modest proposals

[photographsofmadmen]

boy at sally’s bday party, episode 4

[katehwilliams-blog]

Everyone. At every party.

[tami-taylors-hair]

"If your character’s from Atlanta, how come they talk like they’re from rural South Carolina?"

-Me to every actor in a movie/tv show about the South ever, it seems.

[the-cardigan-queen]

no one ever believes I’m from Atlanta because apparently I’m supposed to sound like I’m from either the...

[katehwilliams-blog]

Truer words have never been spoken

[americastestkitchen-deactivated]

DIY Kettle Chips

Whether thick cut, crinkle, plain, or flavored, potato chips are one of America’s most beloved snack foods. Our favorite is the small-batch, kettle-style chip. These chips have good potato flavor and a crisp, light texture. Though seemingly simple, perfecting a homemade version proved to be a challenge. Frying at too low a temperature made them soggy and greasy, but if we increased the heat, they burned. Targeting the potatoes’ starch as the source of our troubles, we finally landed on a method of rinsing, parboiling, then frying. It was a bit of work, but the reward of fresh, golden homemade potato chips was well worth it. —America’s Test Kitchen

Find this recipe and 100+ more like it in our DIY Cookbook

Makes about 6 cups

Make today, enjoy immediately

1 pound medium Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced 1/16 inch thick on mandoline 2 quarts vegetable oil Fine sea salt

1. Line rimmed baking sheet with clean dish towel. Set wire rack in second rimmed baking sheet and line with triple layer of paper towels; set both sheets aside. Place potato slices in large bowl and cover with cold water. Gently swirl potatoes to release starch. Drain potatoes and return to bowl. Repeat rinsing step until water no longer turns cloudy, about 5 rinses.

2. Bring 2 quarts water to boil in large saucepan over high heat. Add potatoes, return to gentle boil, and cook until just beginning to soften, 2 to 3 minutes. Drain potatoes well, then spread out over dish towel–lined sheet and thoroughly pat dry.

3. Meanwhile, heat oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat to 325 degrees. Carefully place one-quarter of potato slices in oil. Fry, stirring frequently with wire skimmer or slotted spoon, until oil stops bubbling and chips turn golden and crisp, 3 to 4 minutes. Adjust burner, if necessary, to maintain oil temperature around 325 degrees. As soon as chips finish frying (some chips may cook slightly faster than others), transfer to prepared wire rack using wire skimmer or slotted spoon. Season with salt to taste.

4. Return oil to 325 degrees and repeat with remaining potato slices in 3 more batches. Let cool completely before serving. (Kettle chips are best enjoyed the day they are made.)

[katehwilliams-blog]

Oh look: my hands. And my recipe, btw.

[therumpus]

THE BINS: Grill by Lucas Adams

[katehwilliams-blog]

“It is said that the best of whisky is that made by blending several good kinds together, and Nature seems to have blended four or five good flavours together when she made the durian…In a word, the durian is a natural macédoine — one of Dame Nature’s made dishes — and if it be possible for you to imagine the flavour of a combination of com flour and rotten cheese, nectarines, crushed filberts, a dash of pine-apple, a spoonful of old dry sherry, thick cream, apricot-pulp, and a soupçon of garlic, all reduced to the consistency of a rich custard, you have a glimmering idea of the durian, but, as before pointed out, the odour is almost unmentionable — perfectly indescribable, except it be as ‘the fruit with the fragrant stink !’”

F.W. Burbidge, via Michelle Humes

[f525252-blog]

This is the best pie-related pie chart we’ve ever seen. Pie Nerds: prepare to geek out.

(via The Modern Farmer Pie Chart of Pies - Modern Farmer)

[kateoplis]

"The ad agency Victors & Spoils has created campaigns for some of the biggest brands in the food industry — Coca-Cola, Quiznos and General Mills among them. Until now, what they’d never done was try to figure out how to sell broccoli. Or any vegetables or fruits of any kind. This of course is not unique to Victors & Spoils. Major American advertising agencies tend not to get hired by produce growers to help them market fresh fruits and vegetables. They are hired by large companies making huge profits from processed foods to reach into whatever crannies of the American (or global) public they have not yet connected with."

Broccoli’s Extreme Makeover

[katehwilliams-blog]

This story actually makes me interested in advertising, and not in a Mad Men-y way.

[katehwilliams-blog]

Homemade honey candy corn #F52grams

[newyorker]

Butter Aerobics

Betsy Morais on a butter-churning aerobics class: http://nyr.kr/16nRQFX

“Exercise fads are like art controversies: they appear on the scene and upset the popular psyche, generating fascination and ridicule until, after a while, they are no longer incendiary, but merely tokens of a passing moment.”

Photograph by Machine Project.

[katehwilliams-blog]

Um, tell me this is really a thing people do?!

[explore-blog]

It is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about ‘the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.’ This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no-bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.

On the 5th anniversary of David Foster Wallace’s death, his timeless commencement address on the meaning of life – the only public talk he ever gave on his worldview and philosophy.

"It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience."

(via kateoplis)

[boohooray]

[katehwilliams-blog]

look at all those friendly middle aged white men.

[kateoplis]

Forgotten Words: Lexican

[katehwilliams-blog]

CHOLLER.

[rorybbellows]

[gabifresh-deactivated20200615]

I’m obsessed with Tina

[100yearsoflolitude]

I cannot wait until this show comes back

[therumpus]

THE BINS: Hose by Lucas Adams

[stephaniegonot]

[thingsorganizedneatly]

Stephanie Gonot, Strawberry Sunday

[katehwilliams-blog]

The Boss Is Hungry: Every Food or Drink Name-Dropped in a Rick Ross Song

Lobster bisque! SpaghettiOs! Diced pineapples.

[katehwilliams-blog]

Finally, progress is being made regarding vending machines in schools. Now we just get to wait and see what happens to the standards after a 120 day waiting/lobbying period...