That was one thing I could never do when I was an “urban explorer” (fancy term for trespassing in to municipal water infrastructure), manholes always freaked me out so much my friends couldn’t even peer pressure me.
Outside of unpredictable things like hacks which are bound to happen, always the potential of something with widespread impact, 2024 will be a year of increasing “AI” venture capital investment and some widely used online services are going to pivot or completely rebrand.
Gambling addiction is so crazy to me, I could never tell if anyone was addicted though at the counter. I used to work at a pharmacy with a lotto machine so that probably determined customers a bit. The older retired ladies coming in with their pouches was kind of charming and they weren’t very big spenders overall, they seemed to just enjoy organizing and managing it all.
Slot machines in casinos really affect me in a depressing way though, seeing rows of people just pressing buttons over and over while they stare at the machine I find disturbing.
We call them a “stupid tax” but infrequently buying them is pretty harmless. I don’t mind group lotto either it can be fun to buy in and run the numbers out over a course of a few months. There’s some charity lottos I’ve done before.
I’m not much for receiving gifts but I appreciate fancy candies and food items I wouldn’t buy for myself, and I turned most of them in to poop already.
As a musician the Monome Norns raspberry pi shield and lines community has been inspiring me a lot lately. It’s a FOSS “sound computer” that can take on hundreds of uses.
The date puree for the filling I make extra and use it as a spread, so good. It’s still a process but it’s not a lot of work at once and cleans easy. The creator of this recipe is really good at teaching the indicators and not just measurements which is why I love this one in particular.
You can get really good powdered stocks too, if they were shitty that would be another story but if you find a restaurant supplier with specialty foods in bulk they likely have a good stock option. I got a pail of dehydrated mushrooms from the same supplier here in Canada and they have the fancy spices and all that too, different saffron varieties even.
I don’t have enough meat scraps and carcasses coming through to make proper demi-glace or stock in the quantity I use so I prefer a dehydrated powder used in restaurant service for home use. My scraps usually end up in a single soup recipe.
And yeah I love making French stews and all that, and I make components of French meals, but I’m talking like a full contemporary French menu from appetizer to dessert. To me that’s a very simple menu, some basic ingredients of exceptional quality, each prepared in a way that makes them taste as good as they can using techniques it takes a lot of experience to get good at, with some experimental or playful element that isn’t too pretentious, then plated and presented in a creative way. That type of meal I will gladly pay for because it’s almost the fact someone else has imagined it and made it real that makes it worth it, like I wanna see what kind of tricks they’re doing that I wouldn’t have thought to do. Not only that but everything has to come together perfectly for it to work, and even if I know I can technically do it all, can I do it all at once by myself as a home cook? That’s why I respect the restaurant process for this style of food.
Was gonna throw Dominique Ansel’s crepe process up, it’s what I use now. Grew up making crepes this way with my Mennonite grandma (minus the pan caramel), but the way he mixes the dough is a lot smarter to not have any lumps.
Yup I can’t find anything in the stores that compares and I don’t mind making them. Really only do this in the summer when there’s some garden ingredients though, with a ground meat or bean sauce for protein.
I grew up making crepes, or whatever the Mennonite equivalent is, and it’s one of the easiest things in the world to me. I have a ziplock full of crepes in my freezer right now.