#poverty recipes

[shiawasekai]

ooh Character Design! Stature, roots and change for Nela?

Thank you so much as always, Dujour!! 💖 These are a lot of fun. Getting a cut down there because it also got long!

roots: Is your OC's look inspired by any specific style of clothing or fashion trend? What are the roots and/or inspiration for their look?

It can be found here! Careful, it got really long.

stature: What's your OC's body type? How tall are they? Do they wear clothing to accentuate their look or do they try to mask it?

In terms of body type, it's a reverse triangle (the shoulders are wider than the hips, it's fairly noticeable in the underwear version of the ref sheet) with a proportionally very short torso. She is otherwise fairly petite, including her height: Nela is barely 154cm (midway between 5' and 5'1'' from what I've gathered for the americans reading this).

Now about the clothes... She has throughout worn flattering clothes that both enhance the good and camouflage the bad through her entire life. This isn't necessarily her choice, however.

When she started to have a modicum of choice on how she dressed as a teenager, it was still her parents (sometimes, very rarely, herself) making her clothes. They had the perfect skillset and it was a much more common occurrence overall in the past.

Her parents obviously made her clothes that would look good on her, even if money was always tight due to the circumstances of the time period and the fabrics weren't the best. Rejecting those clothes would have been the same as spitting them in the face.

And, you see, as much of a feral gremlin as she was in her teens, she loves her parents. They struggled to properly care for their extraordinary children, and they struggled the most with her, but they were always as supportive as they could. They listened when she said she wanted pants instead of dresses or skirts. She doesn't resent them, it wouldn't make sense for her to reject any of it.

Then comes the game, in which she has even more reasons to want to hide herself but she cannot because of her position. And, by the time her mental health has declined beyond the point she has the energy to care anymore, she has people around that are determined to ensure she isn't having an easy time self-destructing.

It's only when she finally starts to bounce back in post-game that she's wearing clothes that look good on her because she wants, not because the situation gives her no real alternative. Which is both a testament of people's love for her, and of how much her life has been shaped by her issues with her physical appearance.

change: Has your OC ever drastically changed their appearance? Significant haircuts, big tattoos, complete wardrobe swap, etc? Why? How do they feel about the change?

If we are talking about changing their appearance willingly and knowingly, two times comes to mind.

First, during her early teens. She not only stopped wearing dresses and skirts for the most part (that at least was for comfort), but cut her long hair short and intentionally disheveled and tattooed her face. Both explicitly to, hopefully, ruin her own looks because she was a troubled teenager who hated her heritage. I won't go there too in depth, partly because i may clean up a certain rant that covers this in detail.

So, essentially, she got very close to a bingo on radical appearance changes. It was liberating in a sense at the time, and thanksfully hair grows so that's not a big problem, but the tattoos are something she would have come to regret if the events of the game hadn't happened. She would have worked through her issues and come to see what she did as what it is: self-harm.

As things stand, those same tattoos are something that links her to her past and have sentimental value. Even if she also realizes it was incredibly stupid! She, however, doesn't ever really come to regret them.

The second time has a much more positive connotation, however. When she finally is comfortable enough with her new self after everything (the time slipping, the mythic metamorphosis) to look at herself at the mirror and take proper care of herself for the first time in, honestly, 7+ Actually Lived years.

She cuts her hair, a cute hairstyle this time. Still short, because she does like it like that! And this time she keeps it short, instead of letting it grow out because she can't gather the energy to do the upkeep until it becomes an actual problem.

She chooses her own clothes by herself, not that many at first. She isn't going to waste money on things she doesn't need (Daeran does that without her help). But it's still a very significant moment for her, especially coming from her background. The first time she gets to choose what to wear both gladly and freely in, let's be real because poverty sucks, her entire life.

[tilbageidanmark]

[constantvariations]

Adam was a cringy edgelord ever since the trailers, he simply got worse in different ways later on

How can people even like that character is beyond me

It's called "seeing the potential in a character that the writers fucked over from the start because they couldn't give the racism plot they started and refused to drop any nuance or compassion thanks to their 'violence is uwu bad' white supremacist politics"

Also, cringe edgelord is not inheritely a bad thing. Just look at Shadow the Hedgehog - he's cooler than you or I will ever be. Or my current hyperfixation husband V from Devil May Cry, who is 100% a cringe edgelord and I love him for that specifically

Kill not the cringe but the part of you that cringes and you will know freedom

[jyuanka]

if i had a nen ability it would be somewhat like komugi's, except for writing. im pretty sure i'd be an enhancer, so it will work on more or less 100% efficiency. the conditions:

ability can only be activated once a month.

i have to write every day. quality matters (see below), but comes secondary to quantity.

i have to meet a certain monthly word/page count.

the limitations:

i can only write from 4 a.m to 9 a.m. not one minute before or after.

i can only write while shirtless.

i can only write on a specific device.

once the conditions are fulfilled and the limitations satisfied, the ability would activate, massively enhancing my skills/focus and granting me 6 hours of non-stop writing genius. the ability would be more powerful the larger the word/page count and smaller the creativity window, but i can get away with a long 6 hours due to the length of time between two potential activations. if the golden 6 hours pass without any writing, i will be denied activation next month.

if it happens that i EXCEED the determined word/page count, then the hatsu grants me an extra hour of unparalleled creativity for every additional 1k/1 page, with the drawback of complete mental blackout for the next hours for each of these additional 1k/1 page.

since all art is subjective, my own perception of the quality of the writing would play a role in the effectiveness of any particular activation; the better i regard my output, the better enhanced my mental faculties and focus. in theory, i can fulfill the allotted wordcount by copypasting the word "ass" 30 thousand times in a row, the hatsu would still activate, but it would be super weak and ineffective.

it would be called The Poor Author's Pudding.

the vow, of course, is that if i dont meet this wordcount each month, under these conditions and with these limitations, i will die.

[arctic-hands]

I love looking up the histories and backgrounds of poverty food, mostly past but sometimes present. Seaweed/channel wrack during the Irish Famine, acorn flour in North America both in Native communities and by European occupiers. Wartime "roof rabbits" (depressing, don't look up if you're sensitive about pet death). Depression-era and WWII rationing as a whole topic in and of itself. Various nuts around the world that are otherwise shunned in times of plenty because of the association with Bad Times. And of course the history of lobster going from being considered water insects in attitude to an expensive gourmet cuisine.

The one time I ever got pissed off by this was watching a Townsends video where he made colonial-era rice bread, because rice was cheaper than wheat at times. Anyone who's forced to be gluten free will tear our hair out at that statement, because most of us have to forgo bread entirely because rice bread and other gluten free bread at this point is 4 times more expensive than white wheat bread and you only get like a third of the portion in both size of the loaf and the amount of slices within (this has only gone up even more with the corporate price gouging of regular food).

[roychewtoy]

i luv to cook for people look (does a twirl holding a stack of plates) yum heres a little meal for youuuuuuuuuᵤᵤᵤᵤᵤᵤᵤᵤᵤ😄 oh what's that? do I need a hand in the kitchen?.......😐back up

[gardenstateofmind]

you can express that you dislike ethnic foods without being racist, fun fact

[sensenmaedchen]

I don't even have it in me to apologize for getting "political". Trump essentially wants the population to be worked to death, growing uncontrolled and getting STDs without affordable medical treatment.

Don't forget to vote, wherever you live.

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

me whenever I fuck up and break the budget on food

me mirroring my bisnonni: well time to make the mineastra.

(idk how to spell it, but it's usually rapeseed or dandelion sometimes lettuce or kale. with some oil and smidgen of salt, cooked in a pan. my bisnonni and nonni used to make it alot, my nonno still does. it's very very much a poverty food, and it tastes pretty good when it's not cooked to high hell.)

[camilaemily]

Cryptocurrency bitcoin precisely keeps blessing those who believe and took the risk by trusting the process and trusting themselves as well. You can as well be my next testifier all you need to do is trust the process,

[kleefkruid]

Every fun post on here that encourages people to have hobbies/be creative always gets an avalanche of "Some people are poor Karen" type reactions and respectfully, you're all super annoying. I've never lived above the poverty line and this is a list of hobbies I have that were cheap or entirely free:

Read books: Go to the library, lend a book from a friend

knitting, crochet, embroidery: Get some needles from the bargan store and ask around, people have leftovers from projects they'll happily give you. Thrift stores also often carry leftover fabric and other supplies. And talk about your hobby loud enough and an old lady will show up and gift you their whole collection, because there are way more old ladies with a closet full of wool than there are grandchildren who want to take up the hobby.

Origami/paper crafts: get some scrap paper and scissors, watch a youtube tutorial

walking: put on shoes open door

pilates/yoga/etc: get a mat or just use your carpet, watch a youtube tutorial

Houseplants: look online for people that swap plant cuttings. There are always people giving out stuff for free to get you started. If you're nice enough you'll probably get extra

gardening: You're gonna need some space for this one of course but you can just play around with seeds and cuttings from your grocery vegetables.

aquarium keeping is a bit of an obscure one but I got most of my stuff second hand for cheap or free and now I have a few thousand euro worth of material and plants.

drawing/art: You get very far just playing with bargan store materials. I did my entire art degree with mostly those.

writing: Rotate a cow in your head for free

cooking: again one you can make very expensive, but there are many budget recipes online for free. Look for African or Asian shops to get good rice and cheap spices.

Join a non-profit: Cities will have creative organisations who let you use woodworking machines or screen presses or laser cutters or 3D printers etc etc etc for a small fee. Some libraries also lend out materials.

candle making: You need some molds (cheap), wick, two old cooking pots for au bain marie melting and a ton of scrap candles, ask people to keep them aside for you.

a herbarium, flower pressing: Leaves are free, wildflowers too, ask if you can take from peoples gardens.

puzzles: thrift stores, your grandma probably

Citizen science: look for projects in your area or get the iNaturalist app

And lastly and most importantly: Share! Share your supllies, share your knowledge. Surround yourself with other creative people and before you know it someone will give you a pot of homemade jam and when you want to paint your kabinet someone will have leftover paint in just the right color and you can give them a homemade candle in return and everyone is having fun and building skills and friendships and not a cent is exchanged. We have always lived like this, it's what humans are build to do.

And all of it sure beats sitting behind a computer going "No stranger, I refuse to let myself have a good time."

Anyway I'm logging off bc I'm making some badges for a friend who cooked for me and then I'm going to fix some holes in everyones clothes.

[shrimp-library]

Something about semolina

Semolina is a name for coarsely milled durum wheat, and as such contains a lot of gluten. This food should not be consumed if you have a gluten intolerance, have an allergy to gluten, or are celiac.

Semolina (gris/griz/Grieß) is an amazing and versatile type of porridge, that is also very cheap and full of protein. It's been around for ages, and has fed many people from a very young age. This article will bring you lots of lazy ideas and recipes that really don't require much preparation, but will fill your stomach for very little money. The very first poverty recipe on this site, with hopefully many more to come.

The Price of Comfort

While mac'n'cheese hold the title of the comfort food, it is not the case in many countries, and it is not a very healthy option considering the amount of sodium it contains. Semolina, when prepared as will be discussed, is a warm meal that delivers childhood comfort nostalgia straight into your nervous system.

Semolina flour prices seem to vary a lot depending on the country, with the range being between 1 euro per 1 kilogram, to 10 dollars per 24oz, but considering how simple the recipe is and how little you will use for each meal, it's one of the cheapest things to buy in the long run. Definitely worth keeping it in stock for rainy days.

How to make it?

It is a poverty recipe, but also a depression recipe, due to it's simplicity. You have to eat, no matter what you're going through at the moment.

Pick your favourite bowl

Preferably with a lovely pattern or an animal on it. A bowl with pastel colours works well, too.

Pour milk into the bowl

The amount will depend on your appetite and the size of the bowl, and will be about the same as the finished product.

Take the bowl and pour out the milk into a pot that is on the stove

The heat should be medium, to prevent the milk from burning.

Leave the milk in the pot until it gets a little bit too warm for comfort

Check with your finger or have a taste with your spoon.

Once the milk is warm enough, mix in 1 or 2 spoons of semolina flour into the milk

Depending on the amount of milk, you can even go with 3 spoons if you wish to have a very thick meal.

Stand there and stir the mixture until it's thick

Use this time to contemplate your life and cringe at that silly thing you did 6 years ago.

That's literally it.

What about taste?

On it's own, semolina meal tastes quite neutral and bland, which lends to many options to making it actually good and heart-warming. Here are some ideas and variations!

Milk - taste will vary depending on it

Cow milk

Goat milk

Lactose-free milk

Oat milk

Almond milk

About anything that has milk properties, really

Add some flavour

Honey

Nutella

Cocoa powder

Wild berries

Nuts

Sugar

Vanilla sugar

Müsli

Corn flakes

Rice puffs

Granola mix

You can add almost anything to a semolina meal. Have fun and mix in your favourite things!

Last words

People across the world use semolina flour for all kinds of crazy meals, from sweet pancakes, cakes and cookies, to savoury tortillas. The recipe above is an easy one, for those rainy Sundays, or rainy weeks. You can eat it fresh from the stove, or leave it to cool down and have a more pudding-like consistency. Up to your preferences!

Hope you enjoy this lovely meal!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Marshmallow Longtermism

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this week!

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "Marshmallow Longtermism"; it's a reflection on how conservatives self-mythologize as the standards-bearers for deferred gratification and making hard trade-offs, but are utterly lacking in these traits when it comes to climate change and inequality:

https://locusmag.com/2024/09/cory-doctorow-marshmallow-longtermism/

Conservatives often root our societal ills in a childish impatience, and cast themselves as wise adults who understand that "you can't get something for nothing." Think here of the memes about lazy kids who would rather spend on avocado toast and fancy third-wave coffee rather than paying off their student loans. In this framing, poverty is a consequence of immaturity. To be a functional adult is to be sober in all things: not only does a grownup limit their intoxicant intake to head off hangovers, they also go to the gym to prevent future health problems, they save their discretionary income to cover a down-payment and student loans.

This isn't asceticism, though: it's a mature decision to delay gratification. Avocado toast is a reward for a life well-lived: once you've paid off your mortgage and put your kid through college, then you can have that oat-milk latte. This is just "sound reasoning": every day you fail to pay off your student loan represents another day of compounding interest. Pay off the loan first, and you'll save many avo toasts' worth of interest and your net toast consumption can go way, way up.

Cleaving the world into the patient (the mature, the adult, the wise) and the impatient (the childish, the foolish, the feckless) does important political work. It transforms every societal ill into a personal failing: the prisoner in the dock who stole to survive can be recast as a deficient whose partying on study-nights led to their failure to achieve the grades needed for a merit scholarship, a first-class degree, and a high-paying job.

Dividing the human race into "the wise" and "the foolish" forms an ethical basis for hierarchy. If some of us are born (or raised) for wisdom, then naturally those people should be in charge. Moreover, putting the innately foolish in charge is a recipe for disaster. The political scientist Corey Robin identifies this as the unifying belief common to every kind of conservativism: that some are born to rule, others are born to be ruled over:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/01/set-healthy-boundaries/#healthy-populism

This is why conservatives are so affronted by affirmative action, whose premise is that the absence of minorities in the halls of power stems from systemic bias. For conservatives, the fact that people like themselves are running things is evidence of their own virtue and suitability for rule. In conservative canon, the act of shunting aside members of dominant groups to make space for members of disfavored minorities isn't justice, it's dangerous "virtue signaling" that puts the childish and unfit in positions of authority.

Again, this does important political work. If you are ideologically committed to deregulation, and then a giant, deregulated sea-freighter crashes into a bridge, you can avoid any discussion of re-regulating the industry by insisting that we are living in a corrupted age where the unfit are unjustly elevated to positions of authority. That bridge wasn't killed by deregulation – it's demise is the fault of the DEI hire who captained the ship:

https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-dei-utah-lawmaker-phil-lyman-misinformation

The idea of a society made up of the patient and wise and the impatient and foolish is as old as Aesop's "The Ant and the Grasshopper," but it acquired a sheen of scientific legitimacy in 1970, with Walter Mischel's legendary "Stanford Marshmallow Experiment":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

In this experiment, kids were left alone in a locked room with a single marshmallow, after being told that they would get two marshmallows in 15 minutes, but only if they waited until them to eat the marshmallow before them. Mischel followed these kids for decades, finding that the kids who delayed gratification and got that second marshmallow did better on every axis – educational attainment, employment, and income. Adult brain-scans of these subjects revealed structural differences between the patient and the impatient.

For many years, the Stanford Marshmallow experiment has been used to validate the cleavage of humanity in the patient and wise and impatient and foolish. Those brain scans were said to reveal the biological basis for thinking of humanity's innate rulers as a superior subspecies, hidden in plain sight, destined to rule.

Then came the "replication crisis," in which numerous bedrock psychological studies from the mid 20th century were re-run by scientists whose fresh vigor disproved and/or complicated the career-defining findings of the giants of behavioral "science." When researchers re-ran Mischel's tests, they discovered an important gloss to his findings. By questioning the kids who ate the marshmallows right away, rather than waiting to get two marshmallows, they discovered that these kids weren't impatient, they were rational.

The kids who ate the marshmallows were more likely to come from poorer households. These kids had repeatedly been disappointed by the adults in their lives, who routinely broke their promises to the kids. Sometimes, this was well-intentioned, as when an economically precarious parent promised a treat, only to come up short because of an unexpected bill. Sometimes, this was just callousness, as when teachers, social workers or other authority figures fobbed these kids off with promises they knew they couldn't keep.

The marshmallow-eating kids had rationally analyzed their previous experiences and were making a sound bet that a marshmallow on the plate now was worth more than a strange adult's promise of two marshmallows. The "patient" kids who waited for the second marshmallow weren't so much patient as they were trusting: they had grown up with parents who had the kind of financial cushion that let them follow through on their promises, and who had the kind of social power that convinced other adults – teachers, etc – to follow through on their promises to their kids.

Once you understand this, the lesson of the Marshmallow Experiment is inverted. The reason two marshmallow kids thrived is that they came from privileged backgrounds: their high grades were down to private tutors, not the choice to study rather than partying. Their plum jobs and high salaries came from university and family connections, not merit. Their brain differences were the result of a life free from the chronic, extreme stress that comes with poverty.

Post-replication crisis, the moral of the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is that everyone experiences a mix of patience and impatience, but for the people born to privilege, the consequences of impatience are blunted and the rewards of patience are maximized.

Which explains a lot about how rich people actually behave. Take Charles Koch, who grew his father's coal empire a thousandfold by making long-term investments in automation. Koch is a vocal proponent of patience and long-term thinking, and is openly contemptuous of publicly traded companies because of the pressure from shareholders to give preference to short-term extraction over long-term planning. He's got a point.

Koch isn't just a fossil fuel baron, he's also a wildly successful ideologue. Koch is one of a handful of oligarchs who have transformed American politics by patiently investing in a kraken's worth of think tanks, universities, PACs, astroturf organizations, Star chambers and other world-girding tentacles. After decades of gerrymandering, voter suppression, court-packing and propagandizing, the American billionaire class has seized control of the US and its institutions. Patience pays!

But Koch's longtermism is highly selective. Arguably, Charles Koch bears more personal responsibility for delaying action on the climate emergency than any other person, alive or dead. Addressing greenhouse gasses is the most grasshopper-and-the-ant-ass crisis of all. Every day we delayed doing something about this foreseeable, well-understood climate debt added sky-high compounding interest. In failing to act, we saved billions – but we stuck our future selves with trillions in debt for which no bankruptcy procedure exists.

By convincing us not to invest in retooling for renewables in order to make his billions, Koch was committing the sin of premature avocado toast, times a billion. His inability to defer gratification – which he imposed on the rest of us – means that we are likely to lose much of world's coastal cities (including the state of Florida), and will have to find trillions to cope with wildfires, zoonotic plagues, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees.

Koch isn't a serene Buddha whose ability to surf over his impetuous attachments qualifies him to make decisions for the rest of us. Rather, he – like everyone else – is a flawed vessel whose blind spots are just as stubborn as ours. But unlike a person whose lack of foresight leads to drug addiction and petty crimes to support their habit, Koch's flaws don't just hurt a few people, they hurt our entire species and the only planet that can support it.

The selective marshmallow patience of the rich creates problems beyond climate debt. Koch and his fellow oligarchs are, first and foremost, supporters of oligarchy, an intrinsically destabilizing political arrangement that actually threatens their fortunes. Policies that favor the wealthy are always seeking an equilibrium between instability and inequality: a rich person can either submit to having their money taxed away to build hospitals, roads and schools, or they can invest in building high walls and paying guards to keep the rest of us from building guillotines on their lawns.

Rich people gobble that marshmallow like there's no tomorrow (literally). They always overestimate how much bang they'll get for their guard-labor buck, and underestimate how determined the poors will get after watching their children die of starvation and preventable diseases.

All of us benefit from some kind of cushion from our bad judgment, but not too much. The problem isn't that wealthy people get to make a few poor choices without suffering brutal consequences – it's that they hoard this benefit. Most of us are one missed student debt payment away from penalties and interest that add twenty years to our loan, while Charles Koch can set the planet on fire and continue to act as though he was born with the special judgment that means he knows what's best for us.

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/04/deferred-gratification/#selective-foresight

Image: Mark S (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/markoz46/4864682934/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[thejanedoe1993]

Harissa halloumi pasta

I’m a black trans woman fighting poverty and homelessness.

To support myself, I set up a patreon where you can get access to all my recipes, poetry, artwork and photography for just £5.

Links to support me here.

Something new EVERY SINGLE DAY. You won’t regret it.

[aesethewitch]

Learning to Cook Like a Witch: Using the Scraps

Cooking can create a lot of waste. From peels and rinds to bones and leaves, people throw away quite a lot of scraps in the kitchen. And witches, as you may know, are experts in the art of the cunning use of whatever we’ve got around.

As a witch who spends a lot of time in the kitchen, I’ve had ample opportunities to get creative in my cooking craft. It helps that I grew up in a household defined by scarcity: not our own, by the time I was conscious enough to remember, but my parents’ poverty. It colored the way I learned to cook, using everything I possibly could, making enough to last, preserving what I didn’t immediately use, and creatively reusing leftovers and scraps.

There are some topics I won’t necessarily cover here. Composting is an option, but there are some bits of food scrap that don’t need to be composted — they can be saved and repurposed for all sorts of things, magic and mundane. Likewise, recycling, buying sustainably, and growing your own food when you can are all great options for reducing household waste in the kitchen.

For the purposes of this post, I want to focus specifically on food scraps. This is an organized list of kitchen scraps that I’ve used in a variety of other dishes and projects. I’m focusing primarily on food waste, not so much on packaging (such as reusing egg cartons, milk containers, boxes, and so forth).

Vegetable Scraps

Freeze leftover vegetable scraps to make stock. This is a fairly common bit of advice — save bits of leftover vegetables to make a vegetable stock or another kind of stock. It’s good advice! I keep a bag in my freezer that I put vegetable scraps in to save until I’m ready to make a new batch of stock. Not all veggies should be saved like this and used for stock! Some make stock bitter or otherwise unpleasant-tasting. Personally, I tend to freeze these for stock:

- The skins, ends, and leftover cuts of onions (just be wary of the skins; too much will make your broth bitter) - The ends of celery (not the leaves — they’re bitter!) - Corn cobs - Garlic skins, ends, tiny cloves that aren’t useful otherwise, and sprouted cloves - The ends of carrots (also not the leaves) - The ends of leeks - Pepper tops/bottoms (not the seeds)

I would recommend against putting things like potatoes, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and leafy greens in there. Potatoes don’t add flavor, sprouts and cabbage make the whole thing taste like those foods, and leafy greens end up bitter. If something has a strong, distinctive flavor (beets, sprouts), I wouldn’t add it to my freezer bag. These scraps often form the veggie portion of my Sick-Be-Gone Chicken Broth spell recipe!

Regrow leeks, green onions, and celery. Pop these in a bit of water and watch them grow back! It’s a fun experiment, and you’ll never have to buy them again.

Plant sprouted garlic. Aside from the fact that you can still cook and eat garlic that’s sprouted, you can plant a sprouted clove in a pot. Care for it well enough, and you’ll end up with a full head of garlic from that one clove!

Fry potato peels. Anytime I make mashed potatoes or peel potatoes for something, I always save the peels. Give them a thorough rinse and shallow-fry them in oil, turning them over until they’re golden and crispy. Toss them in a bit of salt and pepper while they’re still hot, and you’ve got tasty chips to snack on while you cook the rest of your meal! No need to cover them in more oil or anything — the heat will cause the salt to stick right to them.

Save leaves for pesto. Yum, yum, yum. Pesto isn’t just all about basil, you know. Save the leaves from carrots, beets, radishes, and even celery to grind up alongside basil, garlic, salt, and lemon juice for a delicious pesto recipe.

Fruit Scraps

Save citrus peels. Peels from oranges, lemons, grapefruits, and other citrus fruits have a multitude of uses. Candy them for a sweet treat, dry them to add to potpourri or incense, or save them to put into a simmer pot for bright, sunny energy.

Juice the whole fruit. Again, thinking mostly about citrus fruits, when you need the zest from something but not the rest, don’t just throw away the fruit. Squeeze out all the juice you can. Even if you don’t need it right now, you can freeze it to use later in simmer pots, fruity waters, or anything else that needs a touch of juice.

Turn extra fruit and berries into jam or syrup. If you’ve got berries and fruit that are about to go off, or maybe the ends of strawberries, don’t toss them! Look up recipes for jam of the specific fruit you’ve got or make an infused syrup. Syrups in particular can be used for cocktails, teas, and desserts for an extra magical kick.

Pickle watermelon rinds. That’s right. Pickle those suckers. They’re so tasty. I’ve seen people make kimchi with watermelon rinds, too, though I’ve never tried it myself!

Save seeds for abundance work. Seeds in general are great for spells geared toward long-term success, new beginnings, and — when there are a lot of them — wealth. Different fruit seeds have properties that tend to correspond with the fruit they come from, so consider their potential purposes before you just toss them! (Note also that some fruit seeds are toxic; these would be suitable for baneful workings.)

Keep cherry stems for love magic. Have you ever done that thing where you tie a cherry stem with your tongue? If I’m eating cherries, I like to save some of the stems for love workings. Tie them into little knots like you might with string while envisioning ensnaring the love you’re looking for. I wouldn’t do this with a particular person in mind; binding someone to you is almost never a good idea. I’ve used it to attract specific qualities in a person of romantic interest: attentiveness, humor, kindness, and so forth.

Use pits to represent blockages, barriers, and problems. I most often use them in baneful workings, typically jammed into a poppet’s mouth or throat to keep someone from talking shit. It could also represent a sense of dread in that way — a pit in the stomach, uneasy and nauseating. But you could also use them in the sense of removal, ritualistically removing the pit or problem from a given situation.

Herb Scraps

Freeze or dry extra fresh herbs. Different drying techniques are ideal for specific herbs. I’d suggest looking up recommended methods before sticking anything in the microwave. If you’d like to freeze your herbs instead, I typically will lay them on a damp paper towel, wrap them up, place them into a freezer-safe bag, and then put them in the freezer. Most herbs will keep for a couple months this way. When you want to use them, pull them out and let them defrost right on the counter.

Make pesto. Again, pesto isn’t just basil! Experiment with tossing in different scraps of herbs to find out what combination you like best.

Reuse steeped tea. Particularly when I use loose herbal tea, I like to lay out the used tea to dry out. It can be burned similarly to loose incense, though the scent may be somewhat weaker than with herbs that are fresher or unused. I find that it’s fine, since I’m sensitive to smells anyways.

Toss extra herbs into your stock freezer bag. Just like with vegetables, extra herbs make welcome additions to a scrap stock pot. I always make a point to save sage, thyme, marjoram, and ginger. You can add just about anything to a stock pot, but be aware of the flavors you’re adding. Not all herbs will match with all dishes.

Protein Scraps

Dry and crush empty egg shells. This is one most witches will know! I use crushed egg shells for protection magic most often: sprinkled at a doorstep mixed with other herbs, added to jars, and spread around spell candles.

Save shrimp, crab, and lobster shells. They’re a goldmine of flavor. Toss them into water with veggies and herbs, and you’ve got a delicious, easy shellfish stock. Use it to make fishy soups and chowders that much richer.

Don’t discard roasted chicken remains. Use them for stock, just like the shells. I like to get rotisserie chickens on occasion since they’re ready-made and very tasty. Once all the meat has been stripped off the bones, simmer the entire carcass with — you guessed it — veggies and herbs for a tasty chicken stock.

Reuse bacon grease for frying. After cooking bacon, don’t throw away the grease right away. Melt it over low heat, strain the bits of bacon out, and pour it into a jar to put in the fridge. You can use it to fry all sorts of things, but my favorite thing is brussels sprouts. They pick up the delicious, salty, bacony flavor from all that rendered bacon fat. So good.

Other Scraps

Use stale bread for croutons or bread crumbs. When I reach the stale end of a loaf of bread, as long as it isn’t moldy, I like to tear it into pieces and toss it into the oven for a little while. Let it cool and then pulse it in a food processor, and I’ve got delicious bread crumbs! Or, cut it a little more neatly, toss it in oil and seasonings, and then bake, and now I’ve got homemade croutons for salads. You can really hone your herbs for both of these, tuning them to be perfect for whatever spell needs you have.

Small amounts of leftover sugar. I don’t know why, but I always end up with a tiny amount of white and brown sugar in the containers. This can be used in teas, of course, but I like to offer it up to spirits. In particular, my ancestors tend to appreciate a spoonful of brown sugar stirred into a small, warmed cup of milk. You can also look up mug cake or single-serving cookie recipes; often, they’re cooked in the microwave, and they only need a little sugar to make!

Keep vanilla bean pods. Vanilla is fucking expensive. When I have a little extra and want to really splurge for a special occasion, I’ll get a couple pods. And because they’re so expensive, I hate wasting any part of them. They’re good for love magic, sure, but you can also toss the spent pods in a jar full of sugar to make vanilla-infused sugar. I’ll often use the pods to make infused milks, too; warm the milk over low heat, add the pods, and let it steep like tea. It goes great in teas and desserts. For a nice self-love spell, sometimes I’ll melt chocolate into the vanilla milk and make hot cocoa!

Save the rinds from Parmesan and Pecorino Romano cheese. You might not be able to just bite into these, but they’re fabulous additions to a stock pot. They add a rich, umami depth to the flavors. I also like to throw these into pots of tomato sauce to add even more flavor to the sauce.

Used coffee is still coffee. After I make a pot of coffee, I’ll sometimes save the grounds by letting them dry back out. I wouldn’t make another cup of coffee with them, since all the flavor’s gone, but they’ll still have attributes of energy generation and smell great. I like to pack used grounds into sachets to hang in places where I want to encourage more energy and focus, replaced every few days or so. Coffee grounds also have high amounts of nitrogen in them, which can help plants thrive; just be careful about pH values in the soil! You don’t want to hurt your plants with too much acidity.

Final Thoughts

I hope you found these tips helpful! There are a ton more ways to save and reuse kitchen scraps that would otherwise go to waste. Sometimes, tossing stuff into the compost or trash can’t be avoided. But I’ve found that being aware of the possibilities can help diminish the amount that gets wasted.

If you have questions or other suggestions for reusing kitchen scraps, feel free to drop them in my inbox, reblogs, or replies. And if you did enjoy this post, consider tossing a couple dollars in my tip jar! Supporters get early and sometimes exclusive access to my work, and monthly members get bonuses like commission discounts and extras. (:

[my-fancy-hat]

Denji's hypersexuality is a common coping mechanism in SA victims, to try to give the assault a logical meaning of why did it happen, or to get to know the foreign at getting close to the act itself. Genitalia in this case would be representative not only of his lust but also the element reminder of his trauma: "wanting to have tons of sex lead his life to end up miserably", so, the victim blames himself for feeling hurt, accuses himself as the perpetrator of his still ongoing tragedy. The yakuza reminds him of his failure in performing manhood, as Katana Man calls him weak, crybaby, "Chainsaw woman" as kicking his genitals joking to stick them in his behind, and Makima to have twisted his idea of love and taken advantage of his needs, making Denji believe he isn't deserving of forgiveness. At the end it all falls into self-harm, the result of this macabre recipe to make a human to hate every facet of his being: his identity as Denji, as CSM, as a man / his existence: to have born in poverty, orphan, to have killed his father and adoptive family, suggested to perform downgrading gender roles in prostitution (accused woman's job to give men pleasure) / his hopes and dreams for the future, everything is poisoned on his mind. This chapter is about relapse and realization.

Denji is under layers and layers of misconceptions, he is unable to see things through. He thinks his lust is the reason of his tragedy, when he hasn't took an active role in doing anything sexually inappropriate to anyone to get blamed on. He isn't the one to punish for not being strong enough to stood by himself sooner against his abusers and let them have their way, and yet, he still capable to recognize the act is wrong and undeserving (even if he was told through all of his life men should always accept a sex offer and sex = love/joy), ex with Fumiko he inmediatly recognized she assaulted him. So saying sex is his drive in life is utterly wrong, sex isn't Denji's priority and never was actually, and that's something admirable on itself when the world has told him otherwise, because is important to never forget how his happiest was with Aki and Power, putting their friendship above everything else, even above Makima's offers.

I don't think cutting his genitals or even transitioning will fix anything, it would be an impulsive act by trying to escape from the natural progression of the stages of grief and give the instant solution Denji wants so bad right now, where the real cause of his grief is the guilt of the survivor, his self-hatred for having been treated as an object of repulsion and failure through all his life he ended up believing it; to have suffered so much abuse which lead him to see his priorities and identity unclear, amoung other things, seems like it started to click on his mind. This is why Yoru, of all characters, is the one who offers to give Denji "the solution", the character who exists to inflict pain and death on CSM. Also, because he's a hybrid, it will regenerate eventually. It's not gonna happen, probably.