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Can't post links here without doxxing myself, but the megachurch wannabe/president of one of the boards of education around here is finally being called out. I've known about unsavory things he's done in the past, but this is the first time one of his victims has come forward. And it was someone that I was relatively close to. I'm so glad to see him finally go down.

The biggest barrier I face in having fully vegan meals isn't meat, it's butter, lard, and other such flavorful fats. And flavor wise, I'm not okay with just using vegetable oil for everything. Neutral oil leads to neutral flavor. What oil do you guys add to your beans?

Had to deal with a shitty coworkers microaggressions and I called her out on it. She immediately got defensive so I dropped it, but my non-binary coworker just walked by and said "cis people" and it completely flipped my mood around and made me laugh really hard.

I say, It's the pills, it's the drinks But maybe it's just how I think The need to say it with a wink My cynicism's killing me I'm really sorry for the greed Beer's my mistress, I have to leave But that girl keeps calling me And I pick up hoping you don't see

You broke my heart, but gave me yours I left it strewn across the floor I don't blame you not wanting more But better days are sure in store The softest eyes I've ever seen The cleanest air I've ever breathed You're so perfect I can't believe You ever chose to be with me

In the night, in the morning, You're the girl I'm adoring Come together like baskets weave While the cats bite at our feet You're the only drug that I need The greatest high I've ever seen When we're singing and rolling weed Or when we're talking bout planting seeds

Without you, I couldn't breathe Either dead or nodded on the street I don't wanna go another day Of leaving you hurt by my ways It's not okay, I can't ignore it Our life together is like a forest I'm a lit cigarette on a trailer floor And I keep burning holes on the armoir

I posted here a couple months ago asking people here how to deal with schizophrenia symptoms without being prescribed meds. It was a difficult conversation to have with me because I wasn't just being paranoid about going to get help, those people actually ruined my life for a solid year after I stopped going to them. A lot of people on here gave me a lot of great support. Their care kept me from doing what I did for a few months, and probably went into it being a half hearted attempt.

Things boiled over a few months later unfortunately. About a month ago, I was drinking heavily. Fought with my partner, went to bed, and tried to kill myself the morning after all of it. I didn't end up dying. I tried calling 911 in the moment, but lost my phone and learned that Alexa cannot do emergency calls. I seized out and slept for a day. Woke up the next day with clear symptoms of serotonin syndrome and went about getting it treated without getting locked up. Thought about it for a bit and realized I was also an alcoholic who needed to get help for drinking, and my plan was cooked and honestly pretty fucking fire.

I went into a mental health center that focused on rehabilitation and told them that my clearly visible serotonin syndrome was alcohol withdrawal. Did my intake, they sent me to their urgent care, who proceeded to send me to the emergency room. They gave me a bunch of benzos for the week, and that took care of the alcoholism and the building serotonin syndrome. Afterwards, I returned to the rehab center because they also offered psychs and 24/7 walk in counselors, which I've found very helpful. The psych listened to me and said that to him, it is clear as day that I'm suffering from PTSD and brain damage, with everything else being secondary. He said I may have schizophrenia, it's definitely in the family history, but was far more concerned about everything else. Sent in a referral for neurologist appointment. The meds have proved it so far. He gave me meds for PTSD and they've been quite helpful. I asked for my risperidone back and he gave it back to me without second thought, even at the dose I asked for. Between the two, 70 percent of my psych med needs are met. Not perfect of course, but I have a psych appointment with them next week so it hasn't been too much of a pressing matter. Also, they helped me sign up for medicaid, and that's pretty cool

To anybody questioning if they need psych meds or not, the answer is probably yes. I'm on one of the heaviest knockout meds on the planet and get an inexplicable boost of energy from it because of how well it medicates all my issues. I'm starting to get a routine again, and it's great. Like I feel like I can actually live a long term life again

This show is so fucking great. It's autistic comedy at its peak. But this episode is essentially just a compilation of Joe's excitement and joy after finding his new favorite song.

Title. I've been really enjoying Ghosts so far, it's been a really fun show so far. I'm specifically looking for shows, because I can just pirate a movie in a few minutes, but I'm down to watch anything good.

Made juice from pineapple skins and let it sit in my fridge sealed for a long ass time. I opened it today, expecting it to be trash, but to my surprise it was totally fine. Assuming that the yeast from the pineapple skin kicked in. Pretty damn tasty too. 10/10, would recommend, although I'd recommend actually doing this intentionally

There is a lot of bullshit out about knives. Not to be a food centrist (although I really am) but you hear about these 300+ dollar knives or 500 dollar knife sets, or these ultra cheap walmart knives that are "all you need". These people are constantly at odds with each other, when that simply shouldn't be the case. I just want to slice for gods sake. . Most knife advice you find online will be bad. The people who know the most about knives are not online.

Top suggestion for all knives

If you're in America, Restaurant Depot is the obvious choice for anything. Post-pandemic, non-restaurant people can come in. This is the place where you can get $1 paring knives and $5 chef's knives. Many also have a commercial sharpening service in the depot, or nearby, so super cheap sharpening here too. Because the pros can always do it better than you. These are brands that us pro cooks have been using for decades, Dexter probably being the biggest. You can even get a decent Chinese cleaver for $30 bucks. These types of stores will probably have the best deals, but depending on where you are, your mileage may vary. But if you can buy from restaurant supply places, quality and price will always be good enough

If you're not at RD/Wholesaler

Buy Mercer mostly. I hate to sound like an ad, but Mercer is easily the best mainstream knife brand price wise. They're not amazing knives, they more just took Victorinox's place. But Mercers cheapest line are pretty much the standard kitchen knives with minor QOL improvements such as the shape or material of the grip. As far as going cheap, the wholesalers will usually win, but Mercer can at least come close. I used to buy a lot of stuff from China, but the shippers over there usually aren't willing to ship ANYTHING that could possibly be used as a weapon. Can't even get food shipped most of the time, a knife is a stretch. They have decent prices on restaurant knives, but you can't really buy from knives direct from China in the west.

First suggestion is the Mercer Bar/Paring Knife. With a 4 inch blade, they have extra length to cut more. Mercer also uses a copy of Victorinox's grip design, which is by far the best paring knife grip available. However, Victorinox keeps raising their prices with their relative prestige, so they're not the move anymore. They're just Mercer with better QC and higher prices. If you sharpen your own knives at all, Victornox is a scam compared to Mercer. No matter what you buy after this, you NEED a paring knife. Most tools in the kitchen can be replaced with a paring knife, especially peelers.

The second suggestion is a bread knife, and this goes to Mercer again. Separate from price, this is my 2nd favorite bread knife. The 1st goes to a type of bread knife that seems exclusive amongst restaurant cooks. Here's the Dexter version of this standard restaurant bread knife, but that's a difference I noticed after thousands of sandwiches. The superior blade of the Mercer knife is a better choice for most people. The scalloped handle on the Dexter is super nice though, makes plating way easier

Main knives

You have a few picks for this. But you need a giant, sharp knife. You can peel a potato with a chef knife, you can replace a paring knife with a chef knife easy, but the opposite doesn't apply. Try cutting a sweet potato with a paring knife and it'll probably break

Cheapest suggestion is Dexter knives. You can get them dirt cheap at the right prices, and they're good enough that you don't get distracted by them. They also have any form factor you want. There are better knives, but since it's the same price as bad knives, you shouldn't buy anything worse than Dexter. However, you need to pick a main form factor for your main knife. You can have all the knives, but I find that people really only need one of these four.

1. Classic Gyotos/Chef knives. They're 8-10 inches, 210-240mm, and what you think of as a cooking knife. They're good for everybody. If you don't have the opportunity to experiment, or can't think of which one of these knives would be most useful, buy one of these. The Mercer chef's knife is $20.

2. Santokus. My personal favorite. These are stubbier knives that still have a point at the end, usually with granton edging on the side to help with being non-stick. These knives were made as fusions between Japanese nakirkis (vegetable knives) and the Chef's knife. These are the most versatile knife, long enough to cut anything, but also short enough to replace a paring knife in a pinch. The extra thickness over a Nakiri gives durability and versatility

3. Chinese Cleavers. These are rectangles of metal with tiny grips on the side that force you to hold the blade. This is probably the most universally used. You can use it as a bench scraper and a million different other minor tools. Extremely useful, but require more education to use to their full potential. They're big and clunky, and that's only worth it if you intuitively understand why they're big and clunky. These things do not break unless you seriously fuck up, you can realistically grind off all the metal before it becomes useless. These knives are more expensive than everything else I've listed, but their durability makes them extremely useful. CW: MEAT These are the only knives worth using to chop through bone and other similarly hard things.

4. Nakiris. Japanese vegetable knives. Essentially just smaller, thinner chinese cleavers with larger handles. If you're vegan, skip the cleaver and just go with the Nakiri. Compact, yet still full sized knives best for slicing easy things. Mercer has a cheap one that's good. However, THESE KNIVES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PARTICULARLY THIN! These do require some babying to prevent from breaking if you cut anything super hard like sweet potatoes.

TL;DR of the article: Olive oil does not break down at it's smoke point, meaning that you're not burning anything if the olive oil is smoking. If you want your fried food to taste like olive oil, fry it in olive oil. If you don't want your food to taste like olive oil, don't use olive oil. That's it, that's the entire olive oil debate solved right there. It really is that simple, there's nothing more to it.

Seen a lot of people getting smoking mad (lol) arguing over things they don't actually know about is quite annoying to me, and I don't want someone else making a struggle session where there really is none. Cultures around the Mediterranean have been frying in olive oil for thousands of years, literally since the dawn of civilization. Does anybody really think that people were just burning everything they cooked for thousands of years until some white people made canola oil?

Few things of note. I am a chef, so some of these ingredients may not be attainable. If you can't get something I recommend, don't worry about it. If I say chili flake, I mean pretty much any dried chili seeds. I usually use pasilla or guajillo when I have them. You can get a bag of either of these dried chiles for a couple bucks in the "ethnic" section of the grocery store. Cheapest and best chili powder in the store is buying those dried chilis and blending them. Any of these recipes can be added to pretty easily, these aren't set in stone recipes, rather bases for you to explore further. For example, I hate most common dried seasonings as far as veggies go. Garlic, onion powder, dried herbs and such, all those take away from the fresh flavor I like in veggies, so I don't use them much. However, you may find that you love onion and garlic powder on your food. You may find that you like a different oil in a recipe than me, and that's cool! Also, these aren't vegan recipes, but could easily be converted

Roasted brusselsprouts

1. Get a flat baking sheet. A warped baking sheet will actually mess with this recipe quite a bit. Put it in your oven and preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

2. Stem and half your brusselsprouts, keep them in a bowl for later. Mince/grate/slice a shallot and toss it in the same bowl. Chop the shallot however you prefer them. If you like garlic, DO NOT add it at this stage, otherwise your garlic will all burn in the oven. For this reason, I don't add garlic to my brusselsprouts, and just lean on the shallot to give the onion/garlic flavor.

3. Pour in olive oil or any other good tasting oil, and gently toss. Don't wanna break all the leaves off, you just want the oil to be evenly distributed.

4. Season brusselsprouts with salt, ground pepper, paprika, and chili flakes, and toss the bowl. Do this after oiling, otherwise it's way harder to get everything even.

5. Pull out your hot oven pan, and set your brusselsprouts down on the pan face side down. This is labor intensive, but makes the final sprout way better.

6. Throw it back in the oven for 20 minute or so, you want to pull them out when they're looking nice and brown.

7. Finish with a light drizzle of olive oil and paprika

Also, a note on brusselsprouts. You will find recipes online telling you to deep fry brusselsprouts. Deep frying brusselsprouts at home is a god awful idea, they have too much water in them. It's a great way to have oil covering your entire kitchen and be dissapointed because it's still not as good as roasting like this.

Steamed brocolli

1. Frozen or fresh, doesn't matter. Boil some water and throw your brocolli over it with a steamer basket. Let steam for 7 minutes or so. Finish by tossing them in olive oil and/or butter, salt, pepper, paprika, and mushroom powder if you have any dried mushrooms. You can add more to these, I really enjoy adding lemon pepper seasoning. Cheesy broccoli is also better this way since it maintains the crunch. One of my favorite ways to flavor this is making either a lemon-honey emulsion (Honey, lemon juice, salt, pepper, a sweet pink\white wine, a touch of soy sauce, shake the shit out of it in a bottle.) Another variant of this is lime, agave, cumin and a pinch of those ground up flying ants. Yes, some bugs really are worth adding to your cooking if you can get them. The flying ants are a popular ingredient in Oaxaca for a reason. It has a citrusy yet strongly umami taste, kinda like chinese fermented black beans, it's great. Very cheap, and an ingredient that once you try it you love eating bugs.

Roasted carrots

1. Rinse fresh carrots and cut them into coins. You can peel them, but I find that the skin bitterness works with the rest of the flavor I put down. Also, frozen carrots aren't worth trying to roast. Just microwave them if they're not fresh.

2. Toss in butter, salt, pepper, chili flakes, some dried microplaned chiles, brown sugar and dried ant powder if you have it. If you happen to be eating any fruit in the moment, squeeze some of that juice in, it's tasty and different.

3. Roast carrots at 425 degrees for 25 minutes

4. Pull carrots out of the oven, and finish with honey or agave. If you use agave, skip the brown sugar. But definitely use agave if you're using any dried ant powder. Agave is like 5x sweeter than honey, so it can work really well.

Spinach

I don't recomend making spinach on its own, it's just too hard to get truly right imo. HOWEVER, adding it as an ingredient to something else is a great idea. Toss spinach in with your pasta when you finish cooking it and cook it with your sauce. However, IF you're going to, this is a decent way.

1. Butter in a pan, fry off some garlic, a bit of shallots, and red pepper flakes in the pan. I'd recommend using processed chili flakes for smaller red pieces, the red and white of the aromatics makes it look way better and taste better too. Try not to soften anything, you want them kinda fried. Add a splash of soy sauce and salt at this point.

2. Add a shit ton of spinach. Shit shrinks like crazy, so use a big pan.

3. Cook with the aromatic butter for 2 minutes and pull off the heat. Finish with pepper.

Potatoes

This is a necessary food prep thing. You start doing it and you never go back. Either bake and/or boil your potatoes for the week and keep them in your fridge to be used when needed. Example of this is baking off 8 potatoes for me and my partner to eat throughout the week. Now, I have a baked potato that all I have to do for it to be ready is microwave it. If they're smaller potatoes, I can make smashed potatoes at a moments notice and those are the absolute shit. You can instantly roast off boiled potatoes, or mash them and have a 3 minutes mashed potato throughout the week. Same thing goes for sweet potatoes. Also, longer you bake potatoes, the better they taste, so you can get really good baked potatoes really easy.

Sweet potato fries

1. Chop sweet potato into fries

2. (optional) toss sweet potatoes in potato or corn starch. This will give you normal potato fry crunch if you do this

3. Season with salt, pepper, chili flake, a proportionally small amount of cumin, and olive oil.

4. Roast at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. If you have an air fryer or a convection oven, take off 5 minutes. Longer you cook these, the more your sweet potatoes will release sweetness.

5. Check sweet potatoes for texture. If you tossed them in starch, they're probably done at this point. No matter what, let them cool for about 5 minutes on a cooling rack, and throw your empty pan back in the oven to heat up. If you're still going, raise your oven temperature to 450 degrees.

6. Pull out your pan again and throw your sweet potatoes back in for another 10-15 minutes to crisp up, replenishing the oil in the pan. Doing a double bake like this makes the sweet potatoes crispier. You can repeat the process as much as you'd like, but it stops being useful after about 4 passes. You can do this with pretty much any starch to make them crispier.

Arugula/rocket

I don't cook this one, I'm just picky with raw greens. Arugula is related to spinach, but has this really pleasant black pepper flavor that makes me enjoy having it on my sandwiches or even for salads. This is a more expensive green, but it can be had at decent prices in the right time and place.

Sauteed green Beans

This is for fresh green beans, if your green beans are canned or frozen, don't bother trying this because there's no way to make the texture right

1. Butter in pan, fry shallots, garlic, and red bell pepper, and chili flakes with salt and soy sauce/worcherster sauce in a pan. Thinly sliced sun dried tomatoes also make a pleasant addition at this point if you have them.

2. Crank the heat on your pan and add fresh green beans. Fry them aggressively, you wanna keep them moving. The high heat brings a lot of good flavors out of the green beans quickly. Sautee for about 5 minutes or until your green beans are cooked through but still have a pleasant crunch.

3. Remove from heat, finish with white pepper and a very light sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Cheese is optional, but the white on top makes it look really pretty and if you use a SMALL amount, it's a good flavor additive.

I could probably come up with more, but my arthritis hands are telling me to stop typing so