#thelastunicorg

[copperbadge]

Sam, you've ruined me. I made salt potatoes last night. I didn't even know what they were until you talked about them. How am I supposed to eat potatoes any other way now?

I KNOW RIGHT? SALT POTATOES ARE AMAZING. 

Oh man I haven’t made salt potatoes in like, at least two years. I should see if I can find/create a recipe for them in the pressure cooker. Though I think you’re not supposed to use salted water in the pressure cooker, I will have to check on the science of it. 

[star-anise]

thelastunicorg replied to your post “I get so pissy about historical accuracy diehards who refuse to accept...”

I love you and I love how passionate you are about Georgian hair of all things.

♥

But seriously, that hairstyle was perfect for that movie, horrendous as it was. People like to think of Austen as very sedate, very serene--the kind of world where you knew what all the rules were, and there was one very simple kind of dress, and things were refined and proper. People like to describe her as the manicured lawn to the Brontes’ windswept heaths. 

But the truth is, Austen is calm on the surface but underneath she’s awash with all these tensions and contradictions, just like her era; the 2005 P&P very deliberately perches itself in the 1790s, where the French Revolution has just upended political reality entirely. Just across the Channel, peasants are killing kings and nobles and anyone suspected of supporting the old regime at a terrifying pace. And I’m not an expert on fashion history, but I don’t think it’s an accident that within a decade, hair and dresses completely collapse; I think that the nobility in their enormous layer-cake dresses and fabulous confections of hair started to feel conspicuous and vulnerable, so they shift within a few short years to an entirely different silhouette, the very sleek, demure, neoclassical Regency style.  

But at places like Netherfield, you see that it wasn’t a smooth transition, just as you see that not everyone follows the rules of etiquette; you see that half-hedgehog and Mary being dragged away from the piano, Darcy and Elizabeth’s incredibly polite verbal duel contrasted with Mrs. Bennet’s social cluelessness. You see a world in flux.

And that world in flux is the essence of Austen. She’s a genteel upstart who is nonetheless afraid of upsetting the social order; she’s trying to take all these warring forces, much like pride and prejudice or sense and sensibility, and find a way to blend them into a harmonious whole.

So that hideous, horrendous hairstyle belongs there, goddammit.

[hopelesschromantic]

1, 7, 27 ❤

1. What’s your favourite food? I love noodles and most other salty carbs like The Most.

7. Dream place to visit? Rn I’ve been really wanting to see Croatia, it looks stunning.

The last text/message you sent? “idk why I’m so tired but I am SO, SO tired”

[copperbadge]

tienriu replied to your post “PANTS AUDIT COMPLETE.”

"special hiking undies"? I just - um, super anti chaffing qualities?

silvainshadows replied to your post “PANTS AUDIT COMPLETE.”

what's special about the hiking undies?

reesa-chan replied to your post “PANTS AUDIT COMPLETE.”

...special hiking undies?

They’re longer than boxer-briefs but fitted, like bike shorts rather than boxers, and they are Moisture Wicking To Prevent Chafe. 

I live in fear of Chafe. 

Really they’re “special” mostly because I only wear them for hiking/camping so they have their own spot on my clothing rack, though technically they are “performance” underwear so they’re meant for sports. 

You can get super-special hiking undies at outdoors shops and such, but honestly any undies that are mostly polyester, spandex, or wool will work. The ones I have are from Old Navy and are 90/10 Polyester/Spandex. 

I had a peep over at the ladies side of Old Navy and they don’t appear to sell performance underwear, but they do sell compression shorts which are fitted enough that you could probably use them as such. 

thelastunicorg replied to your post “PANTS AUDIT COMPLETE.”

Shameful in what way? Are they the ones with the elephants trunk where you. You know. You put your junk in the trunk.

Is it weird that my instinctive response is “I wish!”

No they’re just really old and have more holes than is respectable to wear out of the house. 

alovecraft replied to your post “PANTS AUDIT COMPLETE.”

...shameful undies that you tell the internet about...

Well, I trust you guys not to judge me the way my coworkers and strangers on the street might, should my pants fall off. :D 

shirokou replied to your post “PANTS AUDIT COMPLETE.”

YOU HAVE SO MANY PAIRS OF PANTS, SAM.

MAN’S GOTTA HAVE PANTS! 

librarian-amy replied to your post “PANTS AUDIT COMPLETE.”

Sam that is a terrible pun

yee-jun replied to your post “PANTS AUDIT COMPLETE.”

I'm upset by 'Dachxers'.

My work here is done. *dusts hands*

[copperbadge]

thelastunicorg replied to your post “This past week I have been craving two things: strawberries and...”

Sam are gnocchis hard to make?

I....don’t know. Maybe. 

I mean, okay, I’ve never tried to make straight up potato gnocchi unless I was opening a bag of them and pouring them into boiling water. Which is not hard. And the dough for sweet potato gnocchi is simple, really, it’s just mashed cooked sweet potato, egg, seasonings, and flour. Theoretically. 

But I have tried to make sweet potato gnocchi a number of times under the delusion that if I just do it again it will get easier, and while I can say that they were edible, they never got easier, so now I also just buy premade sweet potato gnocchi. 

I think I must just be missing some trick, because what happens is I make the sweet potato mash and then I stir in an egg and some flour...and some flour...and some flour...and some flour...I have literally stirred in three times the amount of flour the recipe calls for and the dough is STILL STICKY and nearly impossible to roll into ropes and then slice into the proper gnocchi shape. And I mean they eat fine, but why laminate my kitchen counter in a thin layer of stuck-on gnocci dough when I can just buy some? 

I have a friend who makes beautiful sweet potato gnocchi, and I know she does it by hand because I’ve sat at her kitchen table watching while she does it, then eaten the results, which were amazing. So I intend to consult with her the next time I get the mad desire to make my own. 

But for this week, I just bought a bag of them at Trader Joe’s. 

[star-anise]

thelastunicorg replied to your photoset “At night Gallagher goes down to the workshop and brings small hardware...”

He is Helping.

He contributes to the household economy, which is MORE THAN I CAN SAY FOR EMILY AND ISOBEL.

[copperbadge]

thelastunicorg replied to your photo “Onions and eggs were both on sale from peapod, so today the only...”

does freezing onions mess with the texture?

Oh boy does it :D Onions are in large part water, and when you freeze them, the water swells up as it freezes and breaks down a lot of the cell walls, meaning that you end up with soft, almost liquid onion when you thaw it out. At that point they’re not good for things like salads or sandwiches, but they still cook really well, and since I don’t like raw onion it doesn’t matter to me. I use onion primarily in casserole-type dishes, and I prefer them soft and well-cooked, so freezing them is a really good way for me to stock up when they’re on sale.

To freeze them, however, you have to chop them -- you can’t just lob an onion in the freezer, you need to peel it, chop it, and package it in something to keep it from smelling up the freezer before it freezes. So now I have two tupperware tubs of raw onions and one small tub of caramelized onions in the freezer, and another tub of caramelized onions in the fridge for whenever in the next few days I make baked beans. 

But you can also buy frozen chopped onions in the supermarket, at least in the US -- they’re usually in with the frozen veggies. I don’t trust those, though, because too often I’ve gotten bits of skin in them and biting into a piece of skin just ruins a meal. 

[servantofclio]

thelastunicorg replied to your post “I’m back from a weekend trip, and the combination of air travel,...”

Time is just a construct anyways.

We’re getting existential here in my comments section. :D

jadesabre301 replied to your post “jadesabre301 replied to your post “I’m back from a weekend trip, and...”

this is going about as well as the time MWT was verifying her identity to me in a chat room by giving her birthday and I brilliantly said "oh, you're as old as my mom!" isn't it

I’m pretty sure I’m still not as old as your mom?

jadesabre301 replied to your post “jadesabre301 replied to your post “I’m back from a weekend trip, and...”

and you're not ancient!

Why thank you!

I mostly don’t feel that old, even though I am at least a few years older than most of my tumblr friends. We have other stuff in common, so it doesn’t tend to come up much... until people are reminiscing about movies / tv / whatever they experienced in childhood and I’m suddenly going “.... I was over 20 when that happened” and there’s a really distinct gap in experience. The X-Files is like this, or basically any media from the 90s, which many of you watched as middle schoolers and I watched as a college student. And there are a lot of Disney movies that I either missed altogether, or saw with a preschool-age niece/nephew, not as a child myself.

Also the whole millennial discourse, because there are parts of the stereotypical millennial experience that are familiar to me, but I’m pretty solidly in the Gen X cohort.

jadesabre301 replied to your post “jadesabre301 replied to your post “I’m back from a weekend trip, and...”

your OP said "crossing rime zones" and I couldn't resist the riff :-b

Wow, I didn’t spot the typo until just this moment. *faceplam*

Maybe I shouldn’t be trusted to edit anything tonight, but I’m going to try anyway.