you had even gotten through dhansak and vindaloo without batting an eyelid, much less reaching for a glass of water. But for some reason a single bowl of this damn mutton biriyani was making both of you sniffle like sick kittens.

“Didi, I’m going chutney you,” Pavitr gritted his teeth and forced down another bite of the biriyani. You copied his movements, feeling the masala burn in your throat as you swallowed. (Didi means sister, usually a term of respect for someone you consider a sister and they’re older than you)

“Hei bhaghvaan, apni chachi ne ismain kya rakha?” (Oh God, what did your aunt put in this?) You coughed slightly and Pavitr dropped his forehead onto the table, groaning slightly like he was dying. Which, in all honesty, didn’t feel that far from the truth.

“I don’t know! All I know is that biriyani isn’t supposed to be this spicy!”

“‘Ey, Miles. ‘Ow much you wanna bet that Pavitr folds first? ‘E’s practically turnin’ red, isn’t ‘e - y’alright, bruv?” Hobie smirked down at you both, his border flickering. You snorted in amusent then immediately regretted it since some of the masala was now caught in your nose and oh, good grief, you could feel it burning.

Pavitr glared up at him. “You’re one to talk, Hobes. Didn’t you quit when we just started off? Arre, poor little Britisher couldn’t take the heat? Angrezi log ham jaise masale nahi kha sakhte.” (English/British people can’t eat spices like we can)

Hobie raised an eyebrow as Pavitr bit down on a green chilli that had been mixed into the rice and doubled over, tears streaming out of his eyes.

“Maybe it’s best if you call it a draw? I mean-” Miles shut his mouth quickly when you turned to glare at him.

“I’m not stopping till Pavitr Bhim Prabhakar admits that I can eat more spice than him.” You emphasised his middle and last name, narrowing your eyes as Pavitr weakly flipped you off without lifting his head.

Hobie chuckled softly. “Fuckin’ ‘ell, Pavi, she’s bringin’ in the full name. Take it from me, mate, you’re screwed when she does tha’.”

“Shut up before I use your full name,” You warned, turning your wrathful gaze on him. “We both know you wouldn’t want me to do that.”

His eyes widened and he mimed zipping his lips and tossing the key away. Miles looked at you curiously, tilting his head to the side. “Wait, what’s Hobie’s full name?”

“Funny you should ask, Kilometer Morality,” Pavitr muttered under his breath, his forehead still resting on the table. You had learnt about half an hour ago that when Pavitr got a spice overload he tended to make random “snarky” quips which usually didn’t make any sense.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go get some ice cream for when this thing blows up,” Gwen got up from the couch, giving Pavitr a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and moving to the kitchen.

“Wimp,” You muttered to Pavitr as a tear rolled down your cheek. Forget burning, your tongue was almost going numb from the sheer amount of masala that you were trying to ingest.

“Weakling,” He countered as a bead of sweat trailed down the side of his forehead. You shovelled another spoon of the biriyani into your mouth, relief flooding you as the spoon hit the bottom of the bowl. Good, you had almost finished. But would you make it that far?

Pavitr tentatively took a bite and immediately choked, giving in and reaching for one of the two bowls of curd sitting appetisingly in the centre of the table. He was essentially tapping out.

You threw your arms in the air triumphantly, almost giddy with victory. Actually, maybe that was from the spice. Yep, definitely the spice.

You downed the bowl of curd, letting out a long sigh of relief as the cold, thick liquid dowsed your tongue and took the initial edge of the buildup of spice away. Gwen returned just in time to see Pavitr and you lapping at the curd as if you were a pair of stray cats, like the ones you both faithfully fed and played with.

“I take it you won?” She asked you, her eyes sparkling a little bit in amusement as she saw Pavitr drop his head down onto the table the moment he properly realised that he had lost. She slid two cups of vanilla ice cream to you. A little basic, maybe, but still good and definitely a relief to your mouth.

“Barely,” You admitted, taking a small spoon from her. “Arre, Pavi. Don’t feel bad. Hum donon ne apana sarvashreshth prayaas kiya, naa? C’mon, sit up.” (We both tried our best, right?)

“Haan, Didi,” He grumbled sulkily, lifting his chin as you fed him the ice cream from his bowl. (Haan just means yes)

“Let’s do something else. Should we get Hobie to pronounce the names of these foods?”

“Oh, sure, throw the British guy under the bus,” Hobie protested, but a fond smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth as Pavitr chuckled softly.

“To be fair, you are in Mumbattan right now,” You pointed out, and Hobie heaved an exaggerated sigh, a grin already forming on his mouth as he prepared to butcher the pronunciations on purpose to get a reaction out of you and cheer up Pavitr.

“Fair enough. Alrigh’… That’s, uh… that’s sag panner, and that’s…”

@l0starl @hobiebrownismygod @therealloopylupin2099

[anarchywoofwoof]

"To grasp the full enormity of our deterioration, however, consider the earliest condition of humanity, without government or property, when we wandered as hunter-gatherers. "Hobbes surmised that life was then nasty, brutish and short. Others assume that life was a desperate unremitting struggle for subsistence, a war waged against a harsh Nature with death and disaster awaiting the unlucky or anyone who was unequal to the challenge of the struggle for existence. "Actually, that was all a projection of fears for the collapse of government authority over communities unaccustomed to doing without it, like the England of Hobbes during the Civil War. "Hobbes’ compatriots had already encountered alternative forms of society which illustrated other ways of life — in North America, particularly — but already these were too remote from their experience to be understandable. (The lower orders, closer to the condition of the Indians, understood it better and often found it attractive. Throughout the seventeenth century, English settlers defected to Indian tribes or, captured in war, refused to return. But the Indians no more defected to white settlements than Germans climb the Berlin Wall from the west.) "The “survival of the fittest” version — the Thomas Huxley version — of Darwinism was a better account of economic conditions in Victorian England than it was of natural selection, as the anarchist Kropotkin showed in his book Mutual Aid, A Factor of Evolution. (Kropotkin was a scientist — a geographer — who’d had ample involuntary opportunity for fieldwork whilst exiled in Siberia: he knew what he was talking about.) "Like most social and political theory, the story Hobbes and his successors told was really unacknowledged autobiography. The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, surveying the data on contemporary hunter-gatherers, exploded the Hobbesian myth in an article entitled “The Original Affluent Society.” "They work a lot less than we do, and their work is hard to distinguish from what we regard as play. Sahlins concluded that “hunters and gatherers work less than we do; and, rather than a continuous travail, the food quest is intermittent, leisure abundant, and there is a greater amount of sleep in the daytime per capita per year than in any other condition of society.” They worked an average of four hours a day, assuming they were “working” at all. Their “labor,” as it appears to us, was skilled labor which exercised their physical and intellectual capacities; unskilled labor on any large scale, as Sahlins says, is impossible except under industrialism. "Thus it satisfied Friedrich Schiller’s definition of play, the only occasion on which man realizes his complete humanity by giving full “play” to both sides of his twofold nature, thinking and feeling. As he put it: “The animal works when deprivation is the mainspring of its activity, and it plays when the fullness of its strength is this mainspring, when superabundant life is its own stimulus to activity.” (A modern version — dubiously developmental — is Abraham Maslow’s counterposition of “deficiency” and “growth” motivation.) "Play and freedom are, as regards production, coextensive. Even Marx, who belongs (for all his good intentions) in the productivist pantheon, observed that “the realm of freedom does not commence until the point is passed where labor under the compulsion of necessity and external utility is required.” "He never could quite bring himself to identify this happy circumstance as what it is, the abolition of work — it’s rather anomalous, after all, to be pro-worker and anti-work — but we can."

The Abolition of Work & Other Essays by Bob Black

[themuse-if]

Silas Walker

The RA

Silas Walker | 20 yrs old | he/him:

Meet your Resident Advisor, Silas – a friendly and helpful figure on your campus. As a sophomore majoring in Songwriting, he's not just your go-to for questions about study spots, navigating the subway, or dealing with challenging professors; he's a wellspring of knowledge and guidance.

Silas maintains a careful distance from his advisees, adhering to the rule that RAs shouldn't canoodle with their advisees. Despite his amicable nature, there's a mysterious aura about him that leaves you curious and intrigued. Silas seems to have a knack for being evasive, keeping certain aspects of his life hidden behind a friendly smile.

As you seek advice and information from him, you can't help but wonder what lies beneath the surface of his amiable exterior. Silas is a puzzle waiting to be solved, and the enigma surrounding him only adds to the allure of this approachable yet enigmatic Resident Advisor.

Scroll all the way down for a mini Q&A with Silas!

Top row left to right: Everyday, formal, activewear, sleepwear

Bottom row left to right: Party, swimwear, hot weather, cold weather

Silas Q&A

Q: What’s your sign?

A: I’m a Scorpio.

Q: How tall are you?

A: I’m 5'11.

Q: Name your top 5 artists your listening to?

A: Lately I've been listening to a lot of Cleo Sol, Arlo Parks, Q, Emily King, and Thee Sacred Souls.

Q: What’s your favorite food?

A: There's a certain comfort in a classic beef stew. The slow-cooked savory meat, hearty vegetables, and flavorful broth creates a dish that warms both the body and the soul.

Q: What’s your ideal date?

A: You know those spaces that have a ton of art supplies and projects for you to choose from, well we would go there and get creative while just talking about life. And then after I would introduce them to my favorite Indian restaurant.