jenett: Big and Little Dipper constellations on a blue watercolor background (Default)
jenett ([personal profile] jenett) wrote2019-01-18 08:07 am
Entry tags:

Salon post: January 18

Good morning!

Topic of the week
What thing have you learned or done recently that's brought you joy? (Or at least a certain amount of pleasure. Doesn't have to be a peak joy experience.)

Alternately, related to what I'm up to, do you read Tarot? (Or use them in other ways?) Do you have a favourite deck? What's your approach? (Other oracle methods also welcome. We are an inclusive discussion here!)

Not interested in either of those? As always, whatever other topics people want to talk about very welcome. Start a thread, see who joins in.

A useful tool
[personal profile] melannen put together a bookmarklet (based on one by [profile] astrolat) that allows you to quickly share links on Dreamwidth and that will check to see if you're linking to a locked DW post. Instructions on the bookmarklet over here It'll create a new DW post, autofill the subject line, and then you can edit or add other commentary.

What I've been up to
Unpacking. I got all my books on bookshelves last Sunday, labelled them a couple of days ago (and now I need to go through and update my locations in LibraryThing. That's a longer project).

Tonight is for finishing tidying up the living room and cleaning before I have witchy students over tomorrow. (For a class on Tarot.)


Useful notes
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Comments are welcome whenever you get a chance - even if that's hours or days later. Feel free to jump into whatever sub-threads intrigue you. More discussion is the point of the salon posts!

Got a question you're trying to sort out, or a thing you'd like to discuss? Lots of thoughtful interesting people with a wide range of interests show up here! Feel free to ask about things you're thinking about or trying to solve, as well as other kinds of chat.

House rules:
This is a public post, feel free to encourage other people to drop by, just note the 'if posting anonymously, include a name people can call you in responses' rule.

1) Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to. Keeping conversations SFW is appreciated.

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3) If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.
adrian_turtle: (Default)

[personal profile] adrian_turtle 2019-01-18 10:57 pm (UTC)(link)
I disagree with you about baked goods being based on things that will mix happily in all proportions. Doubling the flour leads to terrible cookies. I've found that soup is much more accepting of different proportions.

I'd say that goes for chile, too, and cinnamon, and cilantro, and... It ALL depends on what you like and who you're feeding. But recipe writers only do the cop-out for this one particular ingredient!

Recipes almost always seem to have ground pepper "to taste." And salt is sometimes "to taste," and sometimes "1/2 teaspoon" is listed in the recipe and "correct seasoning" at the end. (Occasionally "1/4 teaspoon salt, or more to taste."

Some of my cookbooks have what you call "the cop-out" for many different ingredients. I don't think it's a cop-out. I think it's a valuable acknowledgement of where the recipe is flexible. (Or where the writer knows it's flexible.)
"If you prefer this soup only slightly spicy, reduce the cayenne to a few dashes."
"1.5 tbsp caraway seeds (optional)"
"2-4 cloves garlic, finely minced."
"Stir in a little more broth if it is too thick." (Especially after giving very exact amounts of everything else.)
"Add nutmeg to taste."
cjsmith: (Default)

[personal profile] cjsmith 2019-01-18 11:53 pm (UTC)(link)
It's true that if one exerts undue force on the proportions, even a baked goods recipe can turn out yucky. Forgetting the flour entirely, for example, is often memorably not good. :)

Anywhere someone says merely "to taste" is also an acknowledgement that they don't care to provide at least a starting point for someone who doesn't at all know what they're doing. In which case, cool -- that recipe (and oh so many others) are Not For Me. Did I mention I don't cook? Here's one of the many reasons why.