#Minty Lam

[thetavolution]

[thebonnevillegamepodcast]

Here are some tweets that reminded us of our girls!

[ghoulpepperv]

The leads of my upcoming podcast, The Bonneville Game. We're still finishing up the season 1 scripts, but I'm so excited!! I can't wait to introduce these weirdos.

Art by HoMArtworks!

[adeathlessgod]

Talking’s Overrated

featuring : Eren Yeager x fem!reader

content : MDNI, smut, Eren is whipped, he’s also a little shit, mean dom!eren if you squint, car sex, fingering, mutual masturbation, squirting, multiple orgasms, anal play, creampie, hair pulling, full nelson, friends with benefits to lovers sorta, reader is sort of a brat idk, Eren loves hair pulling, ddlg vibes if you use a magnifying glass, a little dumbification, reader has her ears pierced, Eren spits in reader’s mouth, slight degradation, DEFTONES MENTION!!!

word count : 5.7k

synopsis : After Eren ends your little fling, he asks to talk it out with you one late night. You find out he believes talking is overrated.

notes : Hi guys!!! I’m Angel, and this is my first ever fic and it took me weeks to work on, so notes, reblogs and constructive criticism are all welcomed! Hope you enjoy my loves<3

- Come outside

Your stomach flips as you read the notification on your screen, hesitantly swiping it away. It’s late on a Thursday night, it’s quiet. Your room is shrouded in darkness, only illuminated by the blaring brightness of your phone screen. You continue to scroll through Instagram, giggling at Hitch’s close friends, when another message comes through.

- Let’s talk

Talking. You chew your cheek. When was the last time you two had spoken?

“Friend, huh? Is that what I am to you?” His hands caged your head against the bathroom wall. He leaned closer, dropping his head to meet your gaze, his breath minty and warm. “Is fucking each other what friends do?”

“It was a-“

“A mistake? Is that what you think of us?” Eren was dangerously close to you now, his lips ghosting across yours.

“I never said it was a mistake,” You chewed your lip nervously as you drew in a shaky breath, “Just a one time thing.”

“There’s no fucking difference, you either want this or you don’t. You know how I feel about this,” his breath fanned over your face, your eyes flutter closed, “About you,” he pauses.

“Don’t deny me, please, let me know I’m not alone in this,” he was almost pleading now, his voice soft and strangled.

You let your head fall back, gently knocking against the wall. “Eren, I-“, you looked at him, how the sharp contours of his jaw had been softened into slopes by the low, luminescent lighting. Your eyes trailed over him slowly, like he was a wonder of the world.

Striking, green eyes, framed by long, dark lashes. A pointed Roman nose, above his plump, rosy lips and the set of shiny white teeth behind them. His smooth, olive skin, akin to sculpted sandstone. He was everything you could have asked for, everything you needed, and that was entirely too much to ask of him.

You shook your head at him, dropping his gaze ashamedly. The air in the room staled.

Eren scoffed, and his hands fell from their place on the wall. “Fine, you want to fuck Jean, go for it,” he runs a hand down his face frustratedly, “thanks for letting me know where I stand, and that this meant absolutely nothing to you.”

“Eren, that’s not-“

“Shut the fuck up, okay? You don’t get to have a say in this, you don’t get to fuck with my feelings and then tell me it’s okay. You don’t get to-“, he blows out a short breath, recollecting his thoughts. He starts again, slower, calmer, quieter, “You don’t get to break my heart and tell me that’s not what you meant, okay?”

He waits for a response, and you wait for him to shout again. You have a moment of silence, despite the muffled Deftones bleeding through the walls. Eren turns to leave, but his hand hesitates over the doorknob. Opening his mouth to speak, he casts you one more angry - no, pained - glance, and swallows.

“Do you regret this?”

You don’t respond.

The door slams behind Eren. You don’t follow him.

The door slams behind you as you step into the midnight chill, dressed in only a hoodie and shorts. The night air bites at your legs and you flex your hands at your sides routinely. The world outside is serene and caliginous - illuminated only by the spindly street lamps stationed on the sidewalk like nutcracker soldiers. Your heart sputters at the sight of Eren’s car, parked crookedly in your driveway - you can’t even see through his tinted windows. The low hum of his engine rattles his car gently, like a small, mobile refrigerator.

When you get to the passenger side, you swing the door open, slide into the plush leather seat, and close the door, all without sparing Eren a second glance. He is sitting in the driver’s seat, legs spread wide apart, in a black hoodie and grey sweats. He shifts his hips upwards as he readjusts his sitting position, his eyes never leaving your shivering figure.

He rakes over your oversized hoodie, your bare legs, your pretty, pretty face. He lingers on your face for a second too long, then he grins when he sees you press your thighs together.

“You cold?”

“Yeah, a little,” Eren hums in response as he drums his fingers against the steering wheel. His rings glint in the muted glare of the moonlight.

“Want me to turn on the heating?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.” You watch as he cranks the dial up to max, and the warm air almost instantaneously rushes out of the AC vents. You slump back into your seat, revelling in the warmth. A thin film of condensation falls onto the windows, mottling the midnight scenery outside - your very own Starry Night.

“So,” Eren begins cooly, “how have you been?”

His voice was oddly impartial and you knew better than to trust Eren’s nonchalance. You look at him side-long, attempting to uncover any unkind inflections. You’re met with a lazy smile and a glint in his eyes that stokes the warmth between your legs, warmer than any heater can make you.

“I’ve been good.” A small, charged beat passes. “You?”

“I’ve been good too,” he hums. He licks his lips cockily when he asks, “Have you missed me?”

You’re a delicate instrument, and Eren wants to know if he can still remember how to play you, how to tune you to his liking.

You surrender to his disarming smile.

You breathe in. “Yeah, I did.”

Eren huffs out a quiet laugh and lets his head fall against the window. “I’ve missed you too.”

You breathe out. “Really?”

He grins. “Of course, I have.” He slowly leans across the console, “What,” he murmurs softly, “You don’t believe me?”

You squirm in your seat, flustered by his unwavering gaze. His eyes are low, and swimming with mirth. He cradles your face in his hand and your eyes flutter shut when he drags his nose along your jaw.

Your breaths are shallower now. You’re supposed to be talking, talking about you, talking about your relationship, talking about anything but how much you yearned for each other the past weeks.

You tilt your head sideways, facing him, and tentatively press your forehead to his. He’s rendered you breathless within minutes. You are drowning in him - his sight, his scent, his touch - you can’t talk, let alone breathe, not when he’s taking up all the space in the car.

All notions of reconciliation are abandoned when he presses a fleeting kiss to the shell of your ear, and then whispers, “Do I have to prove it?”

You draw in a shuddering breath.

“Please.”

His lips press into yours, hot and wet, as you lace your hands into his hair. He tastes of peppermint and marijuana. His hand trails from your cheek to your throat, squeezing gently, coaxing a small moan from you. Skimming his thumb over your pulse, his tongue slips into your mouth and you suck on it gently. Your hands tug at the hair interlocked between your fingers, and Eren releases a loud groan into your mouth.

“C’mere,” he mumbles against you. His hands slip under your thighs, and he gently manoeuvres you over the center console and into his lap. You shudder when you feel him beneath you, large and thick and impossibly hard. You roll your hips against the tent in his pants experimentally, and it pulls a moan from both of you.

He pulls away - his lips slick and swollen, still connected to yours by limp strings of saliva - to rasp, “Fuck, I’ve missed you so much, you know that?”

There is nothing other than reverence in his eyes as he surveys you. Your chest is already heaving, you’re flushed from your neck to your ears, and your lips are a dark, kiss-bitten red. An angel. My angel, Eren thinks. You hum in response and dip your head to capture his lips again. His cock is already dribbling precum, staining his sweats a dark grey. You run your tongue along his bottom lip, before sinking your teeth into it. His dick twitches.

Eren pulls away, again, to mutter huskily, “You’re so mean, baby, what am I gonna do with you?” before sliding his lips along your jaw. His lips leave a blazing trail behind them, and his hands are just as hot.

His fingers slip under the hem of your hoodie, pressing small circles into your skin that make you writhe in his lap. His lips stretch into a smirk as he descends down the column of your throat, pausing every now and again to suck bruises into your skin. His hands tug at your hoodie, with a muttered, “Off.”

You scramble to take off your oversized sweater in the confines of Eren’s car, and in your flurry of movements, you elbow the horn behind you. You jolt at the sudden squawk, but Eren’s grip on your waist keeps you grounded. He chuckles lightheartedly.

“Easy, we don’t want your neighbours knowing we’re out here, right?” he teases you. Pouting, you discard your hoodie into the passenger seat and watch Eren’s jaw go slack at the sight of your bare chest.

“No bra?” Eren immediately takes your left nipple into his hot, wet mouth and your back arches, “You’re so good to me, baby.”

You keen as he rolls the other nipple in his fingers, content with how they pebbled due to the chill of the night. He releases your nipple from his mouth with a wet pop and places sloppy, open-mouthed kisses in the valley between your breasts. His large, calloused hands fondle your breasts languidly, his cock twitching in his briefs. Moaning softly, you roll your hips against him, desperate for friction, and whimper out a needy, “Eren, please.”

He lazily grins up at you. He is so insufferable - “What do you need, baby?”

You attempt to roll your hips again, but Eren’s hands keep you stationary, “I need you.”

“Yeah? You want me to take these off for you?” He tugs at your skimpy shorts, and he chuckles when you nod enthusiastically, “Hips up, baby.” He hooks his fingers under the waistband of your thong, and he sweeps off your underwear and shorts, so you’re sitting bare in his lap. He wolf-whistles at the sight of you, pressing a few kisses to your collarbone.

Your tits, full, warm and round, your waist, melded to Eren’s touch, your thighs, plush and soft, either side of Eren’s lap, your pussy, glistening in the light, dripping onto his sweats - you’re so undeniably sexy, even more so in the moonlight painting you silver.

He runs his hands up and down your waist, enjoying the way you squirm under his touch. His lips are still swollen from your kisses, and his eyes are glazed with adoration. If you squint, you can see the hearts dancing in his eyes. Your heart flutters. You’re Eren’s, his to hold, his to fuck, his to love. He doesn’t deserve you - he knows that much - but he is willing to ruin your friendship if it meant being able to see you like this again. His eyes widen when he sees you palm your breasts, spilling out of the gaps between your fingers. His tongue darts out to wet his lips and warmth courses between your legs.

“Stop it.”

Eren is snapped out of his reverie by your voice. He clears his throat briefly. “Stop what?”

You wiggle on his lap, juggling your tits, smiling coyly, “Staring.”

He grins at you, brazen, “Never.”

His breath fans against your chest, hot, and his tongue slides across your sternum, hotter. He pulls you in for another kiss, a slower, softer one this time, and lets his hands roam around you freely. One hand rests on the small of your back, the other sliding down the plane of your stomach to where you need him most.

Your hips buck to meet him halfway. “Please, Eren-“

His fingers finally come into contact with your core, and you let out a strained whimper at his fleeting touch. He ghosts over your clit, chuckling at your displeasure. Just as you are about to whine again, he starts applying pressure to your swollen nub - just enough to make your head spin - as he clicks his tongue.

“Patience, baby. No more whining, you know I’ll give it to you good.“ He dips a finger between your folds, running it along your slit, before plunging it into you.

You gasp quietly as he begins thrusting it in and out of you. His fingers are long and thick, adorned with thick silver rings, nestled against that gummy spot that makes your knees weak. The stretch is delicious, something your fingers could never achieve. You can hear the squelch squelch squelch echo around the car before he even adds another finger. You’re mildly aware that you’re dripping down his wrist, but your mind is too foggy with pleasure to feel an inkling of shame. You’ve never been this wet for anyone before, and your heart hammers wildly in your chest.

“You hear that baby?” Eren teases you, “You’re so wet for me, aren’t you?” You whimper and bury your head into the crook of his neck. He slides in another finger, stretching you open, open, open. His rings graze your clit and you hum eagerly. You resort to bouncing on his hand, your gut beginning to tighten. Eren’s fingers still as he watches you. His voice is lowered to a husky drawl - “Go on, I want to see your cum on my fingers. Use me, baby.”

You begin to rock your hips faster, encouraged by his coos, the flames in your gut beginning to spread. Your gyrations become erratic and uneven. You pant into his ear wantonly, your breasts bouncing with your every move.

Gritting his teeth, Eren throws his head back. Moan by moan, you’re sending him closer to the edge. The hold you have on him is debilitating, and he’ll finish soon - untouched - if you don’t stop whining into his ear like a bitch in heat.

“Look at me,” Eren commands suddenly, tugging your hair. “I want to see you cum for me.”

Placing your hands on his shoulders, holding his gaze, you grind your clit against the heel of his palm. Your eyes roll to the back of your head as your legs lock around his waist at this newfound degree of pleasure. Moans are tumbling out of you unrestrained now, your voice high, whiny and loud. You are on the brink of orgasm, painstakingly close, and as Eren tugs your hair again, you lose it.

Your vision blurs and your legs shake as the world stutters on its axis. You spasm and clench around Eren’s hand, dripping onto the seat below you. Pleasure washes over you in waves, each one less intense than the last. You fall into Eren’s chest, breathing heavily as you come down from your high.

Eren looks at the mess you’ve made, chews his lip - letting out a low fuuuuck - before asking if, “You’re okay?”

You hum in response, barely registering Eren’s question. He flips you swiftly, and your back is now flush with his chest. His hoodie is warm and scratchy against your skin. Eren tugs your hair again, lighter this time, and you look at up him, eyes wide and glazed over.

Eren sucks in a breath as he stares at you, basking in your post-orgasm glow. Your skin shimmers in the dim light filtered through his windscreen, casting your face half in shadow. Your eyes are low and your chest heaves with your sharp and fast inhales. He brings his hand up to your cheek, swiping his thumb under your eye, the other cupping your sex.

“I could cum just looking at you,” he murmurs.

You lean into his embrace, whispering, “I can cum just thinking about you.”

A hoarse groan spills from his throat, and a hard slap is landed to your clit. Your whole body lurches as you mewl loudly.

“Is that right?” he chuckled breathlessly, “Do you think about me when you touch this dirty little pussy of yours at night?” You nod avidly, and he rewards you with a few harsh circles to your clit.

“Show me,” he said, leaning forward to watch his fingers play with your pussy, “Show me how hard you cum when you think about me.” He hoists you up so he can shove his sweats halfway down his thighs - no underwear? God, he’s such a slut - and your mouth waters at the sight of his cock, bobbing between your legs.

It was long, and girthy, the head flushed to an angry red. Precum dribbled steadily from the tip, trickling down his shaft in translucent streams. A bulging vein runs down the underside of his cock, straight to where his balls sit, heavy and warm. Gripping his cock at the base, he smacks the bulbous head again your clit twice. Your legs spasm either side of him and he smirks before spitting, a fat glob of saliva landing onto your puffy clit.

He taps your clit again, gentler, encouraging, as he urges you, “Touch yourself, baby. I won’t ask again.” The shift in his tone is evident as his eyes darken, forest green now a deep viridian. You bite your bottoms lip as you slide a hand down your body, the other idly kneading your left breast.

Your fingers draw lazy circles around your entrance before dipping a finger between your folds. You sigh breathily, allowing your head to fall against his shoulder, and Eren begins pumping himself slowly. You slip a finger into yourself, before bringing it back up to your lips. Eren watches keenly as you suck your essence off your fingers, then dip them back between your legs. You purr as you thrust two fingers into yourself, massaging that gummy spot that makes you dizzy. You begin to go faster, synchronous to the pumps of Eren’s hands.

His grunts are low and heavy in your ears, goading you to, “Go faster, I want to see you cum all over your fingers like the slut you are.”

You throw your head back in ecstasy, your fingers now hammering into your little hole, coaxing little spurts of arousal out of you with every pump. Eren uses your cum as a lubricant, slicking his shaft as he fists his cock aggressively. His dick nearly glitters in the moonlight, lathered in a milky sheen of your arousal. He snakes his vacant hand up your body, briefly squeezing your throat, your pulse hammering beneath his fingertips.

Your mouth opens in a silent scream, and he takes the opportunity to shove his fingers into your mouth. He watches saliva pool in your mouth, before spitting in it. You hum delightedly, your face so vacant with pleasure it makes Eren curse. As Eren pulls his fingers out of your mouth, spit dribbles down your chin and into the concaves of your collarbone.

“Such a messy girl, aren’t you?” he coos. You blink slowly, and then nod blankly. “Bet you don’t even know what I said, huh? So cockdrunk already,” he tuts at you lovingly as he brings his free hand to your second entrance.

When he circles your puckered hole, you gasp quietly. He shushes you tenderly, and he feels you give way beneath his finger tips.

“Good girl, gonna let me have all of you, right?” you agree mindlessly, dazed in the pursuit of your orgasm. He chuckles at you, how dumb you are for him, before slipping a finger into you, knuckle deep. Your body contorts and you let out a sharp cry. Eren grips the base of his cock to prevent the orgasm threatening to crest at the sound of your cries.

Even with one finger down there, you feel so full, and your eyes roll to the back of your head. You slam your free hand on the steamy window, plastering a hand-shaped spyhole onto it. Your fingers speed up and you begin to pant when you sense your core begin to twist.

“Eren- I’m so close, fuck,” Eren slides a second finger into your ass and you let out a loud, debauched, filthy moan. You lick your lips longingly, watching beads of precum drip over Eren’s hands as he smears it over his shaft.

“You’re so fucking hot,” Eren grunts against your neck, “Gonna make me cum.”

Knowing Eren was here, with you, being driven to the edge by your wanton cries and unabashed pleasure, sends you toppling headfirst into your second orgasm of the night.

Your back arches wildly and you wail out Eren’s name as you shake and convulse. You twitch violently around Eren’s fingers, simultaneously gushing onto yours. Your wrist is dripping with your arousal, as is Eren’s entire cock. As you thrash on his lap, he slowly retracts his fingers from your ass.

He slides his lips along your jaw, his tongue darting out to taste the sweat beaded along your face, before tilting your head with a large hand and kissing you. You suck on his bottom lip before sinking your teeth into it softly, just how he likes it.

With a throaty moan, Eren follows you and hot, thick ropes of cum shoot out from his cock. They drape over your thighs, the steering wheel and your stomach like silvery garlands of pearls. He lets out a small grunt as the last spurts fall limply onto his hand.

You whine breathily as he rubs his cock through your folds. He gently rolls his hips upwards, and his balls hit your round ass with a small plap. He pulls away from your heated kiss, and you chase his lips desperately - you’re pathetic.

The head of his massive cock aligns with your belly button and Eren, gripping his shaft by the base, taps his tip against your navel, admiring the thin strings of precum that linger.

His voice drips with sadistic enthusiasm when he drawls, “I’m gonna be in your stomach, baby. Can you take it?”

“Eren, please, I need you.” You roll your hips against the hard length of his member.

He chuckles at your wanton desperation. “You want it, baby?” You nod fervently. “How bad?”

“So, so, so bad, please fuck me, Eren.” Your head lolls back onto his shoulder, and your eyes lock onto his with blind adoration. He presses a quick kiss to your hairline, and then your forehead.

“Since you asked so nicely.” He presses his cock against your entrance, slowly, slowly, slowly pushing past that tight ring of muscle. You sigh dreamily as Eren nibbles on your earlobe, occasionally tugging at your piercings.

He pauses briefly when he bottoms out. You squirm in his arms before he scolds you, slapping your inner thigh harshly. The eerie silence of the world around you fades into your ears ringing when he slowly - agonisingly - begins thrusting. His cock drags along your walls perfectly with every precise roll of his hips. His groans echo around the car. The joint sounds of your ecstasy nearly drown out the lewd squelches between your legs.

Your eyes roll to the back of your head when Eren hammers your g-spot. You squeeze your eyes shut as you feel your release begin to crest. Eren’s breath is hot against your neck and his muttered praises cloud your brain.

One of your hands travels up to entangle itself in Eren’s hair. He turns and plants a wet kiss on your palm. His thrusts become more rapid and shallow as you clench around him. You feel the car rock in time with his thrusts and you sigh happily.

You want your neighbours to know you’re getting fucked senseless. You want the world to know how good you’re getting it right now. Though now, your world has you spread on his lap like a fuckdoll and is pounding you like an animal.

You hiccup as Eren sinks his teeth into your palm. “You okay, pretty girl? Been quiet for a while.” When you nod, he presses his wet lips to your cheek, plastering his smile on you. He slides a hand down to your clit and begins rubbing it in small, quick circles. “No worries, I’ll have you screamin’ my name in no time. Gonna turn you into my little rag-doll.”

Your back arches as his thrusts also pick up speed. Every thrust has your legs trembling and voice cracking.

“Eren- fuck, it’s so good,” you babble in your gut-wrenching pleasure.

“Yeah?” His smirk is hot against your neck. He whispers, “How good?”

Your eyes roll to the back of your head as he thrusts impossibly faster. Your hands dig into his biceps and when you feel blood bead at the skin, he hisses in pleasure.

“So good, no one does it like you, Eren.”

He throws his head back with a hearty groan. God, you don’t know what you do to him. Every time he thinks you’ve lured him in deep enough, he finds himself diving into you again, until he’s drowning in your wet, warm depths.

Your eyes meet his again. Your lashes flutter and Eren presses a kiss to your sweaty forehead after brushing away the hair plastered to it.

“Oh, yeah? It’s that good?” You nod lazily, your body jolting with the force of his thrusts. He takes one of your tits in his palm and squeezes hard. He lowers his mouth to yours, and you wet your lips in anticipation. “You gotta cum all over me then.”

You do. Ecstasy dances down your spine as you cry out his name. You squeeze your eyes shut as your clamp down on Eren’s cock. White flashes behind your eyelids like fireworks. You moan his name again and again and again and he tells you he knows, he knows, he knows. Your arousal drips down his shaft, leaving a glistening trail past his balls and onto the padded leather beneath you both.

“Good girl,” he coos. He brings the fingers circling your clit up to your lips, and you dart your tongue out to taste yourself.

His pace never relents, not even when you’re sobbing wildly. The aftershocks of your previous orgasm fade, and you’re already teetering on the edge of another. You wring your hands in the sweat-sodden material of his hoodie. You sob, “I’m gonna cum again.”

“Already?” he tuts and laughs, his voice husky and low. He hums in approval before pinching your nipple tightly. The pain elicits a sweet, little cry from you. His voice is strangled when he asks, “Tell me what you need.”

“More, I need more, I need it harder,” you whine into his neck. You nuzzle into his collarbone, deeply inhaling his warm, vanilla cologne.

“You want harder? I’ll give you harder, you little slut,” he grunts as he hooks his arms under your knees, pinning them to your chest. The change in position angles his cock so deep into you, you can feel him in your throat. When you feel the head of his cock ram into your cervix, you shriek - half pain, half pleasure - and Eren swallows your cries with a wet and sloppy kiss, much like the mess between your legs.

Incoherent moans tumble from your mouth, your eyes find sanctuary in the back of your head and your wetness floods the seat below you. The sharp pain makes you gasp, makes your toes curl. The pads of Eren’s fingers are warm against your knees and his breath is searing against your neck. He continues to split you open on his cock, intent on ruining you on his lap.

He lifts his head to observe you, to admire your undoing. Your skin is sweaty and flushed, your lashes beaded with tears, your lips swollen and bitten. You’re a sight for sore eyes, a glimpse of heaven in his arms. Your eyes snap to his and you whimper in shame, mustering up the scraps of dignity you had remaining, shying away from the ferocity in his eyes.

Eren chuckles dryly at you. He calls your name. Once. Twice. You shake your head and bury it into your chest.

“Oh, no, no, no.” His hands come to rest on the back of your head, arms still hooked under your knees, and he roughly yanks your head back to look at him.

You gasp, “Eren-“

“Look at me.” Your eyes lock onto his. “Look at this.” He tilts your head down, maintaining his ruthless pace, “Look at you, baby, getting so wet for me.”

You laugh and sob, surveying the mess you’ve created. Your arousal is spread between your thighs - thick, slimy strings connecting your thighs to Eren’s. Your lips are stretched around his width, suctioning him into you with a lewd squelch. It’s so wet and sloppy and messy and it’s so, so perfect.

“Feels so- so, so good, baby, fuck,” you babble this out to Eren and he belts out his handsome, disarming laugh.

“Yeah? Bet it does.” You melt even further into his touch when he places a kiss to the crown of your head.

Watching yourself get split open by Eren sends you hurtling towards your release, so you breathe out a quiet, “Cumming.”

Eren chuckles, drops his lips to your ear, and murmurs, “Are you asking or telling me?”

You shake your head weakly. “Don’t make me beg.”

He chuckles quietly, deciding to take mercy on you. Eren sinks his teeth into your earlobe before he gives you a deep, hard thrust, and then commands you to, “Cum.”

Your legs go limp as the world stutters on its axis. The pleasure is mind-numbingly intense and white-hot bursts of relief wrack your body rhythmically. Your mouth gapes in a silent scream as Eren slams himself into your cervix again and again. Hot tears roll down your cheeks, and your head kills back onto his shoulder, too weak to watch yourself cum around him.

Your arousal, clear and copious, sprays everywhere in his car : his seat, the steering wheel, the windscreen, even your body. Eren moans at the sight of you squirting all over his car, you marking your territory. You shudder helplessly in his grasp, succumbing to the heat dousing your limbs. If not for Eren’s tight grip on you, you would have collapsed.

He keeps going, keeps thrusting, desperate to join you in the pleasure of orgasm. His thrusts become sloppier, but no less deep. You mewl with every pump of his hips against yours, overly sensitive and stimulated.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” he pants, strained and shaky, in your ear.

You moan at the thought of his hot, thick cum filling you up. “Inside, Eren, please, please, please-“

He cuts you off with a pained groan, “Fuck, you know I can’t do that.”

“Please, Eren, please,” you plead with him, your eyes wide and glassy, “Don’t I deserve it?”

His eyes snap shut and he lets out a shaky, ragged breath. “Shit, you’re making this really hard for me.” His hips pummel you faster, shallower, irregular, as if he’s losing his restraint.

Fuck it, he’s come this far, and he can’t say no to you. “You want it, baby? You want me to fill you up?”

“Yes, yes, yes, I need it Eren, please give it to me,” you whimper desperately.

“Fuck,” he whines as he thrusts into you a final time, unloading himself into you. Sighing happily, you press a kiss to his cheek as you feel the warm spurts of cum paint your insides. He only pulls out when he stops pulsing inside you, wincing slightly.

Eren slumps against your shoulder, his chest rattling with every breath. Your hands tangle into his thick, chestnut hair. He grunts in approval. Quick, fleeting kisses are pressed to your shoulders and you shudder. Your movement reminds you of the mess between your legs, and you suddenly feel filthy.

“Eren,” your voice is nothing more than a whisper.

Eren’s response is muffled by your neck. “Yes, baby?”

You sniffle. “I’m messy,” Eren jerks up, seemingly rejuvenated after remembering the importance of aftercare.

“Shit, sorry, I’ll clean you up now,” he reaches for your hoodie and starts wiping at your inner thighs. He grins up at you over your shoulder - “You really made a mess huh?”

You shuffle awkwardly in his lap. You had squirted on his skylight, a mess was an understatement.

The corners of his lips pull upwards into a smirk, “Don’t worry about it, ‘m getting my car detailed anyway.” Humming when he’s deemed you clean, he rotates you so you’re eye to eye. His eyes twinkle with undulating lust as he wipes away your tears. “You good?”

You nod meekly, nuzzling his calloused palm.

He pinches your thigh. “Don’t get all shy on me now, you were being real loud earlier.” He tosses the hoodie into the backseat before placing kisses to both of your breasts. His brows pinch at the slightly pensive expression plastered on your face.

He tugs your hair lightly. “Do you want me to get you a Plan B? We can-“

“We were supposed to be talking, Eren,” you wring his hoodie in your hands.

A cocky grin spread across Eren’s face. “Oh, she was definitely talking to me,” he moves to cup your sex, but you swat his hand away. His smile drops at the deflated look in your face.

Sighing, you ask, “Are we ever going to talk about this?”

He frowns, brushing your hair out of your face. “I thought we were gonna forget about it? One time thing, you know?”

You sigh softly and slip your hands under the hem of his hoodie. As you run your hands along the ridges of Eren’s abdomen, his cock bobs.

“We can’t keep using that as an excuse to-“

“Do you regret it?”

“Huh?” Your head snaps up to meet his gaze and his eyes are glinting mischievously.

Squeezing your face between his fingers, Eren pulls your face towards his. His tongue slides along your bottom lip before he reclines. “Do you regret this? Us?”

You swallow.

You don’t respond.

But this time, Eren knows better.

He captures you in a slow, sloppy kiss. His lips meld to yours as he murmurs, “I don’t think we have to talk about anything then.” He sucks your bottom lip slowly, letting it swell in his mouth, before smirking impishly as he rasps, “Talking’s overrated.”

[audiodrama]

The Bonneville Game

[sirenspells]

Watching Arena Ultimax is making me think about Fam a Lam AU Arena again, and specifically two Minato and Teddie interactions come to mind

1. Teddie, who likes to give nicknames to everyone, calls Minato “Minty”, a nickname that he already uses with SEES, so he’s like “yeah sorry that name isn’t for commoners like you to use”

2. Teddie sees “Miss President” and Minato and immediately assumes the two are siblings based purely on the fact that both of their hair is blue.

[sariastrategos]

“People are staring” Lambert muttered, dropping his shoulders and curling in on himself. He was gently hoisted up by the arm he had linked with Jaskier.

“Of course they are darling, we’re gorgeous.” He replied, staring straight ahead, apparently paying no mind to the turning heads.

“Jaskier-“

“Lambert.”

This was a terrible idea. The singular worst idea he’d ever had.

“They’re not staring because we look good, Jaskier”

“Whatever gives you that impression?”

“Gee, I dunno, could be the confused fucking looks they’re throwing at us. Or maybe the muttering right after? How about the snickers?” He replied darkly, hunching back in on himself at the disgusted looks an older couple had openly plastered on their faces “what the fuck are you looking at you wrinkly old farts? Never seen a man in a fucking dress before? Get the fuck outta here!” He snarled.

Jaskier places a hand on his upper arm and hauled him back on course. “Calm down, dear.”

Easy for him to say. Walking without a care in the world despite his minty green, flouncy dress, coral kitten heels and matching purse. Man was wearing a choker and pink lip gloss for fucks sake.

He’d been feeling more confident lately, mostly thanks to Jaskier and his brothers’ support. They never flinched when he came out all done up after three hours of Jaskier’s meticulous attention. Didn’t blink when he wore leggings and a loose top or lounged around in skirt.

Well, besides telling him to close his damn legs, they didn’t need to see his balls airing out.

But yeah, aside from that the only comment they made was to tell him he looked nice, the colour suited him, his legs looked great in that outfit, etc. Nothing but supportive, even if they teased him. If anything the teasing helped, made everything feel normal. So yeah, he’d been feeling confident. Comfortable in his own skin, even.

He mentioned to Jaskier as he practiced his makeup that he kind of felt good enough to maybe leave the house. In his makeup. And a dress. Maybe some cute heels.

Jaskier had leapt on the idea. Gushed about how pretty they’d look, walking down the street in the spring sunshine. He wasn’t shy about anything, he and Geralt went out all the time with him dressed up. Even if he was just wearing makeup he didn’t care and neither had Geralt.

So they’d decided on a small outing. Nothing big, no malls or clubs or anything, just...out for ice cream and maybe a stroll through the park. Nothing too far from the house.

Jaskier’s enthusiasm had certainly been a deciding factor in this little outing but he wasn’t feeling as confident now. He knew he wasn’t getting as many looks as he thought, not even a quarter of the people on the street spared them a glance but he felt every. Single. One.

It was the last straw when a group of fucking frat fucks openly stared and laughed.

“I can’t do this. Let’s go back, those little shits are actually laughing in our faces.”

“Do you know them?” Jaskier asked, looking at him quizzically, completely ignoring the bastards with a death wish on the bench they were passing.

“No, the fuck? Should I know them?”

“No.” Jaskier said simply, turning and looking straight ahead again, chin tipped back and head held high “they’re not worth knowing.” He continued, tugged their linked arms to get his feet moving again when he tried to stop and turn around. “And if they aren’t worth knowing, their opinions aren’t worth your consideration.”

He let himself be tugged along as he considered this thought. Compelling argument but it didn’t stop the curl of shame and fear that twisted his guts when one of them wolf whistled and the others laughed.

The growls he heard rumble behind him startled him. He looked behind, catching Jaskier’s grin on the way, to see both Geralt and Eskel glaring daggers at the boys. Every line of their posture was menacing, from the snarls on their faces to the wide set of their feet. The boys on the bench, so brave a moment ago when they were jeering, fell silent and stared, wide eyed, at the two enormous men.

“It is helpful to have twin mountains of muscle ready to tear out throats with their teeth walking behind you.” Jaskier said, throwing a fond look and sly grin behind them. “I’ve thought several times that they should rent themselves out as escorts for this very purpose.”

They watched as Eskel and Geralt took two menacing steps in the boys’ direction and they went tripping over each other to bolt the other way. It was satisfying to see them run, comforting to know he had their support but also depressing that he’d not been the one to scare them off himself.

He suddenly felt ridiculous, all trussed up in a purple wrap dress, meticulously applied makeup and a wig Jaskier had picked up somewhere. Jaskier had offered him some contrasting yellow heels but they were a little too bright for his confidence level and he’d settled on a black pair instead.

He looked alright, his silhouette was a fuckin mess without the proper padding or a clincher but he thought he looked at least a little nice before he left. His makeup was fucking flawless.

He’d shaved off his goatee for this.

But all it took was some awkward looks and mocking from some little shits who’d barely come out of puberty and every ounce of his good mood had been fucking shattered. Everywhere. He was walking on the debris of his budding comfort with his super cute shoes. He could see the purple nail polish from his pedi through the peep toes of his heels as he crunched down on the remains of his hope.

He hadn’t realized he was spiralling until the arm linked with his tugged him forward and another snaked around his shoulders. Both gave him a light squeeze and he blinked to see the arm around him belonged to Eskel who was giving him a smile.

“Fuck ‘em, Lam, their shit ain’t worth yours.” He gave him another squeeze “you look great, they just don’t know how to handle how confused you made their sexuality.”

He snorted and let himself stand up a little straighter, marveling at the extra inch of height he now had on his older brother. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll be jacking themselves to thoughts of me tonight”

“I will be” Jaskier commented mildly from his other side, wrapping his free arm around Geralt’s, who was still glaring after the boys. “You’ve got such lovely legs, dear heart, I wish you’d show them off more.”

“Yeah I’ll just throw out all my jeans and fill my drawers with Daisy Dukes and leggings for you.” He rolled his eyes and let himself keep walking, trying to ignore the people around them. They really weren’t that bad, hardly anyone looked their way but it felt like everyone was looking at him. He couldn’t pull this off as well as Jask with his big, bright eyes, long lashes and soft features.

“Don’t tease, darling, it’s cruel” he replied and planted a smooch on his cheek. “Before you fuss, your makeup is fine.” He was grinning from ear to ear, walking like a natural in those shoes, with a practiced sashay to his hips that did wonders to catch the eye. It sure kept catching Geralt’s eye as his skirts swished and his hip bumped his regularly. There was a reason he’d chosen to walk behind them at the start of this after all.

“How do you do it?” He asked “how do you walk like that?”

With a confused look Jaskier watched him for a moment “the same way you do darling, lots of practice and sore feet-“

“No I mean how do you walk like you don’t give a fuck? You don’t feel all the eyes burning into you?”

Jaskier paused and considered his answer “Well that’s just it darling, I don’t give a fuck.” He smiled brightly “their opinions don’t mean a damn thing to me, chances are I probably won’t see any of these people again and if I do we won’t remember each other.” He hugged his arm to him tightly “and what’s more is it’s my life, not theirs. This makes me feel happy and fulfilled and their opinions don’t, so which matters more?”

That took some time to process. They continued to walk and Lambert dimly recognized the warmth of the sun, the conversation flowing around him, the weight of his brother’s arm, as all secondary to his thoughts as he took Jaskier’s words in. He was right, the logic was sound, but it didn’t stop him from curling in on himself whenever he heard people muttering as they passed by. For fuck’s sake they probably weren’t even talking about him but it felt like they were.

He had to restrain himself from lashing out twice before Eskel tightened his arm around him again and leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Remember, confidence is key, little sister”

He almost got whiplash with how fast he snapped his head around to look at him. He’d never called him that before, no matter how much makeup or what skirt he was wearing. His eyes must have been saucers but Eskel just gave him a bolstering grin, the same look he’d give him when he was practicing footwork or frustrated with a brew that wouldn’t turn out. It was comfortingly familiar. “back straight, head up, no more of this self-conscious hunching, it doesn’t suit you”

“It really doesn’t” Geralt chimed in “The Lambert we know is proud, loud and obnoxious. Let that Lambert back out.”

It took a little bit, but eventually he straightened his spine, Vesemir would have killed him to see him slouching like that. A coaxing smile from Jaskier and he tilted his chin up a little more.

“That’s better.” Eskel grinned “the rest of the world can go fuck itself, show them what a fierce bitch you are.”

Lambert gave him a cocky grin that he was actually starting to feel “I am a fierce bitch. Fuck ‘em I am, I’ll claw their fucking eyes out if they don’t like it.”

“That’s the spirit darling! With the right nails, anything is possible!” Jaskier, always a font of support and violence.

“Fuck, thanks Eskel, now they’re fucking feral and it’s your fault” Geralt looked up at the sky like he was praying for strength. Jaskier and Lambert could feed off each other’s destructive energy for hours.

“You’re just jealous you’re nails can’t cut throats”

Jaskier and Lambert ignored them, discussing the merits and drawbacks of stiletto nails.

He still had a long way to go before he’d leave the house in makeup without at least one of them, but he felt good for today.

[mischief-pixie]

Sam-a-lam! Samoose .... Sammy? Anyway WASSUP MOOSE MAN? Favorite memory with Minty?

Aricka! Hey! Favorite memory with Mint? Easy. One time when she was a kid, we decided to prank Dean, and we spent weeks planning it. We bleached his eyebrows, and He was mad at us for months after, but it was totally worth it.

[asfeedin]

“Let the Hate Flow Through You”: Cooking Tasks That Fill Us With Dread

[Photographs: Vicky Wasik unless otherwise noted]

It should come as no surprise to any of our readers that everyone on the Serious Eats staff loves to cook. Many of us are even die-hard defenders of the proposition that anything homemade is preferable to store-bought, from English muffins and cake (bye, Betty Crocker!) to even condiments like mayonnaise and chili crisp, where the store-bought versions are totally fine to use.

That doesn’t mean we all love everything about cooking! Some kitchen tasks are incredibly annoying. Washing spinach? Picking thyme leaves? Touching corn starch? Yup, all of those are bad. Usually, we’d say about such tasks, “Life’s too short. No one has time for that.” And yet, now, for all of us, everywhere, cooking more of our meals at home, we all do, in fact, have time for even the most-time-consuming kitchen chores. But that doesn’t mean we have to like them any better than in the time before coronavirus.

We asked our staff to identify one thing they hate to do in the kitchen above all others, and their answers are included below, from peeling garlic and deveining shrimp to “baking” (nice one, Niki!). We found talking about the cooking activities we hate to be cathartic, so if you’d like to take a minute out of your day and gripe about anything kitchen-related—for fun, for your mental health, or just because making chicken cutlets really does blow chunks—say it loud and say it proud in the comments.

So Much Hand-Washing

Cooking and baking are inherently messy activities that require thoughtful cleaning and prepping to mitigate the risks of cross contamination and food-borne illnesses. Now that hand-washing is finally getting the attention it deserves inside and outside of the kitchen, I feel some shame in admitting that it is not my favorite task. Please don’t report me to the CDC! I still practice it carefully as needed! You can still come over for dinner when social distancing is over! I just have painful eczema on my hands, which is exacerbated by soap and hot water.

I try to obsessively plan out my kitchen tasks to reduce hand washing. That means prepping in order from the cleanest to dirtiest ingredient, dry to wet, water-based to oil-based. There is a special type of dread that comes when both of my hands are greasy, sticky, and unusable. My personal purgatory would involve dredging fried chicken while the oven timer goes off, my phone with the recipe on it goes to sleep, and the doorbell rings at the same time. —Maggie Lee, designer

Bones to Pick

The only two single-use tools I own are a cherry pitter and fish tweezers, for deboning fish. Pitting cherries is a tedious task, but at least you get to eat cherries as you work. Deboning fish is grunt work. When I can’t get my fishmonger to do it, I have to dig through my utensil drawer to find the oddly shaped tweezers. Though plucking each pin bone out of fish fillets offers some gratification, not unlike plucking an errant eyebrow hair, it’s an annoying layer of prep work that gets in the way of cooking. It’s not satisfying like chopping or dicing, it’s not a skill that I seem to get better or faster at, and it’s something that, if you forget to do it, markedly decreases the enjoyment of the meal. I hate it! —Daniela Galarza, features editor

Garlic Prep

This most mundane of tasks is the one I can’t stand the most. Not because it’s particularly difficult, but because it’s a daily nuisance. There’s hardly a recipe that doesn’t require fiddling with garlic’s papery skins, and of course garlic is wonderful so I’m never willing to skip it, which just…pisses me off! Look, I know every trick in the book, from smashing the garlic with a knife and rattling the cloves around in metal mixing bowls to giving each clove a gentle twist between my fingers to pry the skins loose, but none of them work well enough or consistently enough to ease my mind of the inevitable dread whenever it’s time to peel yet more garlic.

There is a flip side to this, though, which is the deep appreciation I feel when a fresh crop of garlic rolls into the market and for a few months I get to enjoy those easy-to-peel skins before they dry out and become so damned annoying again. —Daniel Gritzer, managing culinary director

Minty Fresh Aggravation

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz]

Whenever I have the energy, I like to add tons of fresh herbs to almost anything I’m cooking, and I especially love the summery freshness of mint. But the prep is such a fussy nightmare! First you have to carefully wash, then dry the whole plants, and then painstakingly pick off leaves one at a time. With things like parsley and cilantro I tend to just chop everything up, but mint stalks are so woody and fibrous there’s really no getting around individually picking off the leaves.” —Daniel Dyssegaard Kallick, developer

A Tough Nut to Crack

No matter what I do or whatever method I use (toaster oven, small sauté pan), the nuts I am attempting to toast always burn. It drives me nuts and burns me up. Burnt nuts aren’t really usable for anything. I am awaiting the development of the single-use nut toaster that automatically turns off when the nuts are a nice toasty golden brown. Until then I’ll continue to suffer, though no longer in silence. —Ed Levine, overlord

Berry Annoyed

When it comes to washing produce, my laziness knows no bounds. This is especially true with washing berries. They’re delicate, so I don’t want to mush them up; they’re more absorbent than anything with peels or a skin; and they require a careful picking through to take out any unwanted debris. I’ve begrudgingly come around to washing most fruits and veggies that come through my kitchen (as one should), but berries still get to me. —Jina Stanfill, social media editor

I Like My Fingers, Thanks

It’s time to get hyper-specific: I was hired because of my abilities to cut footage, not produce, so my chopping skills leave a lot to be desired. My mandoline has helped hide that fact whenever I’m prepping a dish that requires razor-thin shavings of anything. I’ve had no issues with anything I’ve sliced except shallots. I’m not sure if it’s the tear-inducing onion fumes or their slick layers that makes shallots super-slippery, but thinly sliced shallots are my arch nemesis. The only silver lining is that if I ever need fried shallots to snack on while going on the lam without fingerprints, I’ve got the perfect solution. —Joel Russo, video producer

Grating Cheese Really Grates

I am a perfectionist in the kitchen and prefer to do everything myself, but if there’s one task I delegate it’s grating cheese, an awkward motion that seems designed to induce repetitive stress injury. My great-grandfather had no rotational function in his forearm owing to a war injury, and so, I’m told, he built his own cheese-grating system operated by foot pedal. I am looking into a similar solution. —John Mattia, video editor

Golden Fried No-Thank-You

Like most people, I appreciate a perfect piece of fried food—from donuts and chicken to deep-fried pickles. However, despite how much I enjoy fried food, I absolutely dislike deep frying anything at home. I basically avoid it at this point. From having to make sure I have oil on hand (I never do, and I never have the right oil, to boot), to checking that the oil is hot enough and maintaining its temperature (which is a guessing game for me, even with a thermometer), and then to cleaning up the mess and the oil itself (which, to be honest, I’ve sometimes left for my husband to deal with), is just a recipe for more work than I’m willing to put in. On top of that, the fry smell permeates everything in my apartment for at least a week. I’ll leave the business of fried food to places that have commercial deep fryers and will continue to frequent them whenever I’m craving fried food perfection. —Kristina Razon, operations manager

Sharpen My Knife? Yeah, Right

As I look at this list of the cooking tasks my work colleagues dread, I’m pretty surprised. A lot of these tasks I actually really enjoy. Peeling garlic, picking mint leaves…those are things I relish and even find relaxing. You can’t mess up peeling garlic or picking leaves. But you can absolutely mess up sharpening a knife. Despite the fact that we have a really useful guide to knife sharpening, I can’t get myself to do it. I’m terrified I’m going to cut myself or mess up my blades. What looks like a really cool, meditative process on video just fills me with fear. And I know that dull knives can also be very dangerous! So the lesser of two evils is to use an electric sharpener. Don’t tell my colleagues! I don’t want them to be disappointed. —Ariel Kanter, director of commerce and content marketing

Baking

Look, I’m not a complete monster—I love to eat baked goods (though I’d argue that cake is seriously overrated). But with rare exceptions, like these insanely easy ricotta-brown butter cookies, this damn fine cherry pie, and these truly phenomenal lemon bars, I’ll go to great lengths to avoid making them from scratch. I’d say my resistance is a 70-30 ratio of “fear of discovering at the very end that I’ve messed up the dessert/bread and all my hard, finicky work was for naught and everyone will be disappointed and I will be judged” and “unpleasant mess.” But really, it’s so, so many reasons. Allow me to elaborate:

Too many bowls: It’s just too many bowls, period. Do I even have that many bowls? What if they’re reactive? And then after I’ve made the damn dessert I also need to clean them all?? Hard pass.

Whisking dry ingredients together: This is a task I thought I had under control until I found out Stella recommends doing it for AT LEAST ONE MINUTE—which might as well be a year.

Sifting: Sometimes the recipe asks you to sift stuff. The sheer amount of powder that winds up on my work surfaces, clothing, and floor is unacceptable. Especially when it’s cocoa powder that gets damp and is suddenly chocolate.

Using a stand mixer: I love my stand mixer for making fresh pasta. But when I have to actually use the bowl, it’s infuriating. Scraping the sides of your mixing bowl is just an endless game of turning the machine on and off, sticking your arm in at weird angles only to almost always miss a spot.

Too many leftovers: When I take on a baking project, I’m faced with indivisible recipes that yield far greater than two servings. Yes, you can freeze pie or cookie dough, but my freezer is incredibly small. Because I have zero self-control, this almost always results in a severe stomachache. For this reason, I almost only bake for company, which leads me to perhaps my greatest pet peeve…

Not being able to taste as you go! The idea that my baked good could look amazing on the outside, but I won’t know if I messed up until I serve and slice into the thing, is profoundly disincentivizing. As the EIC of a prominent food site, I put a lot of pressure on myself when cooking for company, and while I never second guess the quality of a Stella recipe, that doesn’t mean I can’t introduce untold human errors into the process.

The only way to get better at baking is to keep…doing it. Enough said.

Finally, to anyone thinking, so your real issue is being tidy, organized, patient, and detail-oriented…I guess you’re right. Shame on me! Thankfully, those traits don’t present in every area of my life. —Niki Achitoff-Gray, editor-in-chief

Sticky Cilantro

I love cilantro (sorry if it tastes like soap to you), so I don’t actively shy away from this task, but I loathe the seemingly special ability it has to stick to anything and everything once chopped—the cutting board, the knife, my hands, whatever you use to try and scrap the knife clean. —Paul Cline, president

Cutlets!

I hate making breaded chicken cutlets. I hate everything about it. It is, for me, the manifestation of cooking hell on Earth. Why does something so delicious have to be such a pain in the neck to make? Because that’s really the rub; there’s a lot of cooking tasks I dislike—washing fresh spinach 10 million times only to discover there’s still grit in the washing water; crumbling up cold leftover rice with my hands; touching powdered plant starch of any kind—but there’s only one that I dislike and yet feel compelled to regularly repeat, since I don’t know if life is worth living if you can’t eat good chicken cutlets at least once every two weeks.

Part of it is the mess, sure. But a lot of cooking tasks are messy. Any and all baking projects make me make a mess of my kitchen. And even if making cutlets means I have to clean a cutting board, a meat mallet, at least two half sheet pans (one for the breaded cutlets to rest, another for cooling), a cooling rack, a quarter sheet pan (for breading), and two 1/8 sheet pans (for the flour and egg wash dredging), a skillet, the stovetop (of oil splatters), the counter (for spills), the floor (for random flour and bits of panko), and my hands 10 billion times to prevent immediate food poisoning and belated food poisoning via cross-contamination, that isn’t the whole picture of my hate for these stupidly delicious things.

Part of it is you can’t do anything else while cooking them. They’re quick to cook, sure, but you can only cook a few at a time in even a 12-inch skillet, and you need to watch them, tend the temperature of the oil as you would a baby’s first toddling steps, and you need to salt each one right out of the fryer otherwise they’re crap, and then you have to cook like six more because who, really, makes just two freaking cutlets at a time except for heathens and (some very diligent) line cooks? That’s a solid block of kitchen time spent just frying things; you can’t clean as you go, you can’t prep other food, you’re just cooking cutlets for however long it takes to cook them all.

Another part of it is: No one likes a badly cooked cutlet, and cooking 10 cutlets, say, requires you pay careful attention to cooking the cutlets for a sustained period of time. It’s outrageous! And then, inevitably, when my attention flags, or I have to do literally anything else that might be necessary, like talking to my child, or paying attention to my wife, or thinking even for a moment, “man, I absolutely hate making chicken cutlets,” a cutlet will burn or get unevenly colored or overcooked because I haven’t been swirling the oil, or checking on its underside crust, or maybe I’m just at the end of the process and rather than “wasting” more cooking oil and topping off the fat in the pan, I try (for the 100 billionth time) to make do with less oil than is obviously necessary and all the burning bits of panko from the other 16 cutlets I’ve made start sticking to the crust of the final three, mottling their appearance and generally messing them up.

The only way I’ve found to deal with cutlet madness is to make them at least an hour before I have to eat them, because otherwise I find any flaw in any cutlet an indictment not just of my skills as a cook but of the entire cutlet-making operation.

But, of course, even the badly cooked cutlets taste really good, even when eaten as a cold leftover, provided you salted them properly and salt them again out of the fridge, and so the process will begin again solely on the strength of how good the things are to eat, any time of day, prepared in any stupid way.—Sho Spaeth, editor and writer and lover of cutlets

Cleaning Shrimp

There were a lot of time-consuming prep tasks that I used to dread when I cooked in restaurants. The combination of the sheer volume of prep required to get through service (picking a full pint of thyme leaves or thinly slicing a quart of chives to dole out to all the cooks on the line is a major pain in the ass when you also need to get purées cooked and blended, whole fish broken down, lobster meat picked, and so on), and the constant breakneck push and anxiety to get the endless list of tasks done by the time the first wave of guests are sat in a dining room can take the joy out of menial kitchen tasks. But these days, I don’t dread having to clean a big haul of produce that I picked up from the farmers market—in fact, I find the process very enjoyable and soothing.

That doesn’t mean that I suddenly enjoy every prep project under the sun, though. There’s one that I will always despise, and it’s peeling and deveining shrimp.

There is nothing enjoyable about the process—it’s tedious, time-consuming, not very appetizing, and over the years I’ve come to realize that the irritation I feel when handling raw shrimp is physical as well as mental (my hands get super-itchy when shelling shrimp without gloves). But when I want shrimp for dinner, like for a recent riff on aglio e olio pasta, I can’t bring myself to purchase already peeled and deveined ones. Shrimp shells are packed with so much flavor, it’d be a shame to miss out on that potential.

So, I begrudgingly set up a shrimp processing station instead, and get to work excising those giant digestive tracts, cursing myself the whole time for not just making shell-on salt and pepper shrimp instead. However, that would involve deep-frying, another cooking project that I don’t love tackling at home. —Sasha Marx, senior culinary editor

Dirty, Dirty Greens

It’s a running joke in the Serious Eats office that my refrigerator is usually a barren wasteland. I just don’t tend to keep a lot of food around; it inevitably goes bad because I’m so full from snacking all day at work in the test kitchen that I rarely feel like cooking when I get home. But once in a while you’ll find a pie plate in there with my favorite recipe on the site: spanakopita. The one thing I’ve learned from the dozen or so times I’ve made this recipe is that washing and drying leafy greens and herbs SUCKS. It is just the absolute worst, especially when you have a smaller salad spinner. —Vicky Wasik, visual director

Rice, Rice, Baby

I’m well aware that making rice is one of the simpler tasks to take on in the kitchen, and I’m slightly fearful of the backlash I might receive when my colleagues read this. It’s hard for me to pinpoint just what it is about making rice that I don’t like. Maybe it’s the pesky grains that try to escape when you wash them (I’ve only recently invested in a fine-mesh strainer, which has made me hate the process just a little less); or maybe it’s the water-to-rice ratio that, without fail, I always have to look up to make sure I’m getting just right. Whatever it is, I dread it. So whenever I’m cooking and I need to serve a dish with rice, I just nominate whoever is around me to do it instead. —Yasmine Maggio, social media intern

So now you know our dirty secrets. What tasks do you dread these days?

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[thetavolution]

More Minty! Although that info is from her original incarnation for @thebonnevillegame but a lot of it still carries over! She's my little weirdo and I love her. She just doesn't have a supernatural podcast in BG3 like she does in The Bonneville Game.

What would podcasts in the BG3 universe even be like? Minty would still do one with Ingrid and Laura, but it'd probably be about their adventures and telling people their findings. As for what everyone else would listen to....

Gale would be an NPR guy.

Karlach would be love audio dramas and My Brother, My Brother, and Me. She'd struggle to pay attention though. MBMBAM kind of matches her attention span for them best.

Lae'zel would have no interest in them.

Wyll would love comedians with podcasts, like Conan O'Brien or Marc Maron. He'd also listen to news and political podcasts to keep up with current events. He'd listen to podcasts that cover "the other side of the argument" but then just be angry about it all day when someone said something hateful.

Shadowheart would listen to stuff like Normal Gossip and Why Won't You Date Me? with Nicole Byer.

Astarion would listen to true crime, legal podcasts, and he would also like Normal Gossip. Then he'd talk about it with Shadowheart and then probably submit a story of his own about his companions.

Halsin would probably listen to some of them, but only the ones people recommended to him. He'd like the ones about nature/the environment and he'd keep up with news. Outside of that, he'd stick to the "feel good" ones. He would struggle to understand the appeal of true crime.

Jaheira does not have time for them. She'll turn one on after someone recommends it and be pulled away immediately.

Minsc would be too distracted to listen to any of them. If you turned one on around him, he wouldn't retain any of it.

Minthara spits on your stupid podcasts. Stop recommending them to her.

[thebonnevillegamepodcast]

We did this meme because we saw @kingmakerpod do it and we're basically the younger sibling that won't stop copying them.

But it's because their show is so good and everyone should listen to it.

[kansascityhappenings]

E-scooters suddenly appeared everywhere, but now they’re riding into serious trouble

Brussels. San Diego. Bogotá. Walk around any major tourist destination these days, and you’ll see them.

Electric scooters, gliding silently around city center streets, zipping through traffic signals, or abandoned — lying on the street, propped up against trees or, in some cases, dumped in rivers.

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Scooter-sharing systems similar to city bike schemes have sprung up in more than 100 cities worldwide as their popularity has grown.

But this tiny-wheeled transport revolution could be about to end as quickly as it began.

While they’ve attracted admirers for their convenience and fun, they’ve also incurred the wrath of those annoyed at having to leap out of people riding across sidewalks or step over scooters lying in their path.

There are also mounting safety concerns and questions about environmental claims made about using them.

This month, Singapore announced a trial prohibition of e-scooters on sidewalks that could become an all-out ban next year. It took the decision, says Lam Pin Min, senior minister of state for transport, following the death of a cyclist who collided with an e-scooter. Local news reports said one Singapore hospital had reported six deaths of scooter riders in 2019.

Meanwhile in France, a sidewalk scooter ban was enforced in September, three months after a rider was hit by a truck and killed.

In the UK, scooters are also banned from all public roads, sidewalks and cycle lanes — although that hasn’t stopped them being a regular presence on all three.

The UK now insists that retailers including Amazon put safety warnings on packaging, a measure introduced in October, after a YouTube star, Emily Hartridge, was killed riding an e-scooter in London in July.

‘Disproportionately affecting’ those with disabilities

The scooter revolution has been billed as a green way to get around big cities, with rental apps acting in the same way as city bike schemes. You pick them up, pay by the minute and drop them off at your destination.

Where some city bikes often have docking stations — to which the bikes must be returned for the fees to stop — scooters can be picked up or dropped off anywhere.

A picture taken in Paris on July 31, 2018 shows electric scooters of US start-up Bird. (Photo by ERIC PIERMONT/AFP/Getty Images)

And while that may be handy — apps like Lime, Bird and countless local spinoffs have live maps showing users where the nearest scooters are — it’s causing issues for other road users.

Simon Minty, a disability and diversity consultant who presents the Ouch disability podcast for the BBC, was in Brussels this summer when he came across abandoned scooters blocking the sidewalks.

“I predict these two wheeled electric scooters will become very annoying,” he tweeted. “They seem to be abandoned, in the middle of the pavement, everywhere I go. I saw three from the station to my hotel.”

Minty says that a friend who’d been to Paris said the situation in the French capital before the September ban was “exactly the same.”

People with disabilities are “disproportionately affected,” he says. “You’re going to hit these, and you’ll be absolutely stuffed.”

Environmentally friendly — if you’re replacing a car

Proponents of scooters say that they’re environmentally friendly. “Cruise past traffic and cut back on CO2 emissions,” trumpets Bird’s website.

But an August 2019 paper by researchers from North Carolina State University found that they may not be as green as you’d think.

In fact, traveling by scooter has a higher carbon footprint than going by bus or moped — as well as on a bike or on foot, according to Jeremiah Johnson, an associate professor at NCSU who led the research published in the Environmental Research Letters journal.

Instead of looking at scooter carbon footprint per journey, Johnson and his team looked at the entire lifecycle of scooters — crucial because they are notoriously short-lived, he says, with customers mistreating them.

The materials used to make the scooters — an aluminum frame, lithium battery and rubber wheels — all result in an environmental burden, he says. As does the manufacturing.

“They have a really short lifetime, especially in this application of them,” he tells CNN. “Aluminum doesn’t provide much service. They only last several months.”

What’s more, because users can ditch them wherever they like, rental apps pay third parties to round up the scooters every night, grouping them more sensibly for the morning’s customers, he says.

“They receive compensation per scooter, so there’ll be folks doing this as a side hustle, students trying to make money — it’s a prime source of income,” he says.

“It’s very competitive and done in a very short window, and they’re largely driving their personal cars to pick them up. That’s a pretty big share of the impact.”

Lime scooters are taken to warehouses each night by a local operations team, said a spokesperson. Senior director at Bird, Caroline Hazlehurst, said that Bird’s scooters are collected “regularly, but not always every day… How we collect them changes from country to country.”

But she added: “Every town and city throughout the world suffers from the same two problems: too many cars creating congestion which in turn leads to poor air quality.”

Of course, they also need to be charged overnight. And the final thing to take into account is what method of transport they’re replacing.

If you’re scootering to work instead of driving yourself solo, the scooter is a “clear environmental win,” says NCSU’s Johnson. But, he says, many people surveyed in Raleigh, where the university is based, said that pre-scooter, they’d cycle or walk to work.

While many people in the US drive to work — and Johnson is clear that “in moving away from car ownership it’s almost certainly a win for environmental performance” — in European cities, where public transport is the norm, using a scooter is therefore relatively less green, he says.

The upshot?

“Scooters look innocuous but people tend not to think about the unseen cost,” Johnson says.

Hazlehurst says that Bird has changed its scooters from “consumer grade” to a “vastly different” and “rugged” version since they launched. Its “Bird One” model now has a lifetime of around 18 months, she said, while its latest model Bird Two can last two years.

Lime says that its third generation model is “demonstrating a lifespan of more than 12 months.” Its spokesperson says that Johnson’s study “raises important issues” but “doesn’t capture Lime’s approach today.”

“We’ve already taken steps to reduce our environmental impact, including streamlining our charging operations, powering our scooters with 100% renewable energy, offsetting the emissions from fleet vehicles, and establishing a robust repair and reuse program to extend the life cycle of our products,” the spokesperson said.

Where are scooters legal?

Rules on e-scooters vary around the world. In the UK, riding one on a road can net users six penalty points on their driving license. Riding them on the sidewalk, cyclepath or footpath is subject to a £300 ($385) fine.

A report by the UK House of Commons Library in August suggested that things could change in the future, but a spokesperson for the Department for Transport declined to comment, citing rules around the upcoming UK election.

In Paris, while you can ride them on the road, using them on the sidewalk can incur a €135 fine, while dumping them in a doorway, on a crosswalk or in another antisocial place incurs a €35 fine.

“Pavements are only for pedestrians,” mayor Anne Hidalgo tweeted in March this year.

Germany approved e-scooter use this year, though not on sidewalks unless in “exceptional” circumstances. Bird’s Caroline Hazlehurst says that “especially in Europe, we’re seeing cities and countries change laws to specifically allow scooters to operate.”

In Sweden, where scooters are classified as bicycles and allowed on sidewalks or footpaths, 241 accidents have been registered this year alone including one death. Tomas Eneroth, the Swedish minister for infrastructure, has called the situation “a mess.”

The law in Spain was changed this year. E-scooters can no longer be used on sidewalks. Additionally, they are banned in Barcelona. Madrid authorities in October refused to grant licenses to ride-sharing companies Bird, Lime and Voi.

In the United States, over 100 cities have e-scooters, and Americans took 38.5 million trips on them, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

Portland, Oregon, is midway through a year-long trial, following a four-month pilot in 2018.

The 2018 program “raised concerns about people riding e-scooters on sidewalks, in violation of state traffic laws, creating conflict with people walking and people with disabilities,” says a statement from the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

The PBOT will “evaluate the program” following the pilot.

It used to be illegal to use the scooters in New York City, but a law change in summer 2019 means that you can use your own, if you have one — although ride-sharing rentals are still banned.

And in LA, authorities this month suspended Uber’s permit to rent e-scooters because of its failure to share ride-tracking data with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. Seven other companies are licensed to rent scooters in LA though.

And in San Francisco, the scooter companies were dubbed “spoiled brats” by Aaron Peskin, one of the legislators who voted to clamp down on the companies when they were introduced in 2018.

In April 2019, however, the city granted permits to four companies: Jump, Lime, Spin, and Scoot, the last of which had previously been operating.

San Diego struggles to cope

San Diego has been at the forefront of scooter wars since the machines arrived in February 2018. The city is awash with more than 19,000 scooters, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune — with almost 15,000 complaints about them to the city authorities over the summer, 3,700 scooters impounded for parking violations, and almost 500 riders receiving traffic tickets.

Since April, the city has instated “corrals” — designated parking spots by the roadside for scooters, outlined with paint on the road. Riders can be fined for dumping a scooter on the street in a block that has a corral.

In April, the council introduced new restrictions on scooters, including speed limits in pedestrian-heavy places like Balboa Park, and a parking ban in places with speed limits below 8 mph, including beachfront boardwalks and in Little Italy.

Council member Barbara Bry, a vocal critic of the scooters, called for a moratorium in July, although it has not been approved. In December, the council will debate banning scooters on the beach boardwalks entirely.

“Throughout the city, I continue to see riders using the sidewalk, multiple riders on one scooter, and scooters strewn about the sidewalks, rather than in designated corrals,” she tells CNN.

“San Diego was slow to respond when scooters started showing up on our streets. While it has been inactive, other cities like Portland and Santa Monica have issued requests for proposals that include a fee structure, operational standards, data sharing and insurance requirements.”

She said the City has “let a technology overtake us rather than assist and empower our communities with safe and sustainable micro-mobility options,” and said that “all of downtown is experiencing cluttered sidewalks.”

“The corrals are overflowing with scooters that leak out into the road and automobile parking spaces,” she said.

The mayor of San Diego was not available for comment.

Victims of scooter crashes are cashing in

Catherine Lerer, a personal injury attorney based in Santa Monica, where scooters were introduced to the United States, says that over the past 18 months, she’s spoken to around 400 victims of scooter injuries — both riders and pedestrians. She believes them to be more accident-prone than bikes because of their smaller, more solid wheels and a more precarious center of gravity for users.

“It’s imperative that cities get ahead of any e-scooter rollout, otherwise they will be hamstrung in terms of regulating the scooters and sanctioning the operators,” she tells CNN.

Authorities should ban nighttime use, sidewalk riding and allowing the scooters on roads that have a speed limit of more than 25 mph, she argues in a list of 25 recommendations.

She says authorities should also insist that riders wear helmets, prohibit sidewalk parking, install tech that alerts the companies if a scooter isn’t upright, and fit the devices with lights, reflectors, turn signals, kickstands and identification numbers.

She says the devices should emit noises that can be heard by nearby pedestrians, to help those with disabilities.

For its part, Lime says it is tailoring its scooter roll outs so that they work with specific destinations and urges careful consideration before new legislation is introducted.

“Lime is committed to partnering with cities to build the right shared mobility program for each community,” a spokesperson said.

“We know the positive impact micromobility can have on communities around the globe… and we’re dedicated to collaborating with our city partners to tackle these challenges together.

“We support regulations that promote safety and greater transportation access without stifling innovation or consumer choice.”

Scooter fans still keen

Despite the issues, though, the enthusiasm of scooter fans show no sign of waning — and for some, replacing a putative car journey feels like the right thing to do.

Cyndi Hutchenson, a copywriter from South Florida, commutes via scooter most days — a journey of around 10 minutes. She has a monthly pass, costing $15, which allows her 30 minutes of scootering per day.

“I don’t have a car, and I don’t really want one,” she says. “I live downtown, and everything I want to reach is a relatively cheap Uber Pool away, if it’s outside scooter limits. And I’m new to the city, so I want to get to know it better.

“I’m conscious of the environmental impact difference of riding an electric scooter versus riding in a car every day. I also know that, were I to have a car, I’d be making more unnecessary trips or traveling farther outside my neighborhood for things I can easily have a range of within a scooter ride

“The buses are not convenient (in terms of timing, cleanliness, safety, and payment methods) in my city and don’t even go to my workplace.”

The future of e-scooters

But as cities continue to clamp down, and the accidents mount up, scootering around the globe might not be free and easy forever.

“I don’t want to be a killjoy, they do look a lot of fun,” says Simon Minty. “They’re exciting, new technology, they mean fewer cars on the roads — but people have to realize that there’s responsibility that comes with them.

“It’s not just people with disabilities. Parents with prams, older people — a whole bundle of people will be affected if we have to navigate round these scooters.

“I don’t quite understand how people can just leave them in the street. It just blows my mind a little bit.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/11/22/e-scooters-suddenly-appeared-everywhere-but-now-theyre-riding-into-serious-trouble/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/11/22/e-scooters-suddenly-appeared-everywhere-but-now-theyre-riding-into-serious-trouble/

[wikitopx]

Lake Tahoe has a great mix of both casual and quisite restaurants.

Whether it's a place to pop the question or to celebrate a special occasion, you can find a great table with a fantastic view of the lake at Christy. Special occasions call for reservations at the award-winning Stella at the Cedar House Hotel or the Zagat rated Soule Domain.

If you just want to keep your dinner low key, but cozy after a day out in the snow, visit Pianeta for their rustic Italian food or Burger Me for their organic burger and great lemonade. Both of these restaurants are in the foodie capital of Truckee, California. If you want another nice view of the railroad town, visit the Cottonwood on the hill above Truckee.

For breakfast (or a hangover cure) head to the Fire Sign Cafe in between Tahoe City and Homewood for their omelets and wonderful baked goods. If you are closer to the North Shore, go to the Old Post Office Coffee Shop in Carnelian Bay for a stack of pancakes that will give you the crab loading you need for Tahoe's winter sports. If you are on the South Shore, a must-do stop will be at Rude Brother's Bagels where you can pick up some excellent bagels and coffee or bagel sandwiches to take with you in your hiking backpack.

Here are list of top best restaurants in Lake Tahoe. And if you’re looking for lodging suggestions, read on to the end!

1. GAR WOODS GRILL AND PIER RESTAURANT

Gar Woods on Tahoe's West Shore is best known for it's wonderful pier and wooden boats, but it also has a great menu and a fun bar. The floor to ceiling windows, large deck and balconies provide breath taking views of Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Mountains. The menu highlights mainly California cuisine, hand cut steaks, fresh pacific seafood, pizzas, pastas and salads. The wine list is a collection of California's best and best known vintners featuring more than one dozen wines by the glass. The menu includes items such as Pomegranate Glazed Pork Ribs, Shrimp & Lobster Bisque, Filet and Scampi, Australian Lamb Chops, Seafood Tagliarini and desserts like White Chocolate Snickers Cheesecake and Butterscotch Creme Brulee. Gar Woods serves signature cocktails such as their famous Wet Woody with with Rum, Peach Schnapps, Cranberry Juice, Orange Juice, Pineapple Juice and Sweet and Sour mix.

Recommended for Best Restaurants because: In the summer and fall, the deck at Gar Woods is a great place to hang out and drink a Wet Woody.

Christina's expert tip: The lobster bisque at Gar Woods is a must order.

2. PIANETA RISTORANTE

Right in the center of downtown Truckee sits this charming northern Italian restaurant. Outfitted with a full bar on the lower level and a dining room on the mezzanine, Pianeta offers a few dinner choices. For a more casual feast, dine on appetizers like eggplant bruschetta at the bar; on the other hand, the most dining area offers upscale atmosphere and entrees like linguine with shrimp, mussels, and clams, or double-cut lamb chops in a minty pesto sauce. Lots of exposed brick and stone lend a comfy, rustic feel. The wine list is impressive with bottles and glass choices from Italy, Northern California, Austria and France.

3. CAFE FIORE

This is the perfect romantic spot for a special dinner. Decorated with white linens and glimmering candles, this cozy Italian restaurant is furnished with only seven tables for an intimate atmosphere. During the summer, you can enjoy your meal outside beneath the towering pines. For a hearty meal, try the Cappellini Bocconcini made with meatballs, fresh tomato and basil. Bistecca alla Veneziana is medallions of filet mignon a green peppercorn cream sauce. For dessert, try the homemade white chocolate ice cream. The Cafe Fiore has been featured in As featured in- The San Francisco Chronicle, The Sacramento Bee and Best Places To Kiss In Northern California book and has been awarded the "Wine Spectator Award of Excellence" since 1992.

4. FIRE SIGN CAFÉ

With rave reviews from locals and visitors and lines that often snake out the door on busy weekend mornings, Fire Sign Cafe is surely one of Tahoe's most popular breakfast spots. A quick glance at the menu shows why – a dill and artichoke omelet, veggie eggs Benedict, a gouda scramble, and buckwheat pancakes topped with hot, freshly-made blueberry and raspberry sauce are representative of the ante meridiem treats that await. Lunch is served, but for late-risers, breakfast is available all day. An attractive deck is open seasonally where you can enjoy both breakfast and lunch outside in the Sierra sunshine.

Recommended for Best Restaurants because: Try the Fire Sign's home baked muffins and pastries.

Christina's expert tip: The Fire Sign is in between Tahoe City and Homewood, so it's away from most of the town crowds.

5. COTTONWOOD

Eat indoors or on the restuarant's beautiful patio. They have all kinds of dishes to seduce your taste buds. Choose between crispy Baby Back Ribs grilled with jerk spice, and served with house made barbecue sauce or Jerk-spiced Fried Rock Prawns with Cajun tartar sauce. Order a Braised free Range Rabbit Cassoulet with Andouille sausage, garlic, rosemary and white beans, or simply opt for a Cheeseburger with waffle fries. Here, the wine and beer lists are extensive. The Cottonwood is filled with skiing and railroad memorabilia from Truckee's days as a railroad town, this casual restaurant, bar, and lounge provides customers with great views of Truckee, charming ambiance, and lovingly-prepared Californian-American fare.

Recommended for Best Restaurants because: The views of Truckee at night are great all year long.

Christina's expert tip: The bar of the Cottonwood can get swarmed and rowdy on Friday and Saturday evenings. This is not a quiet and romantic restaurant.

6. CHRISTY HILL LAKESIDE BISTRO

It's a small restaurant and reservations may be required during the high seasons, but the staff is friendly and very accommodating. They serve up a nice selection of wines by the glass and the bottle and the menu is small but it revolves around the changing seasons and the availability of fresh ingredients. The entrees include pork, lamb, seafood and pasta using fresh, local ingredients. For a starter the Caesar Salad is huge and very delicious and the various Ravioli dishes are a great entree. For dessert, try the Affogato with cranberry biscotti.

Recommended for Best Restaurants because: Christy Hill has one of the best views of the lake.

Christina's expert tip: Christy Hill has earned rave reviews by the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and Bon Appetit.

7. BURGER ME

Rated one of the best burger places in Lake Tahoe Area and featured on the Food Networks "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives", Burger Me is located in the old town section of Truckee. Their burgers are made with all natural ingredients. No growth hormones or chemicals in these beauties! The burgers and drinks are served in corn-based packaging and everything is recyclable.

Recommended for Best Restaurants because: Burger Me's natural burger meat comes from locally sourced farmers

Christina's expert tip: Burger Me has the best sweet potato fries in the area.

8. STELLA

Stella is located in the Cedar House Sport Hotel near Truckee and offers an award-winning menu by chef Jacob Burton. Stella's menu features many items from the Cedar House Hotel's gardens and incorporates simple ingredients that make for comforting and inviting dishes. Chef Jacob Burton worked at the Lone Eagle Grille and the Big Water Grille, both in Lake Tahoe, some time recently coming to the Cedar House. His menu includes appetizers such as Pan Seared Diver Scallops, Popcorn Polenta and Roasted Mushrooms on a micro green salad, entrees such as Roasted Salmon with Crispy Yucca or Colorado Lam with Fingerling Potatoes. Desserts include Marscapone Cheese Cake with Madrone Bark Syrup.

Recommended for Best Restaurants because: The Cedar House Sport Hotel recently a Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor.

Christina's expert tip: Stella restaurant is open on Wednesday through Sunday for dinner.

9. MANZANITA

The Manzanita restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton at the Northstar ski resort not as it were embraces the common surroundings with its title (a manzanita is an evergreen shrub that graces the Tahoe mountains), but it brings the beauty of nature into its dishes. The stylish restaurant sources many of its food from local farms and ranches and displays them in a natural and beautiful way. Start off a romantic dinner with a Beet & Burratta salad with local beets, apples, celery, hazelnuts and honey-rosemary vinaigrette, choose from 12-Hour Bordeaux Braised Shortrib or Hand-Made Tagliatelle with heirloom eggplant and fresh ricotta and finish up with a Pumpkin Souffle with spiced anglaise and butter pecan ice cream. Manzanita also serves breakfast and lunch and has an extensive wine, beer and cocktail menu. If you are not hungry enough for a full dinner, the restaurant offers a bar menu with items like Pomme Frites, the Durham Ranch Burger and the Drunken Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Pizza with rocket greens.

Recommended for Best Restaurants because: Manzanita sources organic, sustainable and locally grown meat and produce when possible.

Christina's expert tip: Manzanita regularly offers intimate Chef's Dinners with special ingredients and dishes.

10. THE SOULE DOMAIN

Consistently topping local lists of the area's most romantic restaurants, this family-run Tahoe mainstay has become the go-to place for diners seeking to impress first dates and enjoy a great meal in the bargain. Fresh, organic ingredients heighten the flavors of French-influenced dishes like pan-roasted chicken with mushrooms or champagne-poached sea scallops. Desserts include the decadant Queen of Sheba flourless chocolate double torte cake with fresh whipped cream filling for only $7. An appealing collection of appetizers, salads, and desserts showcases the same dedication to fresh foods and classic preparations. Reservations are requested. The restaurant is Zagat rated and has won several awards for the chef's creations.

Recommended for Best Restaurants because: Soule Domain is a Zagat rated restaurant that serves organic dishes that won't empty your wallet.

Christina's expert tip: The Soule Domain has been voted the "Best Place to Take a Date" by the North Tahoe Truckee Action Guide for thirteen years running.

Here are a few more ideas for what to do in the area: Top 10 things to do in Lake Tahoe

From : https://wikitopx.com/food/top-10-best-restaurants-in-lake-tahoe-700827.html

[marketingadvisorvietnam]

2 days or more on Phu Quoc, the pearl island

Marketing Advisor đã viết bài trên http://www.ticvietnam.vn/2-days-or-more-on-phu-quoc-the-pearl-island/

2 days or more on Phu Quoc, the pearl island

Here is all you need to know to visit this popular place in southern Vietnam.

Best time to visit 

The ideal time to travel to Phu Quoc, Vietnam’s biggest island, is from November to April. 

This is the dry season in southern Vietnam, and the sea will be calm and the weather perfect for outdoor activities. It is the best time to unwind and relax on the beach or take a dip in the cool water.

Backpackers and those who want to go on an adventure should be mindful and bring enough water and sun-protection gear since things can get really hot.

From April to October is the rainy season. But it is also the peak season on Phu Quoc since it is the summer vacation. The island gets extremely crowded and all prices go up.

How to get there 

The best way to travel to Phu Quoc, from both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, is by plane. Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air have daily direct flights.

Phu Quoc International Airport is around five kilometers from the downtown. You can take a shuttle bus from the airport or call a cab.

Visitors from HCMC have other options like getting here by motorbike, car or bus and then a ferry or speedboat.

From HCMC, drive or take a bus to either Rach Gia (6-hour drive) or Ha Tien (7.5-hour drive). The bus fare is VND150,000–230,000 ($6.43 – $9.86) depending on the operator.

At Rach Gia, take a speedboat to get to the island. The boats usually depart at 8:00 a.m, 8:45 a.m, or 1:00 p.m and tickets cost VND230,000-250,000 ($9.86–$10.72). The trip takes around an hour. The speedboats allow motorbikes on board though prior reservation is needed.

If you are the kind who gets seasick in a speedboat, you can take a ferry from Ha Tien at the Thanh Thoi Wharf to Da Chong Port (Bai Thom, Phu Quoc). The ferry takes nearly three hours and the ticket costs VND185,000 ($7.9). However, Da Chong Port is not too close to the town centre, and it could take up to 40 minutes to reach the resort area.

Where to stay

Since the island has become popular among both Vietnamese and international tourists, there are many choices of accomodation available.

Those who want to stay in the comfort of professional lodging can choose from a number of places scattered around the island, ranging from luxurious resorts to cheap hotels.

Homestay services are also worth consideration to get more in touch with the local lifestyles, and saving money at the same time.

8 must-try experiences

Phu Quoc is divided into four main tourism areas: the centre (Duong Dong town) and the southern, northern and eastern areas. Depending on the intinery, it will take at least 2 days to get the most out of your trip.

Take a dip in the ocean.

It might seems obvious but one of the things, if not the first, visitors should do is jump in and take a dip in the ocean. In Phu Quoc, there are many beautiful beaches with clear blue water, gentle waves and water that is shallow and safe to swim in such as Truong, Sao, Dai, Khem, and Ong Lam. Each has its own character, so try them and pick your favourite.

Snorkeling in the coral reefs

It would be a shame not to go snorkeling to see the dazzling colours of the coral reefs and their diverse marine life, especially since coral reefs are not very common in Vietnam. Scuba diving services are available. 

Hon Thom Island is the ideal place to explore the coral reef since the water is relatively clear and the reef remains somewhat wild. This is also one of the largest aquaculture and pearl farming areas in Phu Quoc.

Watching the sunset

Phu Quoc was named by the National Geographic as one of the best places in the world to watch the sun set. One of the best places on the island to behold this glorious moment is Mui Dinh Cau (Cape Dinh Cau). Here, visitors can get an unobstructed view of a sky painted with splashes of red, orange, purple, and blue as the sun slowly sets in the distant horizon.

Squid fishing at night

A squid fishing tour usually starts in the afternoon and ends at around 10:00 p.m. Visitors can either hire their own boat if in a large group, or join other small groups. The ticket is around VND330,000 ($14.20) per person. The price might vary, depending on the company and season. Freshly caught seafood will be cooked and served right on the boat.

Catch the sunrise

Waking up early and catching the first rays of the sun on the ocean is definitely a worthwhile experience. Not only will visitors get to see another beautiful display of colours and light, it is also an opportunity to see the fishing villages transform from peaceful little places into bustling markets.

Explore untouched islands

There are still many small, pristine islands around Phu Quoc. Visitors can hire boats to travel to some of these islands such as Hon Dam and Cape Ong Doi and explore their wilderness. However, visitors should only visit the smaller islands when the weather is good and the sea is calm and with a local guide on board. Do not go by yourself.

Take a walk in a national park

Located in the northeast of Phu Quoc, the Phu Quoc National Park is home to many unique species of flora and fauna, evergreen forests and mountains. Most parts of the park are protected though tourism activities such as camping, hiking, bird-watching, and photography are allowed at some places. Here is the 565-meter Mount Chua, the highest point on the island. From the top, visitors can get an amazing panoramic view of the whole island.

Visit Phu Quoc Prison

Take a step back and learn about the gruesome things that happened on the island during the war at Phu Quoc Prison. This notorious old prison was built by the French in the late 1940s. Now, much of the site comprises eerie dummies of Vietnamese soldiers reenacting the torture that was once routine here. There is also a war memorial to the south of the prison.

8 Must- try foods

Raw herring salad

This is a signature dish of Phu Quoc. It can be found in almost all the restaurants on the island, from high-end to budget. 

The salad is usually served with fresh vegetables and herbs, coconut and peanuts, wrapped in rice paper with fish sauce as a dipping sauce. The dish is a wonderful combination of flavours and textures. The natural sweetness and softness of the fresh fish, the sourness of the vinegar and lime juice, the minty taste of the herbs, the crunchiness of the vegetables, especially the coconut, and a hint of saltiness from the fish sauce, are what make this dish so savoury and popular.

Ham Ninh crab

The crabs here are not big but their meat is fresh, sweet and they are reasonably priced. Depending on the season, the price is VND200,000-500,000 ($8.6 – $21.5) per kilogram. Choose the female crab to enjoy the eggs, and choose the male crab for more meat.

Grilled pen shell

This is also a very popular dish among gastronomes. It can be grilled with many different things like scallions and oil garnish or salt and chillies. Unlike when boiled or fried, grilled pen shell retains its chewiness, and that’s what makes it a popular favorite.

Sea cucumber

This is another one of Phu Quoc’s specialties. It’s liked by many people for its high nutritional value. Sea cucumbers dishes are usually served stir-fried with bitter melon and capsicum or stewed with goat meat or pork. Some cook them in porridge. But sea cucumber is expensive at around VND1 million per kilogram ($43)

 Sea urchin

In Phu Quoc, sea urchins are mostly cut open and grilled on charcoal with scallion and garnish added on top. There are other delicious sea urchins dishes such as sea urchins sour salad, roasted sea urchins and sea urchins porridge.

Abalone

Phu Quoc’s abalone is famous for being very nutritious. It is also used in traditional eastern medicine.

Bitter bolete

This species of mushroom can often be found after the first rains of the season in the melaleuca forests. Although the mushroom can be a bit bitter, hence the name, it is believed to be a cure for tiredness, flu and headache and beneficial to internal organs. 

Thanks to the mangrove oil in the mushroom , it is also said to have detoxification properties, which is a great remedy for hangovers. The mushroom season only lasts for around a month, so it is not guaranteed to be available all year round.

Bun ken (Ken noodles)

This dish can also be found in Chau Doc and Can Tho, but bun ken in Phu Quoc has its own characteristics. The dish consists of fish cooked in tasty curry soup seasoned with lemongrass and coconut milk. 

However, while elsewhere they use striped snakehead, in Phu Quoc it is made with minced nhau or yellowtail scad, fishes that can be found in plenty in the sea around the island. 

A bowl of bun ken is served with a layer of fermented papaya salad on top and the fish soup and vegetables underneath the noodles. Not as common as the other foods in this list, bun ken is found only at two places on the island: at the Dinh Cau Night Market and Ut Luom’s, a street stall known by all the locals.

Last Tips

Do not go to Phu Quoc during the storm season.

If you plan to visit during the peak season, you need to book rooms a month in advance due to the high demand.

There are a few areas in Phu Quoc where visitors are not allowed to enter. Be mindful and do not trespass.

Remember to check the schedule for the high-speed boat and ferry to Phu Quoc.

Story by Kim Cuong

Photo by Vy An, Thanh Luan, Goday, Vi Trieu, Ngoc Thanh

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Chanel, Kenzo, Aerin: 6 perfumes for spring

Photo: Laura Reid

Forget fragile flowers, this spring brings lush aquatics and opulent floral scents for seduction and celebration.

Blossom Love, Amouage, $449

If you assume a scent based mostly on cherry blossom could be a fragile wisp of a factor, put together to be swept off your ft by Blossom Love. Amouage is a distinct segment perfume home established by, , the Sultan of Oman. It has some fairly superb and unique choices, and you’ll take into account Blossom Love their gateway drug – it’s heady, barely boozy, undoubtedly intense however female on the similar time.

After a smooth powdery opening, the hero cherry blossom notice is matched with deliciously wealthy amaretto, the slight bitterness of almond contrasting fantastically with candy blossom. Rose liquor offers additional, opulent depth earlier than a soft-as-suede dry-down of vanilla and tonka bean that catches the richness of the guts notes and prevents it changing into cloying in any respect. A masterful floral gourmand for grown-ups.

Kenzo World, Kenzo $120 for 90ml

I can’t assist however scent inexperienced melon in Kenzo World. It’s not listed as a notice so it’s absolutely due to my a number of viewings of Spike Jones’ unimaginable marketing campaign movie for the perfume that has Margaret Qualley dancing like a fierce lunatic in essentially the most superb deep inexperienced costume. One spray and I’m barely tipsy on the overdose of the skin-like, heat and moist ambroxan that Kenzo World accommodates, and it’s all aquatic smashing melons, fabulously unusual.

Just like Qualley, this loopy eye creation is deliberately bizarre however nonetheless lots candy sufficient to be trendy. That juicyfruit opening falls into an summary pink peony coronary heart, with the wash of ambroxan holding the scent clinging to the pores and skin for hours. Definitely suited to tropical territory, or the moist micro-climate of a crowded nightclub, maybe, the place you’ll be able to check out a few of Qualley’s strikes.

You or Someone Like You, Etat Libre d’Orange. $100 for 50ml

Often a perfume is predicated round a stunning scent from nature (see Blossom Love, above). But typically, it’s a few vibe, and itemizing the elements doesn’t seize the magical genie-in-a-bottle expertise of being transported elsewhere by a scent. Created by novelist and perfume critic Chandler Burr, You or Someone Like You smells like early summer time in L.A.

It’s minty recent and breezy, just like the scent of eucalyptus speeding in quick by means of a automotive window. It’s received a beautiful-people pale rose factor occurring, nevertheless it’s a rose that’s had a bit work carried out, it’s virtually too completely refined, a bit just like the contrived world of Burr’s e-book characters. And there’s a hazy, aquatic high quality to the entire thing, a lazy hand dipped right into a shiny blue pool, dappled by the shade of palm timber, beneath a large sky. Refreshing and super-cool, this can be a scent with its shades on.

Gabrielle, Chanel $248 for 100ml

It’s taken 15 years for Chanel to launch a brand new pillar perfume and albeit it’s been definitely worth the wait. Gabrielle embodies all of the brazen creativity of the lady who grew to become generally known as Coco, however with the sophistication and maturity of, properly Chanel. From a bittersweet glowing opening of cool grapefruit, Chanel’s home perfumer Olivier Polge tailors an summary flower coronary heart that’s extremely luminous and shiny: happy-making stuff.

Each flower – there’s orange blossom, jasmine and tuberose – has its second to shine, however ylang-ylang specifically provides velvety richness to the perfume and for those who’ve ever worn a white floral that disappears all-too-soon in a musky haze, Gabrielle is right here to save lots of you. This sun-strobed flower is gently pulled in the direction of the bottom with scrumptious blackcurrant, and whereas musk offers elongation to the parfum, it’s sandalwood that softly drifts off my pores and skin by the top, elegant and basic.

Tuberose Le Jour, Aerin $295 for 50ml

Tuberose is 1 sultry flower. There’s actually no getting away from her fleshy, luxurious swoon impact. Fun truth: the Victorians frightened that inhaling the flower’s scent might convey on the Big O. Extensive fieldwork on behalf of the writer appears to indicate they had been mistaken, however regardless of singlehandedly bringing horny again to white flowers, tuberose does have a number of aspects to her.

Flowers picked at daybreak are extra recent and inexperienced, night harvests are actually buttery and seductive. Aerin Lauder has very cleverly capitalised on this to provide a duo of Tuberoses, Le Jour and Le Soir. Le Jour is the selection for spring – fantastically dewy and brightened with neroli and orange blossom, and gently blended out on a cedar base, this can be a comparatively G-rated (OK, PG-rated) sheer therapy of the fabulous flower. We can chat Le Soir when summer time’s right here…

Rain Day, Derek Lam 10 Crosby $125 for 50ml

Minimalists, please calmly glide into your practical slides and stroll in the direction of Sephora the place you’ll, for a second, must take care of the wonderful cacophony the remainder of us love as you find Derek Lam’s Rain Day. Now you might have obtained your spring scent; good doing enterprise with you. Featuring simply 2 elements and housed in a stunningly stylish white cylinder, Rain Day is one in every of ten fragrances launched by the American designer, recreating moments imagined by means of the window of his retailer on Crosby St Manhattan.

As the title suggests, this pairing of Haitian vetiver and Tunisian neroli creates an attractive sensation of a wet spring day, moist pavement and clear pores and skin, possibly a steak of solar between the clouds. Rain Day is city, recent and optimistic, easy however removed from mundane. A signature scent for certain and 1 that would simply be layered with different fragrances (it’s lovely with Aerin’s Tuberose Le Jour, trace trace).

What it is wish to go from brunette to blonde

Source: fitnesscaster.com Source: Bodiz Wonder

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A Minty Christmas by jazzplayer featuring ponytail hair ties ❤ liked on Polyvore

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