#native yeast

[clipstone]

Syfany

Syfany André Moravia, Czech Republic 2022 André

Easy-drinking Czech red, made from the local André grape which is similar to a Zweigelt in that it's a cross of Saint-Laurent and Blaufränkisch. A year in acacia barrels help develop the flavours in this wine, giving way to dried cranberry and prune, black pepper and fresh blue and black fruits. A high acidity pet nat with full, enveloping tannins and a nice savoury finish. Dangerously drinkable.

Syfany are a Czech winery that source everything locally, including the acacia wood for their barrels. They take a natural approach, using native yeasts and minimising sulphur use at bottling. An experimental winery that uses different grapes, plots and vintages to create unique and mesmerising wines that stand out from the crowd.

Tasting notes: raspberries, cranberries, rhubarb, prune, black pepper Pairing: pork, pasta, tomato dishes, fish

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - September 8-14

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my new(ly repurposed) Patreon!

1. Pair of rare Amur tiger cubs debuting at Minnesota Zoo are raising hopes for the endangered species

“[The Minnesota Zoo’s] Amur tigers have produced 57 cubs, [… 21 of which] have gone on to produce litters of their own, amounting to another 86 cubs. […] “They’re showing a lot of resiliency, which is something that we work hard for in human care. We want these animals to have a lot of confidence and be able to adapt to new environments just as they’re doing today.””

2. Powered by renewable energy, microbes turn CO₂ into protein and vitamins

“The team designed a two-stage bioreactor system that produces yeast rich in protein and vitamin B9. [… The protein] levels in their yeast exceed those of beef, pork, fish, and lentils. […] Running on clean energy and CO2, the system reduces carbon emissions in food production. It uncouples land use from farming, freeing up space for conservation[… and] will help farmers concentrate on producing vegetables and crops sustainably.”

3. JCPenney Launches Apparel Collection Aimed At Wheelchair Users

“A major department store is rolling out a new line of clothing specifically tailored to meet the needs of women who use wheelchairs featuring options for both everyday wear and special occasions. [… The clothing have] modifications like zippers located for easy access, pocket positioning and extended back rises optimized for the seated position and shorter sleeves to limit interference with wheels.”

4. Snails bred in Edinburgh Zoo sent to re-populate species in French Polynesia

“Thousands of rare partula snails bred at Edinburgh Zoo are to be released in French Polynesia to restore the wild population of the species.The last surviving few of the species were rescued in the early 1990s[….] 15 species and sub-species [are being bred in zoos for repopulation], the majority of which are classed as extinct in the wild.”

5. [NH Joins 19 Other States] to Provide Essential Behavioral Health Services Through Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams

“[CMS] approved New Hampshire’s Medicaid State Plan Amendment for community-based mobile crisis intervention teams to provide services for people experiencing a mental health or substance use disorder crisis. […] The multidisciplinary team provides screening and assessment; stabilization and de-escalation; and coordination with and referrals to health, social, and other services, as needed.”

6. Recovery plan for Missouri population of eastern hellbender

“It is expected that recovery efforts for the Missouri DPS of the eastern hellbender will reduce sedimentation and improve water quality in the aforementioned watersheds, which will also improve drinking water, as well as benefit multiple federally listed mussels, sport fish and other aquatic species.”

7. How $7.3B will help rural co-ops build clean power—and close coal plants

“[The funds are] serving about 5 million households across 23 states [… to] build wind and solar power, which is now cheaper than coal-fired power across most of the country. […] Some of it will be used to pay down the cost of closing coal plants[….] federal funding could help co-ops secure enough wind, solar, and battery resources to retire their entire coal capacity by 2032, cutting carbon emissions by 80 to 90 percent and reducing wholesale electricity costs by 10 to 20 percent[….]”

8. Native-led suicide prevention program focuses on building community strengths

“[Indigenous researchers have] designed programs that aim to build up a community’s endemic strengths, rather than solely treating the risks facing individuals within that community. By providing support and resources that enable access to Alaska Native cultural activities, they hope to strengthen social bonds that build resilience. […] “In a Yup’ik worldview, suicide is not a mental health disorder, and it’s not an individual affliction, it’s a disruption of the collective.””

9. Another rare Javan rhino calf spotted at Indonesia park

“A new Javan rhino calf has been spotted in an Indonesian national park, the facility's head said Friday, further boosting hopes for one of the world's most endangered mammals after two other […] calves were spotted earlier this year at the park, which is the only habitat left for the critically endangered animal.”

10. Transparent solar cells can directly supply energy from glass surfaces

“[Researchers have] unveiled a method of supplying energy directly from glass of buildings, cars, and mobile devices through transparent solar cells. […] It has also succeeded in charging a smartphone using natural sunlight. It also proved the possibility that a screen of a small mobile device can be used as an energy source.”

September 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[foodffs]

Native American Fry Bread batter is a four-ingredient (non-yeast) bread that fries up crunchy and crispy on the outside while light, tasty, and tender on the inside. It is so easy to whip up! 

[misc-obeyme]

mc cant make bread at the house of lamentation. unless its one with a very short resting time and while beel is away at a game/other time consuming activity bc otherwise he just. eats the raw dough. and likes it like a sweet lil weirdo. and of course he gets rly guilty abt it seeing mcs face when they come outta the kitchen like 'does anyone know what happened to my bread 🥺'

sometimes if he knows mc wants to make bread hell make a point to stay out for most of the day so hes not tempted. otherwise mc has to go to the demon lords castle (fancy and prolly has a proof box, but availability can be spotty) or purgatory hall (risk of solomon)

also, since the devildom tends to be much warmer than the human world i bet rising/rest times are cut much shorter. but it begs the question of if yeasts native to the devildom need higher temperatures to activate. probably i feel thatd make sense.

also mild fluff headcanon: barbatos sees mc's interest in the differences between human world and devildom yeasts and helps them build a lil sourdough starter experiment where they make ones from the different types and see how they compare :) And since starters can become specialized to the bacteria of the person who made it (when its mixed by hand) they obvs have to each do a set of human world and devildom starters (barb likes to give them bread made from the starters specialized to him cuz it feels like a way of marking mc :3 )

do i know how to be concise? no. is bread science sick as hell? yes. -🥐

YO I love all of this!!

Okay okay, Beel eating bread dough, though. And deliberately making sure he's not home when MC wants to bake bread, that is so so CUTE. Poor baby Beel can't keep himself away from the bread dough and has to leave the house entirely so MC can bake some bread in peace, please that's adorable.

I definitely think the castle is probably the best option for alternative baking locations. As you pointed out, Purgatory Hall is too risky.

I know nothing about yeast. The only bread I've ever baked has been bread that's actually cake. You know, like pumpkin bread and zucchini bread. They're really cake, right? They taste like cake. I think it's the loaf formation that causes people to call them bread. All of this is to say that I feel I have learned some new facts about yeast. It never ever would have crossed my mind that the Devildom temperature would impact the rate at which yeast rises. And I LOVE the idea of native Devildom yeast!

You killed me with that fluffy Barb headcanon... BARB give me all your bread made from your specialized starters lasdfkjldfkj. Everyone must know whose bread I'm eating!! Please that's such a cute way of being possessive and so totally his style. It's like this one is mine, but I'm not going to be loud about it or anything. I'm indicating it with my bread. I love it. I love him.

Once again, I know nothing of bread baking, but I would give my soul to have a sourdough starter experiment with Barbatos. It's such a cute little scenario, I absolutely love it.

Ahhh what would I do without you bringing all the baking knowledge to my ask box, 🥐 anon?? I'm really in love with all of these ideas!

[icarusredwings]

A fic written by @monkepenguin

A review of chapter 1 and 2 by me- Hi. With commentary 👌

It's 23k and still going. There are typos, but this person isn't a native speaker of English (aren't the best fics always like that?)

Spoilers:

Wade - it has been a whole 5 seconds. Shut up. Please. Like what the fuck are you even talking about. Why are you saying these things in public?

If I dont read 200 words in and think "what the actual fuck" Am I even reading deadpool? No.

Imagine your room mate is gone for 3 days, shows up, pronounces himself as "Marvel jesus" what ever that is- and now you have 2 more mouths to feed.

Al is way more chill than we give her credit for. She's a pretty chill for a cokehead. (Dont do drugs kids)

"That's future Logans problem." Ah yes, very Wolverine thing to think.

D'awww. See kids when you take care of your logan properly they are happy and clean. Now he needs fed and some TLC and you will have your very own loyal Logan :)

Instinctively kicking dogs is so on brand.

Careful wolvie, you're gonna get a yeast infection.

"It screams liver cancer" says the one jealous of the fact he has cancer

On yes the truama jokes. Poor guy.

At least he's admitting that he knows joking about it isn't good for him, but he doesn't anyway :D

Snappy logan is the best logan.

Ohh baby boy no- no more bar rotting for you. Banned.

You tell'em al! Loud fucks.

Bruuhhh.

Logan: *starts opening up*

Wade: Excuse me? Im the main charater *SLAPS HIM*

Wade: *opens up*

Al really was like "are you guys gonna fuck or fight?" And instead they sobbed together on the roof 😌

Fred you trooper. You go get that old lady.

Oh god not the "Were literally the same people in different fonts" moment 😩

"Wade was actually a good guy just extremely unhinged and horny" Yeaaahhh it's probably a response from scout master kevin- Or the fact that you get dopamine and oxytocin during sex and a lot of people with adhd can easily be addicted to those things. Im suprised he doesn't have a thing for gambling with something other then his life.

"I mean actual coke" "Ahh-" yeah sums those two up.

Wait until al finds out about slippers LMAO. Chalancla him grannie!

Oh my god hes gonna buy a fucking honda odyssey

"OH NO HES HOT"

"Al, my condolences to you for not being able to see this man." FAAACCTSS, im so glad someone else brought this up. Shed be all over him. You know it.

(Logans the type to walk past a diner and get rawred at and giggled by a bunch of old grandma's so much that it gets to the point that he goes "Evening ma'am" to them so they'd stop cat calling him.

Also, WHO RAISED THIS MAN!? Charles!! Charles, this is a god damn gentleman over here! I know damn well it wasn't your father Logan! Was it Jean? Did Jean slap manners into you?)

Aaahh dont give puppins the sex leash noooo (totally canon)

Bro why is wade actually so domestic? Dude is like "Hi! Your life is ruined? Cool! My life is ruined! Lets go comit insurance fraud and buy the exact same car I fucked you in. Now lets go pumpkin. Onward!! To the dealership!"

[ahaura]

(Dec. 12) [Article] by Hind Khoudary

Article title:

Diary from Gaza: 'If death doesn’t come from airstrikes, it will come from starvation

Article subtitle:

Hind Khoudary, with the World Food Programme in Gaza, recounts hard days in the strip during and after a brief humanitarian pause

Article text:

After seven weeks of relentless bombardment that left 80 percent of Gaza's population – 1.8 million people – displaced, trapped and acutely hungry, a week-long humanitarian pause came into effect offering a temporary respite and allowing some aid into the small, decimated and fully-deprived enclave where food, water, medicine and any of life's necessities are dangerously low. 

Hind, a native of Gaza, has made it her life's mission to share the stories of her people. In this account, she bears witness to the suffering befalling Gaza and how she and others are surviving. For weeks, Hind reported on life in Gaza. Below, she shares her story of displacement, the loss of her home, days without food, losing hope and finding it again.

Caption: A displaced Palestinian family now living in a makeshift camp in southern Gaza without water, electricity, or enough food. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah

24 November I woke up today to an unfamiliar silence. The absence of warplanes, drones and bombs. The uncertainty that it would last felt uneasy.

On the first day of the temporary pause, our footsteps led us to the Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where ambulances were transporting civilians wounded by gunshots on a road that was supposed to be safe. “We wanted to go back home,” a man with an injury in his right leg screamed.

People were shouting, doctors were in a rush trying to save those injured in their lower limbs from amputation. The hospital’s floors, once pristine, were now painted in the shades of spilled blood. As I looked around at the blood-soaked ground, I couldn't help but question, “Where is the ceasefire?”

Caption: Non-stop bombardment has decimated homes and buildings in Gaza, with families now living amid the rubble and searching for debris to make a fire to cook. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah

On that day at least 17 Palestinians were injured. Yet, as the day unfolded, an unsettling normalcy settled in – a silence that didn’t seem to care for the ruthless acts that left dozens of Palestinians dead or injured on the supposed respite's very first day.

In the midst of the heart-wrenching scenes, I decided to seek solace at the shore of Gaza, yearning for the calm sight of the sea and the soothing rhythm of the waves. The shore that I had been a stranger to for six weeks. Barefoot on the sand, I took a deep breath. All I hope for is an end to the violence.

Caption: The author and Palestinian families enjoy some respite on the shore of Gaza on the first day of the humanitarian pause (24 November). Photo courtesy of the author

Children were swimming in the sea, laughing and playing – seemingly oblivious to the war. Gazans used to gather at the sea for picnics with friends and family, but today there were none. The absence of any food underscored the stark contrast between the ordinary joys of life and the grim reality of conflict.

25 November

The humanitarian pause agreement was meant to allow aid into the Gaza Strip. And yet, the supermarket shelves were empty. People were searching for salt, yeast and wheat flour to make bread. Everyone was desperately searching for ways to bring bread back into their lives, in supermarkets or on the streets – but no one can find.

A sign stapled on a supermarket entrance read: “WE DO NOT HAVE YEAST OR SALT”.

We went to Deir El Balah’s marketplace searching for food, but we could not find any. Tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, eggplant and oranges are all you can find. We even searched for winter clothes and blankets; we also did not find any.

If some supermarkets had anything at all on their shelves, it was soap and shampoo. 

People are still going to shops, navigating aisles in the hope of finding anything they can return with to their children yearning for sweets. But how do you soothe a child crying for chocolate when you cannot even make them bread?

There is not enough food or aid reaching all of the people in the Gaza Strip.

Caption: In in Deir El Balah people crowd a market searching for food, while shop shelves are empty. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah

6:00 pm: I found out my home was  bombed from a video shared by someone on Instagram. I am still in denial. I won’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes. But I can’t.

Home is a couple of minutes away, but I cannot even go search for my belongings because people are restricted from going there. Gaza has been a besieged enclave since 2007 and Palestinians have had to deal with the lack of freedom in moving within the Strip or leaving it.  

A temporary ceasefire without going back home was cruel.  It is not only me. “Can we go back to our homes?”, is the only question everyone is asking. Not being able to go back home made me sad and depressed. But not being able to mobilize from the north to the south of Gaza has been suffocating more than bombardment.

During the seven-day humanitarian pause, WFP and partners managed to scale-up assistance and reach people in areas that were cut off from aid for weeks. Hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks crossed into Gaza, but this was not enough in the face of the catastrophe unfolding. 

Then the fighting resumed once again, and with it, more displacement, the risk of famine, and disease.

1 December

On 7am on Friday morning, we woke up to the sound of explosions and drones buzzing in the sky.

We knew it was coming, but no one was ready for all of that to start again after seven days of calmness without the buzzing noise of drones.

Israeli warplanes started launching multiple air raids across Gaza, targeting residential areas everywhere in Gaza. Explosions have not stopped since the resumption of the fighting. Artillery shelling, drones, warplanes, gunboats fire have not stopped.

In the first 24 hours reports say at least 200 Palestinians were killed. Thousands remain under the rubble where the civil defence teams can’t rescue all of these people.

However, the Israeli forces published a map with block numbers. Every area was given a block number, where they will start giving each block instructions to evacuate. But no one knows which block their home has been assigned and no one knows where to go. They run from one area being bombed to another. 

People were frustrated and terrified, they were already displaced from their homes to areas in Gaza that they were told would be safe. But the reality is this: in Gaza no place is safe. People are fleeing from one death to another.

Caption: Relentless bombardment on Gaza has displaced more than 85 percent of the population. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah

If death doesn’t come from airstrikes, it will come from starvation.

Today, we were sharing a bottle of juice that a friend managed to find. We were rationing it among ourselves when a massive explosion unexpectedly occurred close to where we are staying, we ran into each other fearing another explosion. This was the last bottle of juice we had in stock. I hadn’t managed to take a sip. 

Today, I was intensely hungry. The only thing I could find was zaatar (thyme) and some bread that my friend’s mother made over firewood. To secure some wheat flour to bake bread, families can pay astronomical amounts of money. In one area inside Gaza, a bag of wheat flour – a rare find these days – was 400 NIS (US$ 107).

Food options are now a thing of the past. We no longer have a choice of what to eat, we eat what is available.

I yearned for something sweet. It has been so long without anything that I have forgotten the taste of pancakes with bananas.

4 December 

We have officially run out of food.  We went to the market to look for something to to eat and returned with cucumbers. We are drained, dehydrated, starving and cold. 

People in Gaza city do not even have the freedom to search for food. Anyone who moves would be risking their lives. Neighbours have opened their doors to share whatever they have between them. 

Now that the middle area of Gaza has been cut off, no aid has entered. People were asking to move but we have no way to leave and nowhere to go. The situation has been devastating more than ever.

We are starving. We are trapped. We are under non-stop explosions, airstrikes, artillery shelling, gunboat fire. Everything, everywhere, all at once. 

We have no access to water - even dirty water - electricity, food, nothing. 

Caption: Gazans forced to live in makeshift camps in southern Gaza line up to fill water in jerry cans. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah

Yesterday the first meal we had was at 8 pm. I was hungry all day long but I didn’t tell anyone because everyone was hungry too. 

Today, in the morning, we had some bread for breakfast. But I cannot help but think  “When will this end? When will we go home?“- despite our homes being bombed. Nothing exists. Nothing feels the same. It’s raining now, I just heard an airstrike. 

People are tense, fragile and cold.  They don’t have winter clothes, when they evacuated, they did not have time to take any of their clothes, belongings, loved things. 

Me too. When I went out of the house, I went as if I was going to work and coming back. I ended up never coming back again.

Everything is heart-breaking and overwhelming. All of these babies, and children and dead bodies.

I hate the sirens of the ambulance. I hate seeing it rain because I know everyone is shivering, it is very cold. 

Caption: The food brought in during the humanitarian pause was not enough to meet the soaring needs of the people of Gaza. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah

We haven't had electricity since the first couple of days. I forgot what electricity means. 

I miss sleeping on my bed. I miss my mom. I miss my family. I didn’t get to see them for more than two hours in the past 60 days.

The violence is increasing day after day. More people are being killed, starved. We are witnessing all of this and we can’t do anything.

It’s heart-breaking to live through this with no end in sight.  It is hard for me to accept that I cannot do anything but witness this carnage with everyone else in the Gaza Strip. 

[haggishlyhagging]

The original "medicine men" in history were actually women. Briffault writes on this subject, "The connection of women with the cultivation of the soil and the search for edible vegetables and roots made them specialists in botanical knowledge, which, among primitive peoples, is extraordinarily extensive. They became acquainted with the properties of herbs, and were thus the first doctors." He adds:

The word "medicine" is derived from a root meaning "knowledge" or "wisdom" - the wisdom of the 'wise woman." The name of Medea, the medical herbalist witch, comes from the same root.... "The secret of the witch," said an Ogowe native, "is knowing the plants that produce certain effects, and knowing how to compound and use the plants in order to bring about the desired result; and this is the sum and essence of witchcraft." In the Congo it is noted that woman doctors specialise in the use of drugs and herbal pharmacy. In Ashanti the medicine women are "generally preferred for medical aid, as they possess a thorough knowledge of barks and herbs." In East Africa "there are as many women physicians as men." (The Mothers, vol. I, p. 486)

Dan McKenzie, in The Infancy of Medicine (1927), lists hundreds of ancient remedies, some of which are still in use without alteration, while others have been only slightly improved upon. Among these are substances used for their narcotic properties. A fleeting review indicates the astounding scope of these medicinal products. Useful properties were developed from acacia, alcohol, almond, asafetida, balsam, betel, caffeine, camphor, caraway, chaulmoogra oil (a leprosy remedy), digitalis, gum barley water, lavender, linseed, parsley, pepper, pine tar, pomegranate, poppy, rhubarb, senega, sugar, turpentine, wormwood, and hundreds more. These came from regions all over the globe-South America, North America, Africa, China, Europe, Egypt, etc. Not only vegetable but animal substances were made into remedies; snake venom, for example, was converted into a serum to be used for snake bites, the equivalent of today's antivenin.

According to Marston Bates, very little had been added to this remarkable ancient collection of medicine, until the discoveries of sulfa and antibiotics. "How primitive man discovered the ways of extracting, preparing and using all of these drugs, poisons and foods, remains one of the great mysteries of human prehistory," he writes (The Forest and the Sea, p. 126). But it is not so mysterious when we look in the direction of the female sex and become acquainted with the hard work, vast experience, and nimble wits of primitive womankind, preoccupied with every aspect of group survival.

Not only medicine but the rudiments of various other sciences grew up side by side with the craft and know-how of women. Childe points out that to convert flour into bread requires a knowledge of biochemistry and the use of the yeast microorganism. This substance also led to the production of fermented liquors and beer. Childe also gives credit to women for "the chemistry of potmaking, the physics of spinning, the mechanies of the loom, and the botany of flax and cotton" (What Happened in History, p. 59).

-Evelyn Reed, Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 17 of Nona the Ninth

So I notice now that the image for Chapter 16 appears to be a tower, possibly to go with the "Tower Princes" and the tower that is mentioned in the numbers on the John chapters? And this chapter has a stem and a leaf, which I do not know the significance of

So Palamedes thinks that Pyrrha has gone to report to the barracks and claim amnesty? You know, I'm honestly not sure what the best course of action for her at this point - she is not on good terms with BOE and has no reason to be loyal to them other than to help Camilla and Palamedes and the Sixth House, and it seems likely that the Sixth House is going to wind up back with the Nine Houses at some point, whether that's because John makes some kind of deal with BOE, or because he figures out where they are independently. I can't imagine that BOE would like, kill the Sixth House if Camilla or Pyrrha defect or anything like that, because it's their bargaining chip, isn't it? But who knows what Ianthe and John would think about Pyrrha being alone in G1deon's body, and she can't exactly pretend to be a necromancer

Also, I'm not sure why Corona would have known about the broadcast, it doesn't sound like BOE knew anything about it, and it doesn't seem like she would be talking to anyone from the Nine Houses

I don't know what this means. Pyrrha didn't really seem interested in the shuttle earlier

Is he saying that they want Harrow specifically so that she can open the Tomb for them?

Camilla and Palamedes' recorded conversation continues to be terrible. So I guess this is how they "talk" to each other, they record themselves on the tape recorder and play it back. Something I note here is that in the past Nona has claimed that it's difficult to understand recorded speech because she can't see the mouth of the person who said it, but she doesn't seem to have any trouble understanding this recording, possibly because she actually knows House and isn't relying on telepathy to understand it

British slang:

Did Palamedes not have the decency to warn Camilla about this? Haha

So I gather that Lemuria was a planet that got flipped over time. The Angel says that the Houses "said they'd prep us for an early move", so they were already planning to relocate the population, or they were expecting the planet to flip, but it happened sooner than they expected? In Harrow the Ninth, Harrow says that it takes "generations" for a planet to flip, but like, that's not actually that much time, that could be as little as like 50 or 60 years, so I can see why people are being constantly resettled, and I can't imagine how many planets they've killed over the course of 10,000 years. And then I guess the Houses can still still use the planet for some stuff even after it's no longer habitable, so it's not like they only get 50-60 years use out of it, since I gather they don't care about the native inhabitants much

But I think Palamedes should know this already, right? It sounds like BOE had been telling a lot of it to Corona at least during As Yet Unsent

It's funny, because she is right... but I'm still curious why Palamedes and Ianthe-in-Naberius's body are unaffected by the resurrection beast if, as stated in the first book, there's nothing physically different about a necromancer's body compared to a non-necromancer's except relative exposure to thanergy

I gather at some point we are going to wind up in Hot Sauce's hideout

How is she marking them if she can't read or write?

I have no idea what a "yeast berry" might be and I'm not able to find anything about any such thing

I looked back at what Nona drew during the last day at school, but it just says that she drew what she thought animals should look like. Actually, what animals would Harrow or Gideon actually have seen? Are there any animals on the Ninth? I'm really not sure there are. Gideon knows what mayonnaise is so presumably they get eggs from somewhere, but I'm just not seeing them actually raising chickens on Pluto. She also does know what meat is, just not fish. But I don't think we've seen any animals in this story at all except for that one time when Harrow went to kill that one planet. I don't know what animals Nona could draw that would get this reaction from the Angel

[crevicedwelling]

I live in a SE Asian city, and Ive been thinking of trying to find native land snails and slugs here in suburb gardens (pretty much everything is overrun by giant african snails) and attempt to captive breed them if viable. Ill look up for feeding ecology or reproduction papers, especially if I get super lucky and find anything rare like Amphidromus. Saw a method of attracting slugs by putting a small pot of yeast solution or beer on the soil - this is usually done for pest trapping so I was thinking of putting layers of gauze on it so they wont drown. Would you say this could work?

make sure you’re doing so legally! I’m not sure of the restrictions on keeping those species where you live.

be prepared for certain species to just not thrive in captivity—I’d imagine Amphidromus, being tree snails, would be very picky about eating easily obtained foods.

I have no idea if native gastropods would be attracted to beer or not.

[knockknoxwho]

The Common Grackle

The first concept to cover is this little guy. They are native to North America and they, being migratory birds, love to come down to Texas in the winter in plagues. They are small omnivorous dark feathered birds

Weeks before the mass infection of the fungus, the grackle population in my town had been steadily growing as winter came, just like normal. Though as the season began to change, the grackles never migrated back north, in fact it seemed like they just kept growing in number, countless of them filled trees and power lines. Small plagues of them were even bold enough to roam the school courtyard in search of discarded food, which they found in plenty. When the day of the mass infection did come it was horrific. Birds began dropping from the sky as if they simply died mid-flight. Of course this attracted curious students, who flocked with worry or fascination. Then the murmuring turned into screams, fires popped up across the courtyard, smoke began to rise from the roof of the school. And worse than the fires were the pools of blood and spurts which flew from the newly wounded students. Though once small, now standing at 3 ft tall and evolved for the crushing of scraps and prey alike. Newly formed and powerful beaks with spikes protruding from them intended to cause a nasty bite. And able to travel at speeds up to 15 miles per hour. The greenery of the courtyard was replaced with thick pools of crimson all converging their flow into a singular river. Few students escape with the help of police on duty and brave teachers who either guided kids out of the building or sacrificed themselves, though of course many tried to flee. This massacre marks the start of the apocalypse, and in tandem, the campaign.

My initial idea for their abilities was very small minded because I mostly considered them just as little velociraptor birds because of their tendency to run with their mouth open. But with a bit more depth of research I have a bit of a better idea to change things up.

And this can be explained in world by the fact that they were the first species to be infected by the fungus outside of the extremely susceptible animals in the lab. Due to this the grackles didn���t have a full transformation, and subsequently either had too much fungal tissue and just ended up decomposing or collapsing, or they had too little and had no motor control, which killed them off. Some grackles—of course—did survive, but it was a fraction of the mountains of them which were infesting the city.

For those which did survive, they were in hiding for a bit as the fungus adjusted and slowly transformed their bodies even more. (Because of its slowness and lack of mass tissue growth it wasn’t lethal because of the time the heat had to disperse and the small amount of heat being made, though grackles hunted frequently in the forests up wind, where the fungus hadn’t reached yet, thereby spreading it).

Due to them being called a plague and their tendency to carry different diseases, I think their mutations would reflect that more accurately. An aura of pestilence around the grackles (a short range in which the spores/diseases they spread are most highly concentrated and have most chance to infect other organisms), though to balance this and due to the immense amount of disease they carry, grackles have reduced stamina and health because of their body’s immune system fighting against the diseases they carry.

They’re three diseases they carry most commonly and are be summarized by cause and their effect here:

Histoplasmosis: a fungal infection of the lungs which can have the symptoms of fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, fatigue, cough and chest discomfort.

Candidiasis: a fungal infection, most commonly referred to as a yeast infection. Which can present in the nails, and mouth

Salmonellosis: a food borne illness spread through food and water (most commonly uncooked eggs and chicken). It’s colloquially known as salmonella. (This wouldn’t be airborne and instead infect the water sources they drink from and food they begin to eat)

Each of these diseases (causes and symptoms found on google, I am not a professional) could be ported into a ttrpg as debuffs. Much like the poison breath of a hydra doing damage over time or fatigue points slowing down movement speed, etc

This is the end of the first animal mutation concept, I hope anyone who read, enjoyed!

[chaotic-history]

Fuck it we ball.

Roger Williams' Strawberry Bread 🍓:

(I don't know why I'm saying it like it's his. It's not.)

The mention of the strawberry bread that made me want to make comes from Roger Williams' 1643 book, A Key Into The Language of America. It's a dictionary of mostly Narrgansett (and some Massachusett, I think?) words, and it also provides a little bit of information about Native American culture.

Roger mentions Strawberry bread twice:

The only detail he gave was that the Strawberries were crushed and mixed with cornmeal, and I couldn't find any recipes online that were historically accurate, but we know that the Strawberries would've been wild Strawberries, since the domesticated strawberries that are common now weren't cultivated until the mid-1700s, and there wouldn't have been anything like yeast included.

To cook it, I had to use butter so that it wouldn't stick to the pan, but realistically, it would've been baked over a fire without butter, or possibly boiled (also couldn't find any recipes for how to boil it sans butter and I didn't want to screw it up lol. Roger mentions that they did boil cornmeal, but not as bread). It's possible that they could have fried it using animal fat, but 1) I don't want to use that, and 2) in my five minutes of looking on Google I couldn't find that it was very common in New England.

Roger does mention however that the cornmeal would be better made with butter, so maybe that's how this is *his* Strawberry bread.

Overall it's pretty good! My yard unfortunately has the variety of wild strawberries that taste like absolute nothing, but they were fairly good once they got softer, and the bread's a good texture, though I'd be curious to see if it'd be better if you boiled the cornmeal first and then baked it into bread.

[dato-georgia-caucasus]

Roti (also known as chapati) is a round flatbread native to the Indian subcontinent. It is commonly consumed in many South Asian, Southeast Asian, Caribbean, and Southeast African countries.

It is made from stoneground whole wheat flour, traditionally known as gehu ka atta, and water that are combined into a dough. Its defining characteristic is that it is unleavened. Naan from the Indian subcontinent, by contrast, is a yeast-leavened bread, as is kulcha. Like breads around the world, roti is a staple accompaniment to other foods.

[quibbs126]

Ah, sorry about some of those. I hadn’t read the post yet when I sent them in. As for the Dark Ganache…yeah, that was just me being dumb.

For Dark Cacao’s other parent, how about Dark Mountain Salt (aka Himalayan Salt without the Himaylans), Dark Sea Salt, or even just Dark Salt? A lot of chocolate cookie recipes involve sea salt, but I’m pretty sure Salt Cookie is already based off of sea salt. However, Himalayan salt does exist (we could just call it mountain salt), and there’s even a thing called black salt if you wanted to take inspiration from that!

You’re good with the previous responses, I just get like that sometimes. At this point I wonder if I’m being too picky (though maybe I’m saying it because it’s still early morning)

I actually quite like the name Dark Salt now that I’ve had time to stew on it, but at the same time, I think I may have gone overboard thinking about it

See, in the Beast Yeast map, there’s a place called Kala Namak Lake, and kala namak just so happens to be the name of the Himalayan black salt

So now my brain’s like “what if she’s from Beast Yeast and like, washed up ashore in eventual Dark Cacao Kingdom?” since they’re right next to each other and separated only by the Licorice Sea

But then I was thinking “I already made one of his parents a dragon not native to the region, having both of them be strangers to the place is a little much”, but I still liked the idea for Dark Salt, so now I’ve given myself more work by making two different versions of his parents, one which involves Forastero Dragon and the other one who asked a dragon for a child, and one which involves Dark Salt who hails from Beast Yeast and someone from the Cocoa Village (which I assume is in the Dark Cacao Kingdom since it just fits the region)

So basically I like the name, but I’ve made it needlessly complicated and I’m now stuck with two groups of OCs and back to square one, where I have one named after cacao beans but don’t have the other that has the first name “Dark”, and another where I have one with the first name “Dark” but don’t have one named after chocolate or cacao beans

[ballardbeerbox]

Ballard Beer Box - What Is Natural Wine?

Natural wine is a beloved delicacy that tastes different and makes you feel alive. It’s hard to explain what natural wine is and how great it tastes. If you have tasted it before, you may be able to figure out it straightaway comes from the vineyard and tastes just like the land it’s grown in. It’s a wine that is made in the vineyard with no herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers, but native yeast. For more, visit Ballard Beer Box.

[97-liners]

* “The most commonly used definition is by Max Weber who describes the state as a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory.” from wikipedia

[burnwater13]

Grogu wondered who the people were who thought Nevarro was a planet that should be explored, developed and inhabited. The planet’s most notable feature was that it was volcanic with exposed lava flows. That was not going to be an easy planet to live on, so why?

As far as Grogu could tell the only thing Nevarro had going for it was it’s location in the Outer Rim because that made it easy for pirates and the Empire to do as it pleased. There had to be better planets for law abiding people the wouldn’t attract those two groups. 

He asked his dad about that, and as expected, Din Djarin dipped into his vast knowledge of bounty hunting facts and figures to provide Grogu with his assessment. 

“Not really.”

‘Not really’? How was that even possible. Galaxies were made up of hundreds of billions of stars and their planetary systems (when they had planets). That was a really, really big number. If even one half of a percent of those star systems had planets and only one percent of those planets were remotely habitable, that meant that the average galaxy would have at least five million habitable planets. Five million! That’s a lot of planets.

Which, from Grogu’s perspective, meant that the people of that galaxy could afford to be picky about which planets that were technically habitable to actually inhabit. Even if the numbers of really habitable planets were smaller, there was no reason to pick a place like Nevarro. Or Tatooine, or Mustafar, or Jakku, or Hoth.

Grogu did understand why the Tuskens were on Tatooine. It was their home world and it had once been lush and green with oceans and rivers and all that sort of thing. The planet still had enough sustainable nutrients to support critters as big as Krayt dragons and as small as dung worms. The Tuskens had been able to adapt to the changes in their planet, although it could not have been easy.

That was exactly why he didn’t understand why people wanted to inhabit other planets that they had just found or weren’t anything like their native world. How could you be sure that you could eat the critters or drinks the liquids or even breath the air without getting sick? How could you determine how many people were enough to make a go of it and how many were way to much for the environment to sustain? Grogu had to admit in his travels he hadn’t bumped into any planetary scientists or even regular scientists who might help with that problem. 

He wondered if people spending time in space made them think that they could do anything and go anywhere? If you could create a ship that would protect you from the near vacuum of space, it background radiation, it’s lack of breathable atmosphere, or any atmosphere at all, and have an artificial gravity generator, and food that was made from a yeast extract and bits of flavorings, you might think that you could make any place you landed habitable. You might.  

But then why hadn’t they? Why not transform some of these worlds? Obviously not Tatooine. That was for the Tuskens to determine. But Nevarro had no native inhabitants. What would you have to do to make it a better, more sustainable planet, other than wait a couple hundred millions years to see what nature could do? Grogu knew that some species lived a long time, but he didn’t think any of them lived that long. 

Grogu thought about his day dreams about time travel and wondered what the galaxy would be like in a hundred million years. Would Nevarro’s sun have cooled at all? Would the geothermal energy of the core of the planet cool enough to stop spewing lava everywhere? Would the water from the steam given off ever condense and form rivers, seas, and oceans? Or would the whole place be a source for fine black volcanic sand that people on Coruscant used in their gardens?

Grogu laughed at the thought of that. What would Coruscant look like in a hundred million years? A big pile of rust and concrete dust? What did a droid or mech look like if it had abandoned and neglected that long? Coruscant was more like those kind of things than like a planet any way. 

“Hey buddy? How about some dung worms? Peli sent you a shipment of them in case you missed them.” His dad called over to him as Grogu sat by his pond and watched the frogs hop about. The pond had been built for him and the frogs had been imported from Sorgan. 

He nodded his head and watched his dad go off to get him some food that came from Tatooine. You’d think with conditions like that, where you food came from planets on the other ‘side’ of the galaxy, people would be a lot more friendly and cooperative, but Grogu knew they didn’t always behave that way. He was willing to bet that in a hundred million years they’d have to or they’d be gone. He wondered what the odds were for that? 

Whatever they were, he was sure that the Mandalorian would say he liked them and Grogu supposed that was for the best. They would find a way.