#mango being something I am extremely allergic to

[cookinguptales]

the nice thing about being back on my ketamine treatments is that I can bargain with myself re: takeout by being like "OH NO, GETTING INDIAN CURRY IS A MEDICAL NECESSITY..."

it cleans out your sinuses real nice, which is helpful before taking a medication nasally lmao.

anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that chicken makhani should be covered by my health insurance.

[junowritings]

Baldur gate matchups :0000000000

Cool nouns: he/she

Gender pref: no pref :0

Zodiac: Aries sun, Leo moon, libra rising

MBTI: intj-a

How I describe myself: huge nerd, collector of stupid shit, I am both the golden retriever boyfriend and goth girlfriend in one genderless human shaped mass. Girl kisser and dilf enjoyer (deadass men my age freak me out a little but…. dilfs….. explodes)

Hobbies: Digital art, web design, cooking, video games, reading,

How other people describe me (/pos):

- “you feel act like the embodiment of a mango monster”

- “The fact that of all of us (in reference to the polycule) you don’t have an autisim diagnosis is more of a jumpscare than you being ginger”

- “You could tell me the sky is hot pink and if you said it with the same conviction you say most things I’d trust you completely on it.”

Character flaws? Idk how to phrase this without it reading as self deprecating- issues I know I have that would inevitably be relevant to knowing me.

- I lack both empathy and sympathy almost completely, which makes me absolutely horrid at comforting people unless they want practical, logic driven solutions.

- I have a bad habit of seeing my solutions as the only viable solution, even if it’s been proven to be wrong/ineffective

- I can be incredibly arrogant (bordering on elitist) about the topics I am passionate about

- I form strong opinions of people quickly, and they are extremely difficult to shake (a bad first impression with me usually ends in a distain so strong I inconvenience myself to avoid said person, and it’s just as hard to convince me someone I like has done something wrong without extremely concrete proof, and even then I’m inclined to forgive them.)

Love language: gifts!! Usually art, or trinkets and cooking.

Miscellaneous and potentially unnecessary facts about me:

- I really like terraria

- I’m allergic to sunlight (literally)

- My bed is more categorically akin to a nest

- I’m completely nocturnal (re: sunlight)

- I’m also allergic to gluten, milk, eggs, pollen, grass, mold, citrus, red meat, cats, and dogs.

- My cats name is Fortnite Battlepass

- One of the name ideas for him was Dollarama

- I own a student grade microscope

- My favourite passtime is drawing pathetic men happy and in love

- I have Gale’s orb scar as a tattoo

Uhhhhh that’s it :0 if there’s anything specific you wanna know (or if you want pictures of my cat and/or tattoo) you’re more than welcome to ask!!

Match up time! Gotta say Fortnite Battlepass is adorable and only cemented who I decided to go with in the end! Which is,,,

So get this, two nerdy golden retriever partners walk into a tavern-

Okay but seriously, is it any wonder that Gale ends up so absolutely taken with you? 

The moment he sees your collection Gale wants to hear about it. There’s nothing quite like amassing a collection of things that bring you joy and make you happy, and he’ll gladly listen to you ramble about it if you’re comfortable to - where you got them, how long you’ve been collecting, what’s the most treasured part of your collection. These are just some of the things he’d query you on, all the while taking the time to admire your collection if you have it on display or bring it out to show him. 

He's actually got a fair collection himself, though his penchant for magical item consumption may have dwindled his display far more than he would have liked - alas desperate times had called for desperate measures back then. It’s honestly very validating to have someone show that kind of interest; though thanks to his curious nature you two may be stuck in this discussion for a couple of hours. It’s fascinating though! So who can really blame the guy? 

Will actively add to the stuff you collect so get ready to expand the space for them; one of his love languages is gift giving - so if that means getting you some of the weirdest stuff you’ve ever seen for your collection just to make you smile? By the gods he’d gift you something every other day if he could - thankfully Tara’s quick to curb that before he gets over excited and offers to refurbish an entire room in his tower back home for your stuff.

I don’t know if Gale would technically count as a dilf, being on the middle/younger side of the dilf scale (I hc like mid 30’s.) BUT he’s got the soft dad bod, bad puns, a couple grey streaks AND Tara so in my heart I would say this man is on the road to qualify.

Gale would be fascinated to see you at your computer, be it creating art or working on the code for your web pages. You’re practically working a magic of your own on your computer screen, confident in your ability to create and finishing off every piece you create with a level of detail and care that he’s sure very few people can even begin to replicate. And gods if there isn’t anything more attractive to him than someone who knows their craft and is passionate about it.

I hope you’re prepared for an audience because Gale will watch you work, leaning against the back of your chair with his head upon yours or your shoulder the whole time. You’ll have to warn him a couple times not to get too close to the screen because if he gets any closer you’re gonna struggle to see what you’re doing. When it comes to your web page designing, he would try and take up learning from you if you ever offer to teach him some basics - Gale would jump at the chance, actually. The guy’s a dream to teach, but also has a tendency to ramble as he tries to figure out whatever you’re trying to teach him. He also has a bad habit of getting overconfident, which when it comes to coding with him is a surefire way for the thing to blow up in his face (thankfully not literally.)

He absolutely LOVES cooking together. This man spent months being one of the only relatively decent cooks in the tadpole party so he’s got a decent list of recipes under his belt for each of their dietary requirements. Give him a couple times, let him learn what you can and can’t have and what foods you prefer, and he’ll make something pleasantly edible - not always perfect, but damn if it isn’t tasty. May or may not have a mental list of your favourite meals that he’d remembered from passing conversations. He certainly doesn’t use this as a means to surprise you or impress you whenever he invites you over (of course he does). The pair of you might occasionally butt heads over who cooks since he has a tendency to hover around in the kitchen trying to do stuff even if he’s not the one cooking that time.

It’s no secret that Gale’s bread and butter is books and tomes of all design and creed - hells he has an entire section of his home dedicated to his collection. He’ll happily give you recommendations and gift you books that you’ve expressed interest in without a second thought; he’s just chuffed to have someone who shares in this kind of pastime! If you guys are together around the time he does return home, he’ll ask for your company to sort through all of his books together. Sure it may not be the most riveting activity unless you’re really interested in what secret books he’s had stashed in his shelves all of these years; but it means a lot to him to have you there with him the whole time as he (quite literally) rearranges his life now that he’s home. There are some books that while he’ll still keep, they’re better off somewhere else than the main room - like the tomes and scrolls and forgotten texts once dredged up in desperate pursuits better left in the past. He’ll gladly let you fill in those gaps with books of your own, to create a space in his home that’s full of you - he can think of nothing better that would occupy that space than you.

Okay, so that one comment about the sky? Yeah, that’s Gale. While Gale’s not the kind of person to go blindly trusting everything someone says, there’s that conviction in the way that you say things that somehow makes him fall for it every time. If you ever did turn around and tell him that the sky was hot pink it’d earn you an amused snort and a sarcastic ‘haha very funny’ as he looks up from whatever he’s doing. But you’re the one who gets the last laugh because he’s the one casting a ‘subtle’ glance towards the window not even a minute later, only to be met with your knowing grin the moment he turns back. Just don’t let the others know that you’ve got that kinda one up on him, because I’m telling you now - Astarion and Shadowheart? Yeah they’ll be insisting to know how you get that kinda conviction to use on the poor man later.

While I can see Gale as the comforting type when the circumstances require, I also believe that having a partner like you who can ground him back to reality with logical solutions and practical reasoning is exactly what he needs. It’s so easy for him to get lost within the confines of his own thoughts, to allow things to become too much of a mess for him to pick apart and deal with on his own. But you’re a welcome hand, there to unravel the threads pulling taught on his mind with discussions of solutions and things that he can put into action in the here and now. That is comfort in its own way, even if you may not realise it.

As previously stated gift giving is one of Gale’s love languages, so given that you’re very much the same, that idea of making a room in his house just for you may not be such a far fetched idea anymore. His gifts centre around your current interests and fixations - he’s got a good ear for listening out to find what you need and get what makes you happiest. Expect more than a few magical items though - protective accessories for when he’s not at your side, or even items with silly magical effects that he knows will get a chuckle out of you once you realise what they do. Gets flustered under the same treatment however - your gifts are precious, and he feels like no matter where he puts them there’s not a good enough place to show them off and admire them. Always gets this lovestruck little look on his face each time he passes by one of your gifts in the day to day, running his hands along them like the mere touch of them is enough to brighten his very soul.

Hope there’s room enough in that nest for two because Gale doesn’t mind in the slightest. But he will help you to make it more comfortable - comfier blankets, softer pillows for extra cushion; this man spent at least a couple years falling asleep in places around his home that weren’t his bed so he knows the importance of making it as comfortable a place as possible for you (and his joints).

Comes as no surprise that he LOVES your cat, and it’s also no surprise that he’ll spoil the guy as much as humanly possible. Fortnite Battlepass quickly becomes one of the most pampered cats this side of Faerun, not just because of all the treats Gale likes to think he’s being sneaky about giving him, but because of the fact his tower is a cat paradise. Not to mention that cats usually warm up to Gale very quickly - guy’s a magnet because more often than not you’ll find Gale in the middle of work with Fortnite Battlepass flopped across his lap or desk, or lounging over his shoulder like a purring slinky.

The first time he sees your tattoo you can see several stages of panic go through his face in an attempt to remain calm about the situation. He visibly relaxes when you explain, no, it’s not actually an orb scar but a tattoo. Very much a ‘same hat’ moment for your tattoo and his own scar. Depending on where the tattoo is and if you’re comfortable with it, you may find him occasionally brushing his fingers over your tattoo, calloused fingertips following the inky tendrils that curl away from the main circle in the centre. Please do the same with his scar, you’ll basically turn the man to mush in your hands seeing you pay any kind of love and attention to a mark which once caused him such pain.

[alanturingdeservedbetter]

1-150

1. Who was the last person you held hands with?

My mom and probably my college wife before that.

2. Are you outgoing or shy?

Shy.

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing?

You, assuming I actually make time for that. 

4. Are you easy to get along with?

Somewhat. I tend to be really nice to most people, apart from those I'm actually close to, who might find me a bit too straightforward/harsh at times.

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you?

I don't currently like someone and don't tend to get drunk but I certainly hope they would.

6. What kind of people are you attracted to?

Hell if I know.

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now?

Probably not a full-blown relationship but I've recently started talking to a really nice person on Tinder and I feel like that might lead to something. 

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?

Fuck the gender binary. Jonah the college dog is on my mind. He's such a fluffy boi.

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?

Having a serious conversation about sex does, joking about it does not, as you well know.

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?

College wife perhaps? I'm not actually sure.

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say?

"Poate" (Maybe) on Facebook and "The luggage hasn't started to arrive yet," as an actual text.

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

All of Anastasia the Musical cause you can't make me choose, The Harvard Variations from Legally Blonde, Voctave's version of Mary Did You Know, Muro Shavo, Don't Stop Me Now.

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair?

I like the sensation but I'm also uncomfortably aware that they're making it greasy by touching it. I'm such a romantic.

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?

Luck is definitely a thing but I don't believe in influencing it by lucky charms etc or in the idea that some people are particularly (un)lucky. Miracles I don't really believe in.

15. What good thing happened this summer?

I met at least one really cool person.

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

Hypothetically speaking I am not particularly against it but we are not in any way romantically involved - weren't at the time of the kiss either - so I believe it's unlikely to happen.

17. Do you think there is life on other planets?

Yep.

18. Do you still talk to your first crush?

I don't even remember his full name anymore.

19. Do you like bubble baths?

Bubble baths are the best but I feel like I'm not chill enough to fully enjoy them, I get bored really fast.

20. Do you like your neighbors?

We don't really interact but my parents don't like some of them.

21. What are you bad habits?

Getting bored of browsing the internet on my laptop and switching to my phone to see how the smaller more exciting internet is doing, scrolling through facebook for so long after I wake up that I end up being late for both breakfast and lectures, washing the dishes hours later.

22. Where would you like to travel?

Russia. St Petersburg in particular.

23. Do you have trust issues?

Who, me? Never. They're not the result of past experiences though, being terrified of emotional vulnerability is just who I am.

24. Favorite part of your daily routine?

Either sleep or coffee.

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with?

My nose while wearing makeup cause it gets all cakey.

26. What do you do when you wake up?

See question 21.

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker?

Neither.

28. Who are you most comfortable around?

You and Sichli.

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up?

Dead men tell no tales, and people you've unfriended on facebook also tend to be quiet.

30. Do you ever want to get married?

I'm not that excited about the institution of marriage but I guess if I find the right person.

31. If your hair long enough for a pony tail?

Technically, but it would be like 1 inch long.

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?

I'm not particularly into the concept of a threesome but I'm gonna go for Natalie Dormer and a younger version of Jude Law.

33. Spell your name with your chin.

899a

34. Do you play sports? What sports?

All of them.

35. Would you rather live without TV or music?

TV.

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?

Yeah, but I'm over it now.

37. What do you say during awkward silences?

They're called "silences" for a reason. 

38. Describe your dream girl/guy?

Damianos of Akielos. 

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in?

Bookstores of any kind.

40. What do you want to do after high school?

I'm not in high school anymore and you know this so this should have said 1-39, 41-150.

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?

A second chance from someone in particular, no. A chance at redemption from a general moral standpoint, yeah, I think most people deserve one.

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean?

You're, and me being extremely quiet is just business as usual.

43. Do you smile at strangers?

If they're cute or they do silly stuff.

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?

Outer space, the bottom of the ocean is fucking scary.

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

My joints would start hurting if I didn't.

46. What are you paranoid about?

People dying, anything with the potential to fail.

47. Have you ever been high?

No.

48. Have you ever been drunk?

A few times but not drunk enough to pass out or anything like that.

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about?

Nothing I can think of right now.

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?

It's grey and has a pic of Kylo Ren on it.

51. Ever wished you were someone else?

Yeah, mostly really smart people/prodigies/whatever.

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?

I'd get rid of my social anxiety and maybe make myself a bit more extroverted.

53. Favourite makeup brand?

Nyx, perhaps? I'm not sure.

54. Favourite store?

Lush and cosmetics stores in general. Note that they're not my favourite places to shop at because the sales assistants tend to be really pushy (and yeah, I know it's just company policy).

55. Favourite blog?

Mine, obviously.

56. Favourite colour?

Navy blue.

57. Favourite food? 

Chicken vindaloo or pizza.

58. Last thing you ate?

A biscuit.

59. First thing you ate this morning?

Cascaval pane de la Hochland. 

60. Ever won a competition? For what?

Maths olympiad.

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what?

Nope.

62. Been arrested? For what?

No.

63. Ever been in love? 

I guess? I'm not sure I ever reached the "in love" level.

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?

We were on a summer camp and it was raining and we kissed while struggling to hold the umbrella straight.

65. Are you hungry right now?

Kinda.

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?

No. 

67. Facebook or Twitter?

Facebook.

68. Twitter or Tumblr?

Tumblr.

69. Are you watching tv right now?

No.

70. Names of your bestfriends? 

You already know them.

71. Craving something? What?

Pizza.

72. What colour are your towels?

Uh, I have lots of them?

72. How many pillows do you sleep with?

One.

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?

Only if I'm feeling down/particularly cuddly.

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?

Like 5 that I care about but 20 or more in total? My mom has also given away some of them.

75. Favourite animal?

I love cats but I'm allergic so I've learnt to like dogs more.

76. What colour is your underwear?

White.

77. Chocolate or Vanilla?

Vanilla.

78. Favourite ice cream flavour?

Mango.

79. What colour shirt are you wearing?

Green.

80. What colour pants?

White with polka dots.

81. Favourite tv show?

Either Sense8 or Narcos.

82. Favourite movie?

J'ai tue ma mere and Xenia.

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2?

Mean Girls.

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?

Mean Girls.

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls?

None.

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?

Confession time, I haven't actually seen Finding Nemo.

87. First person you talked to today?

You.

88. Last person you talked to today?

Also you. Might have to do with the fact that it's currently 2 AM.

89. Name a person you hate?

Donald Trump.

90. Name a person you love?

Lin-Manuel Miranda.

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now?

Gabriela Firea.

92. In a fight with someone?

What?

93. How many sweatpants do you have?

Idk, like 5 pairs?

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?

So many.

95. Last movie you watched?

Carol I think.

96. Favourite actress?

Emma Watson, Maisie Williams or Tina Desai.

97. Favourite actor?

Andrew Scott, Sebastian Stan or Jude Law.

98. Do you tan a lot?

Nope.

99. Have any pets?

Yes, two dogs.

100. How are you feeling?

Tired.

101. Do you type fast?

People say I do?!

102. Do you regret anything from your past?

Doesn't everyone?

103. Can you spell well?

Unless I'm tired.

104. Do you miss anyone from your past?

A few people.

105. Ever been to a bonfire party?

I have but I'm not sure if it counts.

106. Ever broken someone’s heart?

Hopefully not, but I think I might have.

107. Have you ever been on a horse?

Like twice.

108. What should you be doing?

Sleeping.

109. Is something irritating you right now?

I've offered to help someone with something and I'm starting to regret it.

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt?

Not romantically.

111. Do you have trust issues?

Question 23 much?

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?

I'm not sure.

113. What was your childhood nickname?

Yumi.

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?

Many times.

115. Do you play the Wii?

I used to.

116. Are you listening to music right now?

No.

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup?

I don't mind it.

118. Do you like Chinese food?

Yes, it's great.

119. Favourite book?

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, the Captive Prince trilogy as a whole.

120. Are you afraid of the dark?

Way too much.

121. Are you mean?

I am sometimes.

122. Is cheating ever okay?

Not if you're not somehow being forced to stay in a relationship with your current partner. Actually forced, not "keeping up the appearances" forced.

123. Can you keep white shoes clean?

I can't even keep dark blue shoes clean sometimes.

124. Do you believe in love at first sight?

No.

125. Do you believe in true love?

No.

126. Are you currently bored?

Nah, I'm having fun.

127. What makes you happy?

Zdob si Zdub.

128. Would you change your name?

I'd add my spouse's last name to mine if it sounded cool, other than that no.

129. What your zodiac sign?

Libra.

130. Do you like subway?

The fast food chain? It's alright.

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

Now that would be quite the plot twist. 

133. Favourite lyrics right now?

Finish it. I am my father's daughter.

AND I AM MY FATHER'S SON. Finish it I must.

(There's more but I will end up pasting the whole song here if I keep going).

134. Can you count to one million?

I can barely count to 100 without getting distracted.

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?

Can't recall.

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?

Closed, what the fuck, do you want the demons to come in or what?

137. How tall are you?

175 cm.

138. Curly or Straight hair?

Mine or which one I like more? Mine's straight.

139. Brunette or Blonde?

Brunette.

140. Summer or Winter?

Summer.

141. Night or Day?

Day. The night is dark and full of terrors.

142. Favourite month?

October.

143. Are you a vegetarian?

No.

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?

Milk.

145. Tea or Coffee?

Coffee.

146. Was today a good day?

It was average.

147. Mars or Snickers?

Snickers.

148. What’s your favourite quote?

I don't think I have one.

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

I'm not sure.

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page?

"Another step back." I was too lazy to get up and opened a ebook though.

[noahfence1d]

On a muggy May morning in a penthouse in Battersea, southwest London, the delectable self-styled “chef and food consultant” Tess Ward is slumped on an enormous grey sofa, cradling a cup of peppermint tea and musing on the downsides of social media.

“Snapchat I’ve deleted, Twitter — don’t really do it,” she says wearily, her home counties accent as sharp as mandolined celeriac. “I’m even a little bit out of love with Instagram. At the moment I’m getting a lot of direct messages there, but I respectfully choose not to reply to them, because they’re all, like, er . . . interesting. I want a break,” she wails, her tones turning mock-northern. “I just want a break.”

Why is Ward so disillusioned? She’s a key member of today’s cohort of gorgeous, uber-connected food writers/chefs/wellbeing gurus (think “Deliciously” Ella Mills of the Sainsbury dynasty and former models Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley), following the favoured career path for upper-crust pretty things, whom the satirical website the Daily Mash unkindly categorised under the headline “Sexy posh girls unveil bullshit fad diet”.

As in all their cases, Instagram has been key to building Ward’s brand: she has nearly 130,000 followers, mesmerised by her soft-focus lifestyley/foodie shots of toasted almonds and beetroot salad, Ward doing yoga on a Yucatan beach, sweet potato and avocado brunches, Ward sunbathing on the shores of Lake Como and looking foxy at the polo in a bright-red floral Gucci shirt . . .

This last shot, posted early last week, nearly broke social media, not to mention a million teenage hearts — and brought her an additional 50,000 followers. It was apparent confirmation that Ward was — as had been rumoured for days — going out with Harry Styles of the boyband One Direction. Only four days earlier he had been seen about town in an identical £530 shirt.

That same day Ward was papped in the passenger seat of an Audi being driven by Styles, whose first solo album was about to be released. Instantly, she became a 21st-century Yoko Ono, loathed by loyal Directioners who are notorious for making voodoo dolls and sending death threats to any woman with whom their idols are spotted socialising.

They started trolling Ward’s social media. An innocuous Instagram snap of her mango and honey ice cream (dairy-free, obvs) attracted more than 3,000 comments along the lines of “Go awaaay”, “Ew”, “This looks disgusting” and “social climber”.

On Amazon her cookbook The Naked Diet, which had so far received about a dozen four and five-star reviews, overnight attracted a tranche of one-star write-ups, along the lines of “boring” and “unoriginal”.

“It’s been so weird, the hate messages . . . very bizarre,” Ward sighs, her fragile frame hunched. “I’m not the kind of person who’s interested in fame and if you’re put in an environment which you don’t understand and you can’t control and you don’t want, it’s horrible.”

She bites her lip; her doll-like, tanned face bleak. “Reporters have turned up at my mum’s house several times, at my old house. I just want to do what I love and that’s cook, it really is.”

So what’s going on? Is Ward, 27, going out with Styles, 23?

“I literally don’t have anything to say about that,” she sighs, as her PR snaps: “My clients don’t talk about their personal lives.”

Many distraught Directioners are convinced there’s nothing to talk about because this is all a publicity stunt to flog cookbooks (although what’s in it for Styles is less clear). Last weekend, Ward attended his “secret” London gig until, according to one fan who claimed on Twitter to have been standing near by, she was told by Styles’s people: “That’s enough, you can leave now.” In other words, her presence had been noted, job done.

If this is all a ploy to boost Ward’s profile, I doubt she would be so visibly shaken. Shortly after we meet, Ward disables her Instagram messaging facility, posting: “For everyone following and messaging me, I am thankful but please be kind to me. All I want is to share beautiful food with you all.”

Assuming there is a relationship, then Styles, who is refusing to comment, is a lucky chap. Because, even compared to his arm-long list of exes (Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner, Caroline Flack, Pixie Geldof, Rod Stewart’s daughter and someone from Made in Chelsea), Ward is a catch, ridiculously pretty in frayed jeans and an embroidered denim jacket, bobbed fair hair, endearingly darker at the roots, framing an angelic face — a testament to the power of good genes and quinoa.

She’s also — when not brooding on her role as Britain’s most-hated woman — extremely likeable: voluble and friendly with a dry sense of humour.

“People can be so weird,” she continues on the social media theme. “You post a salad and they’re like, ‘That’s not nutritionally balanced.’ I like to be playful. There’s a slight puritanism about the way a lot of people post about food — they’ll be like, ‘I’m eating this salmon bowl and it’s got all these omegas, it’s perfect for getting your skin to glow.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t care! It’s a f***ing salmon salad!’ ” She frowns as she scrolls through comments on her Instagram feed. “Here’s this pasta recipe I’ve written. ‘Even if it’s not perfect it’s good when it’s made with love’ — that’s a bit too earnest. I was like, ‘Ew! God, far too nice for me.’ ”

Part of London’s It crowd (she is forever being snapped at parties with minor royals and the models Suki Waterhouse and Amber Le Bon and was, allegedly, introduced to Styles via “mutual friends”), Ward has walked here in Battersea from the house she shares in west London. “I used to live alone, but when you cook, you need people around to offload the food.” She’s looking to buy in hipper Stoke Newington, nearer the buzzing bars and restaurants.

Her parents — she has a brother, who’s a student — divorced when she was ten. Her father, who lives between west London and Oxfordshire, works for a multinational property company. “Dad’s a bit nuts; he wears tweed suits and bright purple shirts and odd socks always,” she says, smiling, scrolling through her phone to find a picture. “Look, here he is going to a fancy-dress party, dressed as bouillon, so in a chicken hat.”

Her mother, who lives in Oxford, is a yoga teacher. “She’s very spiritual, she sends me pictures of her in her crystal healing area. So cute. I have the best parents. They’re very progressive, bohemian, they’ve always been like, ‘Do whatever you like, it’s your body, it’s your life’, but everything has consequences and as a result I’ve always been very responsible.”

Ward was a tomboyish child, happiest helping her maternal grandfather, a farmer, to “pluck pheasants and gut fish’’. She attended a Quaker boarding school, then a small private day school for girls in Oxford. “I hated it. I was disruptive and got in so much trouble. I really didn’t feel the cookie-cutter school system was for me.”

However, she flourished at the local private sixth form college and ended up following a classic upper-middle-class path of reading history of art at the University of Leeds where, with a lot of free time, she held “a lot of dinner parties”.

On graduating, she did some modelling “but that didn’t sing for me”, so studied classical French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu, before working at various establishments including the Ritz and River Cottage.

“Cooking for people didn’t really do it for me. You’re always making the same stuff, and in a restaurant the hours are long and it’s hard physical labour. You’re on your feet for at least 14 hours a day and I’m not very big — my parents were like, ‘You’re quite pale and weathered.’ ”

She started reviewing restaurants for Grazia magazine, consulting brands such as Fortnum & Mason and Grey Goose. In the future she is hoping to open a restaurant and write a sequel to The Naked Diet, whose title reflects Ward’s “stripped back” approach to unprocessed food.

Like Ella Mills, Ward has been “mindful” of what she eats as a result of health issues — travelling alone around India on her gap year she picked up a parasite that was eventually cured by a clinical nutritionist (she has done an online course at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition). She’s allergic to soya and avoids wheat: “It gives me a stomach ache.” She doesn’t eat dessert much because “I don’t have a terribly sweet tooth” and dislikes melted cheese — “so pizza’s out”. She has just given up red meat “more for the planet than for dietary reasons. Other than that, I’m pretty relaxed.”

The #avotoast world is an increasingly crowded one and can be bitchy. Last year she had a skirmish with the Bake Off finalist Ruby Tandoh, after Ward tweeted: “Let’s all make baking books and wonder why the world has health and sugar addiction problems.” Tandoh lashed back calling her a “denizen of the weight loss industry” on Twitter, screenshotting a reference to a “Skinny Bitch” cooking class Ward had hosted.

“A lot of girls in food aren’t so nice,” Ward says. “Though the Hemsleys really are good girls. I went to their first book launch when I was submitting my first draft, looked around and thought, ‘This is the beginning of a thing, isn’t it?’

“Ella’s book was coming out, it became a wave and the media lumped us into one category. But I was very aware that these were girls telling people what they should eat. I’m not a qualified nutritionist, I’m a chef — my standpoint is food being delicious primarily and secondarily what’s good for you.

“Healthy living is a trend and that’s more my thing than clean eating, which is a fad and something I feel I was pulled into. The vegan and the clean can perpetuate a lot of other problems, which aren’t good.”

[mypurplelanterns-blog]

How to be a good customer

I have worked extensively in both the retail and service industries, and have personally experienced all kinds of rude and crazy people. Here’s how not to be one of them:

1.    Acknowledge thine server

Waiters and cashiers are actually people, not machines. Please be present with us and actually listen when we ask how you are. Also, our only job is to make you feel good; so PLEASE CO-OPERATE. Do NOT float by someone at the door of a restaurant who is CLEARLY trying to help you find a table, seat yourself and then complain for fifty minutes that nobody came to help you. Also, if we say a table is reserved – chances are we ARE NOT LYING. We want to seat you at a table. The more people we serve, the more likely we are to go home with a reasonable amount of money.

2.    Respect opening and closing times

If a door is half open, tables are stacked on top of one another, people are counting money or dressed in plastic and scooping sauces - the place you want to eat or buy at is closed. Please do not be a twat and ask if we are open. And after that, if you really cannot believe that an institution can be so inconsiderate as to not be open when you need it to be, refrain from asking why the place is open or closed. People in the retail and service industry work extremely long hours and all you will achieve is general loathing and foaming at the mouth. You should rather nod your head gravely in awe of the mighty workforce before you. And go get breakfast from KFC.

3.    Be kind

Imagine you are stuck in a tiny dress amidst a horde of screaming infants, each requesting something from you. Some are tugging at your arm; some are frantically waving at you from across the room. Some are even *gasp* clicking for your attention. Then, while you are trying meticulously to attend to each infants needs,  their dad is shouting at you and demanding answers as to why you are taking so long to make each infant happy.

This, my sweet friends, is WAITRESSING.

If a restaurant or store is busy, please do not expect to be lavished upon as if you are a reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi.

Servers are trying their utmost best to deliver unto you their best service. Of course, I am not advocating a world where servers are lazy and incompetent, but be reasonable. Don’t ask for beef instead of chicken and swap jalapenos for avocado and could you please make sure that the bread is just a husk of corn because I am deathly allergic to gluten and oh can I have a side of mango but make sure its dried mango oh and oh waitress sorry a single whiskey please with half a block of ice.

No.

4.    Also, tip  

If the service was foul, give ten percent. If the service was average, or you got your food on time, the waiter was friendly, you didn’t slice your hand on a pepper grinder and you had a good experience – tip 12%.

If your server had a wonderful sense of humour, gave brilliant suggestions, put in a little bit of effort to make you feel comfortable and at home – TIP THEM TWENTY PERCENT. If you are ten people and your bill comes to R1000, you each give R20 and Voila, the waiter is remunerated with little expense on your part. Include tipping in your entertainment budget.

Waiters in South Africa do not earn enough money per hour to survive. Minimum wage is R14,85, and most restaurants do not even pay that. From the tips waiters receive, they have to pay the bartenders and usually breakages and tip the runners. If you do not tip you will be remembered and you will probably get bad service the next time you come to the restaurant.

5.    Don’t use the service industry as a dating app

Your waitron is being kind to you because she needs to pay her rent and feed herself and pay for her ballroom dancing lessons.

She is smiling and friendly and she gently teases you because she wants your money. Also, she is doing her job. Please don’t put anyone in the awkward situation of having to give their number to you. Or ask them for coffee and be upset when they refuse. Don’t let the sting of rejection influence your tip. You put yourself in that situation darling.

A rule in general I think is to open your eyes and be considerate. Retail and service is hard and you have no idea what a small show of kindness will do for a person hard at work.

All the love

Sarah

xxx

PS the picture above is of me at the fanciest tearoom in the world. Angelina in Paris. Their hot chocolate is incredible and their toilet seats are made out pure gold.

[ecrivainescence]

@constant-gesticulation​ hi cat! i’m your backup gifter for @voltron-ss​. merry belated christmas/new year and stuff. you have been super patient. you rock. i hope you enjoy.

title: maurice

word count: 4668

summary: honestly, this is the silliest thing i have ever written, and it is one long exercise in suspension of disbelief. it contains mothman, dated cultural references, and a random shot of seriousness that did not make itself apparent until about midnight. also bonding, and poison ivy. and red bull. and shiro is allergic to everything.

The campfire stories were Allura’s idea. 

“On Altea,” she said, “we told stories of creatures that wandered the night in the waving reed forests. They left wooden stick figures hanging from the waving reeds. They left rock cairns. And if you disturbed one of them you were damned. My father warned me away from them time and time again.” Her face was illuminated by the dim glow of the fire, and her hair was witchy-silver. Her voice took on the quality of an ancient story-keeper.

“But there were three young explorers who did not heed the warnings not to speak of the one that lived in the forest outside our city. She was said to be a malevolent old witch who never showed herself to the people, but who had a long bloody history. Her modus operandi was taking two victims at a time: one to kill first, and one to stand in the corner listening to the screams of the first, awaiting their own death.

“The three explorers were never again seen after the first day they entered the forest, but a year later we found their footage. One of them had accidentally disturbed one of the cairns, and after that things started to unravel. They wandered around in circles for days, lost in the forest, finding wooden stick figures hung from the trees, and being pursued by a being that cast rocks at their tent in the night. Eventually one of them disappeared, and the other two found nothing but a bit of hair and a couple of teeth and a piece of his tongue.”

“Hold on just a hot minute,” said Hunk, artfully constructing a double-decker s’more. “You’re just recycling the plot of The Blair Witch Project.”

“So what if I am?” sniffed Allura. “It was a good movie.” 

“No movie retellings,” said Hunk. “It’s the Campfire Story Honor Code.”

Allura stuck out her tongue at him.

 “I’ve got one,” piped Keith from his position on a stump across the fire. “It’s a good one.” 

“Here we go,” muttered Lance. Shiro shushed him. Pidge leaned in.

Ignoring him, Keith proceeded. “Point Pleasant, West Virginia. 1966. The Scarberrys swore the thing they saw was not a man, nor a bird, although it bore some resemblance to both --”

“It’s Mothman again,” said Lance.

“Got a problem?”

“Oh, I have many problems,” said Lance, “and among them are Mothman, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and anything you found on Creepypasta.” 

“Well,” said Keith. “You asked for stories. All my stories are about the dark underbelly of the American wilderness.”

“We’re twenty minutes from a Chick-Fil-A,” griped Lance. “That’s your wilderness.” 

Hunk sighed. They’d been like this for days – tense, edgy, at each other’s throats. They weren’t always quite so flammable, but something about the close proximity of RV travel made them a powder keg: You spilled coffee on my notebook. You used my toothbrush. What do you mean you ate the last slice of beef jerky.

He expected Shiro to chime in a peacemaker, but then he remembered Shiro was already asleep in his bunk inside the camper due to being extremely fucking tired of everything. Not only was he in charge of driving, but the strange shift of their return to Earth had revealed a lot of unexpected things. Like that Shiro was allergic as hell to everything. Mangoes. Tree nuts. Certain types of sunscreen. Allura’s shampoo. In fact, they carried an Epi-Pen or six with them at all times and tacked a list of his allergies on the tiny refrigerator, ready in the case that he broke out in hives, as he’d already done thrice.

So yeah. Shiro was tired. 

Keith and Lance had somehow gotten back to bickering.

“Lance left our food out for bears!”

“Keith almost abducted somebody else’s dog!”

“You helped!”

“At least I wasn’t the one who forgot to tell Shiro about the peanut oil in the chocolate chip cookies and nearly constricted his airway and then bludgeoned him in the head with a golf club!

“That was an accident, for starters,” said Lance, “and at least I didn’t knock down the world’s largest rubber band ball!” 

“You can’t knock it down! It’s a ball! It rolls!” 

“It rolled right over an eighty-year-old man.”

“No, actually it rolled over his wife.” Pidge was fiddling with her ham radio setup, which she operated illegally on the go. No one knew what she was doing with all those wavy sound lines and static-y sounds emerging from her headphones. It was just what Pidge did. 

“That’s hardly better,” said Lance. “You may be the resident ace pilot, but at least I’m second best at threatening the lives of the elderly.”

“Yeah?” asked Keith. “You’re awfully good at being second best.”

Hunk snapped to attention. The glint departed Lance’s eyes in an instant. “Well,” he said bitterly. “I can’t argue with you there.” He shrugged and turned, walking off into the darkness.

“Oh dear,” said Allura. “I’d better look after him if he’s going to walk off alone in the dark.” She hurried off.

 “Not cool, man,” Hunk said into the awkward silence surrounding the campfire.

“I wasn’t thinking,” said Keith. “I just…fuck.”

“You really hurt his feelings with that one,” Pidge said quietly, her headphones in her hands, spitting static.

“I know,” said Keith. “Shit.” He put his head into his hands.

//

There was something about being on Earth that dragged Lance back into who he used to be. The inferior. The lost. The mildly spiteful. He’d almost fooled himself into believing that he was over it – that he was finally comfortable in his own skin, that he didn’t have to be the best as long as he was his best. But it wasn’t even the damage to his self esteem that really did it – it was that Keith had said it specifically to hurt. And out of nowhere. In the middle of a petty argument. That hurt more than anything.

He could hear Allura crunching leaves behind him, even though she tried to be quiet. Always looking after him. Always assuming he’d get himself into some sort of trouble. And what made him so bitter about it was the knowledge that, so often, he would.

“I’m calling it a night,” he said, changing course and heading for the camper. “You don’t have to babysit me, Allura.” He trudged back toward his cot and his thin blanket and his midseason finale of The Walking Dead. Allura touched his shoulder lightly as he passed by. He shrugged her off.

// 

The next day, Shiro grabbed a six-pack (his secret stash), a fishing pole, and a tiny child’s beach chair decorated with clownfish, and made for the lake a half a mile away.

“You know I care about all of you,” he said, “but I’m going to go fishing. I’m going to sit in this chair, and I’ll happily skin the person who makes me move. So do what you want, but be prepared for the consequences.” He nodded resolutely and made his exit, Allura chasing after him to remind him to wear his hypoallergenic sunscreen. 

Pidge turned to Lance. “I need a ride to the nearest store to get some radio stuff.”

“Okay,” he said, making for Shiro’s dad’s old pickup truck that pulled the camper. 

“I need to come too,” said Keith, with heavy bags under his eyes. “I need some stuff.”

 //

The nearest store was a WalMart twenty minutes away.

The first thing Pidge noticed was that it was nearly totally empty. There was but one cashier, and she was wall-eyed. The automatic doors creaked. The inside of the store played elevator music. “Meet back here in fifteen,” said Lance, and they wandered off in their respective directions.

Pidge wandered about the aisles looking for her extra wires and the little pencils she liked and the best instant coffee for all-nighters. Keith and Lance avoided speaking to each other except when absolutely necessary, picking out toilet paper and Cheez-Its and several pool noodles. Wrapped up in their own heads, they paid for their things and left the store, and only after the silent ride home did they notice anything was missing. 

Pidge wandered out into the parking lot after finding them nowhere in the store, and swore loudly. The truck was gone. 

“Hey!” called the wall-eyed cashier. “You gotta pay for that stuff!”

“Well, fuck,” Pidge said to herself.

// 

It was in the personal care aisle that she saw him. She had downed a couple of Red Bulls at that point (okay, maybe four). So yeah, the world was starting to blur. And the aisles were starting to seem more and more like a mystical labyrinth, a trap for the weak-willed, a purgatory where one might wander for all eternity and never see the sun. Or, for that matter, a sales associate. But she swore he was real; he was not of this world, but he was real. 

He seemed to distort the air around him, like he possessed a certain gravity. His eyes were in fact as bulbous and red as legend told, but he seemed to taste the air, too, with these gently waving antennae on his face. He was coated in downy gray fur. His wings were dark, iridescent, sharp like the edges of knives. 

“I knew you would come,” he said to Pidge, not looking. His voice was like rocks falling off the side of a mountain. 

“How’d you figure that?” she asked, rubbing her eyes and trying to remember if this had ever happened on Red Bull before.

“You signaled me,” he said. “Did you not?” 

“I don’t know, maybe.” Shouldn’t have played around with amateur radio frequencies. “But is that why you’re in WalMart? Really?”

“No,” he said in his rockslide voice. “I ran out of Kraft macaroni and baby wipes.” 

“Mothman eats Kraft macaroni?”

“Please,” he said. “Call me Maurice.” 

“Hmm,” Pidge said. “Nice to meet you, Maurice. You’re as intimidating as they said you’d be. I’m Pidge Gunderson.” 

“I am pleased to make the acquaintance of yours as well, Pigeon Dungerson,” he said.

“Well, we’ll work on that later, I guess,” she muttered. “Say, Maurice. How’d you like to help me with something?”

// 

There were several reasons this was a good idea.

1.     Revenge. She’d only been buying deodorant and stuff, for fuck’s sake. She hadn’t just wandered off for two hours. She was sick and tired of getting left places – WalMart. Diners. Gas stations.

2.     Keith and Lance were at each other’s throats more than was necessary, and it was screwing with Pidge’s flow. They always worked better together in times of trouble. Perhaps it was time to shake things up.

3.     It was going to be a hell of a lot of fun.

“Okay,” she said to Maurice, who was munching happily on a Pop Tart. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I need you to stick close. I’ll lure them off by themselves, and then you can do your weird stun-tongue thing and drag them around a little bit. Let them freak out. Let ‘em scream a little bit. And then when they get their shit together and figure out a plan to get out of the situation, I want you to let them get away. Let them think they’ve done it themselves. And I’ll pay you in all the Pop Tarts you want.”

“We do not have Pop Tarts in my realm,” said Maurice, the air shimmering around him.

“I know, Maurice,” said Pidge. “I know.”

//

Keith apologized profusely when he arrived twenty minutes later to retrieve Pidge, but strangely enough she didn’t have anything to say about being stranded at WalMart. Keith put it down to one of her weird caffeine-drunk spells, given the aroma of Red Bull on her breath. He shrugged it off.

 He was lacing up his boots and packing his field notes when he noticed Lance standing by awkwardly. “What are you about to do?” he asked.

 “I’m gonna look around,” Keith said, trying to offer a little goodwill. “You can come if you want.”

 Pidge, behind a nearby tree (and sporting some fabulous aviators) whispered into a walkie talkie: “Your move, Maurice.”

 //

 Around one in the afternoon, Shiro was working on his sweet Chaco tan when he remembered he’d forgotten his pool noodle. He tromped right back to the camper. Allura was just out of bed, wearing a t-shirt over her swimsuit and sipping a cup of the acidic black coffee that spewed out of the ancient coffeemaker.

 “What’s that on your legs?” She asked.

 “What’s what?”

 “That,” she said, gesturing toward a strange yellow-pink rash that Shiro had not previously noticed.

 “I guess that’s…oh. Oh no.”

 “What?”

 “Poison ivy.”

 “Isn’t that supposed to be rather mildly irritating?”

 “Not to me,” Shiro said. “Guess what else I’m allergic to?”

 “Poison ivy,” Allura said, turning slightly green. “Oh. Oh shit.”

 “It makes me swell up like a balloon,” he said.

 “I’ll get the keys,” Allura sighed. He was already looking a bit puffy.

//

 In retrospect, Lance would wonder if it was really all that surprising that as soon as they’d wandered far enough from the campsite that no one could hear them scream, there had suddenly been an insect man tall enough to sling one of them over each shoulder and haul them back to his weird lair thing. It was, like, the only thing that hadn’t happened yet in his short life.

 The cave was not littered with the bones of small animals, as he would have expected, but instead strange paraphernalia of ages past. Hawaiian shirts. A gumball machine. A broken television set. Books and books and books. Star Wars miniatures. A typewriter.

 It really wasn’t a cave at all. More of a large person-sized dirt burrow, or an adobe hallway.

 “This is my collection,” said the strange red-eyed moth creature. “Please making yourself comfortable.” He paused for a moment, as if contemplating. “If you can.” For Keith and Lance were bound up together, back to back, in some sort of strange tense plastic-like material. Slightly slimy. Ominous.

 “Listen,” said Lance. “If you’ll just untie these rope thingies, we can all sit down and have a chat, okay? A dinner party. A forum, if you will.”

 “I cannot do that,” said the creature. “Do you like music?”

 “What?”

 “Music.”

 “I mean…yeah. I guess.”

 “Oh, good,” said Mothman. He walked his funny childlike shuffling walk over to a cobwebbed corner, and fiddled with something glinting in the low light. A moment later, scratchy music began to play. Upon further inspection, the object barely visible in the dimness seemed to be a phonograph. “It is the theme from an Earth show called, ‘I Am Dreaming of Jeannie,’” he said. “I have also the songs of Billie Holliday, and Milli Vanilli, and Back of Nickel.”

 “You’ve been collecting Earth music, haven’t you?” said Keith.

 “They sell Nickelback on vinyl?” asked Lance.

 “I have been a collector of Earth things for many years,” said the creature. “Next I will show you my collection of glass jars. Perhaps my marbles, if you are careful. Or my many plastic shopping bags. And my most favorite thing,” he said. “Would you like to see my most favorite thing?”

 “I suppose,” said Lance.

 “Look.” He trotted out of a corner with a dusty cardboard box that, upon further inspection, contained dusty video cassette tapes. “It is my box set of all of the seasons of the Earth show ‘Friends.’”

“Very, um, nice,” said Keith.

 “We were ON A BREAK,” said Mothman. He made a noise that sounded somewhere between a cough and an avalanche. “Ha! Ha! Have I done the Earth humor correctly? I have not had much time to practice on real people.”

 “You know what, buddy?” said Lance. “Yeah. You did it right. Congratulations. You’re pretty great at Earth-speak.”

 “Oh,” said the Mothman, clapping his hand-things. “I am glad.”

 “If you would just…y’know…untie us, that’d be great.”

“You will be going nowhere,” the creature said in his strange gravelly voice. “For I will not permit it. You are to be my dinner. Yummy yummy. Human flesh.” The moth-creature-alien-thing waved his hands about his head in a manner that resembled jazz hands. “Was I convincingly scary?”

“I’m not ready to leave anyway,” said Keith. “I want to interview him.”

Lance raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Of course,” he muttered. “Of course you do. Of course you want to interview the flesh-devouring man-moth who has us trapped prone in his cave in the Virginia wilderness.”

“I’m just saying!” said Keith. “We are never going to get this chance again! We can get documentation! Nobody has ever had proof this definitive of the existence of Mothman. We can ask him about the Silver Bridge thing –”

“That was not my doing,” said the Mothman.

 “You know what I’m talking about?” asked Keith. “You know about the Silver Bridge?”

“I am Maurice,” said the Mothman. “Please refer to me by my Earth name.”

 “Okay, um…Maurice, then,” said Keith. “So what really happened that day?”

 “I do not know,” he said. “It was a most unfortunate accident. I was at home all day. The one they spotted was not me.”

 “Who was it, then?”

 “My brother Jimmy. He was visiting from our realm.”

 “Your realm?”

“My home. It is in another galaxy.”

 “Well, what’s it like? What are your people like?”

 “They are mostly what you humans would call ‘average Joes,’” said Maurice. “They are workers. They pay taxes. I am here to work on my thesis. I have taken a bit longer than the average of forty years to complete it.”

 “Your…thesis?”

 “Yes,” he said. “It is on the behavior of the bald Earthlings and their strange culture. I have learned of one ritual in particular that captures my imagination. You put our your right arm, and then your left, and then you turn your hands over, and then grasping your elbows…”

 “You’re speaking of the Macarena,” said Keith.

 “We could demonstrate it for you if you’d untie us.”

 “Oh,” he said. “I will. Eventually. But for now the little one said –” He clapped his hands over his mouth.

 “What little one?” asked Keith. “Are you working for somebody?”

 “I have said too much,” said Maurice. “You will have to ask her. For now I will take my leave. I have to be gathering the flowers.” He waddled out of the cave at what was top speed, compared to his usual gait. “Do not be trying to be escaping,” he called backwards over his wing.

 Lance and Keith summoned grimaces and raised their hands as far as they could to wave, considering they were tied up. They didn’t stop smiling at the creature’s back until he was well out of sight.

 “Okay,” said Lance when it was clear they were alone. “We’re going to have to work together to get out of this.”

 //

 “I haven’t seen Lance and Keith for a while,” said Hunk, surrounded by a stack of novels, knee-deep in one that had to be at least 500 pages. “You wouldn’t, um, happen to know anything about that, would you?”

 “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Pidge. “Nothing. None. Zip.”

 “You were awfully intent on paying them back,” Hunk said, “and now, funnily enough, they’re gone.”

 “I think I should reapply my sunscreen.”

 “Pidge. Come on. Where are they?”

 She sighed. “It’s kind of hard to explain. But they’re safe!” she added hastily, when Hunk turned slightly green. “Relatively, anyway.”

 “Explain now,” he said, putting his chin in his hands.

 “Okay,” she said, and began her sordid tale.

 When she reached the end, Hunk put his face in his hands. “I cannot believe,” he said, “that you invited Mothman to kidnap your teammates.”

 “Maurice,” corrected Pidge.

 “Maurice may be responsible for many deaths, my friend. The Silver Bridge! Car accidents! Oh, god, they’re probably already dead! I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to Lance’s mom –”

 “The collapse of the Silver Bridge was caused by a faulty eyebar and you fucking know it,” said Pidge. “Maurice is a nice guy. All he wants is Pop Tarts, I promise. And he’s probably an extremely valuable contact for Voltron, and an opportunity for insight into parts of the universe yet uncharted –”

 “Take me to them,” said Hunk. “Now.”

 “Ugh. Fine.”

 //

 Usually, Allura loved riding her high-tech portable deployable solar-powered motorcycle, courtesy of Coran – the wind in her hair, the sun on her face. The sweet taste of fresh rural Earth air. But right now, her hair was whipping Shiro in the face as he rode behind her, arms locked around her waist.

 He was still pretty swollen and itchy, but at least he now had a prescription for some medication that was supposed to help. And at least nobody had said much about the Galra arm.

 And at least, said that small, wicked part of her mind, he would still need someone to rub calamine lotion between his shoulder blades.

 As a pick-me up, she’d bought him a huge tin of fudge from a roadside stand that also sold beaded bracelets, snow globes with Mickey Mouse in them (probably stolen), and little figures of tiny naked fairy babies with flower crowns and chubby cheeks.

 It was this fudge tin that was digging lines into her back as she pulled up to the camp site. She parked, stood and stretched her back good and long, and then looked up as Shiro shuffled up next to her.

 “Wait a minute,” she said. “Where in quiznak is everybody?”

 //

 Keith and Lance managed to accomplish approximately nothing.

 Lance was proposing a strategic top-speed ground roll all the way back to the camp site when Keith, who was the one facing the mouth of the weird dirt burrow, began screaming. “Hunk! Pidge! Run while you still can! Before Mothman devours your flesh!”

 “Excuse me,” said Mothman, appearing suddenly out of nowhere with a crack, antennae quivering. “But I have told you that is not my name.”

 “Nice work, Maurice,” said Pidge, entering the mouth of the burrow slightly sweaty and out of breath. “It’s not your fault they were too stupid to figure out a way out.”

 “Wait,” said Lance. “Hold on just a hot fuckin’ minute. You know him?”

 “Yeah,” said Pidge. “You make all kinds of friends when you get stranded in WalMart.”

 “You set him on us,” said Keith.

 “I did you a favor,” she said, “and you would be wise to remember it the next time we stop at a QuikTrip. Before you, you know, forget me.”

 “I mean,” said Hunk. “She kind of has a point.”

 “The idea,” Pidge said, “was that you were supposed to figure out a way out together and realize that you’re a great team and you need to support each other.”

 “So you organized this as a lesson in teamwork? You let us be kidnapped by a giant insect-man in the Virginia wilderness so we could learn?”

 “No,” she said, looking at the pile of bubble-wrapped teenage boy on the ground. “That was just a bonus. This is also revenge for the five different times you’ve left me at…let’s see. Waffle House, a gas station, another gas station, that one weird fruit stand, and WalMart. But you weren’t supposed to get hurt or anything. You were supposed to figure out a way to get out. Together. Since you’ve been making our lives miserable with your fighting.”

 “Well, we didn’t.”

 “I am sorry I have bound you too tightly,” said Maurice. “I forgot that humans do not possess fine razor sharp hairs on their hands capable of cutting through my biological web goo.”

 “Whatever you do,” said Lance, closing his eyes as if in pain. “Do not ever mention biological web goo again. And do not tell me what part of you it comes from.”

 “Oh, just my nose.”

 “I guess it could be worse,” said Keith.

 “So you’re basically tied up in alien moth snot,” said Hunk.

 “Maurice,” said Pidge. “How do you feel about Spaghetti-Os cooked over a campfire?”

 “I would most enjoy it!”

 “You did some nice work today, bud. I have seventeen boxes of Pop Tarts with your name on them.”

 Pidge held out a fist for him to bump, but he met it with a high five. “Okay,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to work on that.”

//

When they got back to the camp site, Shiro was lying under a blanket inside the camper, watching Gilmore Girls season two, and Allura was already pacing with her hands on her hips, ready to scold. “Where in quiznak have you been?” she demanded in her best Mom Voice.

“Off making friends with the local cryptids,” said Pidge. “Meet my friend Maurice.”

“I am so fortunate to be included in the bald Earthling ritual burning of the marshmallows,” said Maurice.

 Allura was taken aback. “Um,” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve met anyone of your species before. But I suppose it’s nice to meet you. And you,” she said to Pidge, “will explain later.”

 “Oh, that is alright,” said Maurice. “I am sure we will be able to do the bonding over bald Earthling pop culture. I am rather partial to Bruno Mars myself.”

 //

 Pidge and Maurice sat around the campfire long after everyone else had retreated to the relative civilization of the RV. They toasted Pop Tarts, downed yet more Red Bull, and traded stories about their respective worlds, current events, and pop music.

 “Well,” said Allura warmly, observing from afar. “I think everything’s finally all worked out. We’re bonding, we’re learning about each other, we’re exploring the great American wilds, we found Mothman…”

 “Oh fuck,” said Shiro. “I think this fudge has nuts in it.”

 “Oh no,” said Allura. “Oh, no. Oh no no no. How allergic did you say you were to nuts?”

 “Severely,” said Shiro.

 “NURSE HUNK! EPI-PEN! NOW!”

 As Hunk thundered around the camp looking for the first aid kit, and Pidge continued teaching Maurice bawdy British rugby songs, and as Allura issued commands while Shiro panicked (“My face is swelling! I can’t feel my face!”), Lance turned to Keith. “So,” he said. “Is Mothman everything you hoped he would be?”

 “I mean,” said Keith, shrugging. “He’s a little anticlimactic. I don’t know how I’m supposed to work this into a book about the dark underbelly of Mother Nature. And besides, I didn’t find him. Pidge did.”

 “Pidge always figures everything out first,” huffed Lance. “Sometimes I wonder why I bother comparing myself to you when she smokes us both.”

 Keith hung his head. “I’m sorry I said that stuff before, about you being second best,” he said. “I don’t really think that. I was just being an ass.”

 “Oh, it’s alright,” said Lance. “I’m used to you being an ass.”

 “Yeah, well, I’m not trying to be,” he replied. “I just am that way. Even when I’m thinking totally chill, benign thoughts, I somehow manage to bitch people out. I don’t really like that about myself. Actually,” he said, “sometimes I’m not sure I like myself much at all.”

 “Yeah, well, then we make a great team,” said Lance.

 “We do, though,” said Keith.

 “Would you like yourself more if you managed to solve Bigfoot first? I know Mothman’s out of the game, but other mysteries remain. I’ll come with you, of course.”

 “Well, duh. I’ll need witnesses and a cameraman and stuff.”

 “I still can’t feel my face!” Shiro yelled in the distance.

 “No, no,” said Pidge to Maurice. “You’re talking about rugby league. It’s different from rugby union.”

 “This fudge really is exceptional, though,” said Allura.

 “Pound it,” said Lance, offering a fist. Keith met it with a high five.

 “Okay,” said Lance. “We can work on that.”

[josephkitchen0]

Staghorn Sumac: The Wild Lemonade Berry

By Sam Thayer – Sumac is a common, well-known and easily recognized feature of the rural North American landscape. Staghorn sumac trees with thick twigs and an almost tropical appearance are familiar to most country dwellers. Their shape and large cone-like, dark red berry clusters are distinctive and their bright red autumn foliage is hard to forget. Yet few people know that these little trees have provided a delicious and refreshing summer drink throughout much of the world for thousands of years. Sumac forms large patches called clones; what looks like many trees or shrubs is actually a single plant, like a patch of growing rhubarb or growing asparagus. Large clones are tallest in the center, getting gradually shorter towards the outside, creating the illusion of a gentle hill where there is none. In such a sumac clone the trees often have the habit of bearing leaves only at the canopy, so that when one ventures underneath he is struck with the impression of being under a gentle dome painstakingly coaxed into existence by some master gardener. There were large colonies of sumac growing in an abandoned field at the edge of the town where I grew up. I spent many hours as a child in the calming shade of sumac domes, following rabbit runs in the short grass below or just listening to the birds, daydreaming and staring skyward. The Staghorn sumac was one of my favorite tree before I even learned to make sumac lemonade.

Staghorn sumac is found throughout the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada.

Staghorn sumac or Rhus typhina grows throughout the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada. Staghorn sumac is a small tree or large shrub, usually eight to 20 feet tall although I’ve seen a few as tall as 35 feet. The twigs are sparse and very thick, and the first-year growth is covered with velvety hairs (like a stag’s horns in velvet). The leaves are large — sometimes more than two feet long — and compound, with each leaflet lanceolate and serrated. The foliage of the Staghorn sumac closely resembles that of ailanthus (tree of heaven or stinktree) and black walnut. Staghorn sumac bark is smooth, thin, dark gray, and the inner bark, which is slightly sweet to chew on, is light green. The staghorn sumac plants produce a milky latex that will stain your clothes dark brown. This and other species of true sumac usually grow in pure stands that propagate themselves by rhizomes. They are common on rural roadsides, along railroad tracks and fence rows, and in old fields and other open habitats. Here’s a soil fact about sumacs: They require well-drained soil, and can thrive on dry sites. They are extremely intolerant of shade and are rarely found in any type of mature forest. There are numerous other species of sumac in North America, and at least one is found in almost every inhabited part of the continent. Prairie sumac Rhus lanceolata occurs in Texas and parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico; Mearn’s sumac R. choriophylla grows in southern Arizona and New Mexico; lemonade berry R. integrifolia grows in southern California; shining sumac R. copallina is found over the southern half of eastern North America, smooth sumac R. glabra is found throughout the eastern U. S. and scattered in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains; fragrant sumac R. aromatica and the very similar basket bush R. trilobata are found in mountainous or rocky situations from coast to coast, south into Mexico and north into Canada. This is only a partial list, so wherever you are, you are probably near some useful species of sumac. Consult a field guide for your region. (Laurel sumac Malosma laurina, found in the West, is not a true sumac and is reportedly not edible.)

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A Sumac bush in autumn. Raindrops add to the glistening color.

When I mention making a beverage from sumac, many people who have heard of poison sumac think I am crazy. Quite a few people assume that all sumacs are “poison sumac.” Poison sumac, however, is distinctly different from the true sumacs and is, fortunately, less common. Anybody who tries to differentiate the two will have an easy time of it. All of the true (edible) sumacs have dark reddish or purple fruit borne in erect, tight clusters. (On some of the western species, the clusters are pretty small and may not be as tight as on the eastern species, but they are still distinctly red.) The surface of the fruit is fuzzy or grainy. The poison sumac Toxicodendron vernix is classified in a different genus (along with poison ivy and poison oak). This shrub, which causes reactions even more readily and severely than its better-known brethren, is confined to the east. It can be differentiated from true sumacs most readily by the fact that the berries are whitish, waxy, hairless, and hang in loose, grape-like clusters. They are quite unlike the berries of the edible sumacs, like staghorn sumac. The leaf edges of poison sumac are smooth, while those of the edible eastern sumacs are toothed. Poison sumac also differs in that it rarely grows in dense, pure stands, and in that it inhabits swamps rather than dry areas.

Sumac “Lemonade”

As previously mentioned, the red-berried true sumacs have been widely used to brew a tart and refreshing drink. This drink is delicious, easy to prepare, fun to gather, nutritious, unique and free. Its source is easily accessible to millions of Americans every summer.

This beverage has been called sumac-ade, rhus-ade, sumac lemonade, Indian lemonade, sumac tea and probably some other names that I have yet to hear. Whatever people call it, they pronounce it delicious. When made properly it is as universally liked as lemonade. I have personally brewed this beverage from staghorn, smooth, and shining sumacs on many occasions. Keep in mind that my experiences refer to these species in the Midwest, and other kinds might need to be treated a little differently.

Sumac “berries” are seeds covered with hairs and a thin coating of flavoring substance.

Preparation of the beverage is simple. The first step is to harvest the berries. Sumac “berries” are really just seeds covered with a thin coating of flavoring substance and hairs. The large clusters are so easy to collect that in just a few moments you can have enough for a pitcher of wild Kool-Aid that kids will love. I usually just snap off the twig that bears the cluster by bending it quickly, although some people use pruning shears or a knife. You want to get the berries when they are dark red and fully mature, so that they have fully developed their tart flavor, but before the rain has had the opportunity to wash the flavor out. In most of North America, the first clusters are ready to be plucked sometime in July, with the prime time being in early August. Taste each cluster as you harvest to assure yourself that you are collecting something with flavor since occasionally they are bland. A dark purple coloration usually indicates that the flavor of the fruit has developed fully, yet some of the best clusters I’ve tasted were light pink. Sometimes a white, sticky substance coats the berry heads; this is pure essence of sumac flavor-don’t let it scare you off. I pluck about six to eight average-sized clusters for a pitcher of sumac-ade.

I take my half-dozen berry clusters, cram them into a pitcher, pour cold water over them, crush them up a little with my hand, and then let the pitcher sit in a cool place for a while. Pouring boiling or hot water over the berries makes for poor flavor, for it leaches tannin from the stems, causing the drink to become bitter. The longer the berries infuse, the stronger the drink will be. When the flavor is to your liking, just strain the drink through a cheesecloth to remove seeds and hairs. Sumac-ade is pleasantly tart with a light pink color. Some people add sugar, but I prefer it without. A potential mistake is to harvest the berry heads before they are ripe, in which case they will produce an unpleasantly bitter brew. More commonly, the problem is that the berries are collected long after their flavor has been washed out by rain. Although I have found good-tasting berries into April, this is the exception; around here the vast majority of them are spent by the end of August. You can expect to find good ones if you taste around, until early October and sometimes later and there are always those with just a hint of flavor. To enjoy this refreshing summer beverage in the middle of winter, it pays to harvest the heads in prime time and dry them, so you don’t have to worry about using mediocre material.

The tartness of sumac is partly due to ascorbic acid (vitamin C) so one also has a health incentive to drink this beverage. There are other things that can be done with sumac-ade. My sister made one of the best wines that I have ever tasted from it. I once prepared a potent sumac concentrate by soaking four batches of berry heads in the same water, one after the other, for one-half hour each. This concentrate made a wonderful and very tart jelly. The flavor is transformed and weakened somewhat by the boiling, so be sure to use a very strong sumac brew for the jelly. Euell Gibbons recommended using sumac-ade instead of plain water to boil elderberry and other fruits that need a touch of tartness to liven them up for using in jam or jelly. Also, the young, thick, tender tips of sumac shoots (especially staghorn) in early summer can be peeled and eaten raw or cooked. They are sweet and delicious, much like raspberry stalks. Since sumac is related to cashews and mangoes, anyone allergic to those foods should avoid it, or proceed with extreme caution. All in all, however, the sumac is a wonderful tree, deserving of much more attention from those who love the outdoors. Unfortunately, the fact that it shares names with a tree of ill-repute has caused many to shun it. That does leave more for us, but either way, there’s plenty of sumac to go around. Why not try some this summer?

Originally published in Countryside July / August 2003 and regularly vetted for accuracy. 

Staghorn Sumac: The Wild Lemonade Berry was originally posted by All About Chickens