Alternate Open Thread

skiriki, Maybe swich out the pita for Iranian pide, its a large 2cm wide flat bread, that’s perfect for tearing and sharing and smearing meze on.

@skiriki – This is probably too late, and it might not work anyway, but peaches always make me think of ginger. Crystalized ginger will probably clump worse than chocolate chips though.

@autosoma

Awesome. I hope it helps turn things around for her and you.

Complete cooking heathen here, but I’ve made an apple cobbler or two in the past. Kicks ass when you use Granny Smiths.

So last night the Beloved was singing with a choir, an orchestra and two professional soloists, in an American-themed concert – Barber, Bernstein and Gershwin, selections from Porgy and Bess. It was terrific – amazing percussionist in the orchestra.

Today we went to a singing workshop and learned some midwinter carols (the kind that get sung in the pub rather than in church), which was brilliant – I’m not as accomplished a singer as the B but I do love to hear 200 people singing in harmony in a 15th century room.

We were meant to go to a ceilidh this evening but our lift fell through and it’s miles and miles away, and raining heavily, and we’re tired, so instead we had some carrot soup (we grew the carrots and potatoes) with crusty poppy-seed bread and cheese. Now I’m lying down with a cat on my belly, another cat by my side – they have been reproachful about the bad weather, but seem to have forgiven us – and the Beloved reading a Patricia Highsmith novel. No bon-bons but we did have some mint chocolates. We’re listening to Django Reinhart. I have red wine and the unexpurgated Samuel Pepys diaries… bliss.

Yesterday I made a diabetic-friendly snack cake with berries from one of my new diabetic cookbooks. I was diagnosed around June, and I’m learning to change up what I eat. I love to cook, so it’s actually more fun than it is a chore. Not much is entirely off the menu with diabetes, it’s more portion control.

(The cake turned out great. I even had some with my breakfast turkey bacon.)

@autosoma:
CLion is, from what I can see on the website, not free on Mac. The concept of a non-free compiler is strange to me, so I’m not going to use it unless there’s no alternative.

dhag85 | November 14, 2015 at 11:34 am
Can this be a recipe sharing thread? My wife has been vegetarian for about a year and a half and I just went vegetarian this summer. We have a few great recipes we like to make, but I would love more ideas for vegetarian dinners reaonably low on calories but also tasty and filling. It’s tough finding that balance.

Funny you should ask, considering I just came to my computer after watching an episode of America’s Test Kitchen on PBS featuring two vegetarian dishes, Eggplant Involtini and Fusilli with Ricotta and Spinach. Maybe not the best on carbs, but they looked delicious and were totally meat-free. (Definitely not vegan though. So much cheese. XD)

They also do taste testings every episode, and this one was of prosciutto and some American-made pre-sliced counterparts, and while the original Italian stuff is still the best, there are some serviceable American counter-parts. (Though they say to stay away from anything that doesn’t just use pork and salt. Any additives will make it not good.)

@Paradoxical Intention

Thanks! I’ll make sure to check that out. Ricotta and spinach is a very good combination, but I’ve had way too much of it in the past. Still get cravings from time to time though. 🙂

@ej… this stackoverflow post might help.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6438792/are-there-any-free-c-compilers-for-macosx

your buddy could (only if they’re’ feeling masochisticm but its good learnin’) use a text editor and hand crank the compiler, I’ve done it in the past with GCC, javac and CSC but once the headers, packages and imports get beyond 3 it becomes way too painful.

as to alcohol therapy. I’m unsure, the last time she did it, she learnt better ways to hide the boozing, such as sprite really masks vodka better than any other softdrink. Or decant into an evian bottle and most people won’t question frequent swigs. On that one I had a super shit time when I graves one of her water bottles and took it with me to fetch the kids from school. I gave it to my eldest and she spat it out saying the water tasted really sour.

Hand on heart, I don’t think she’s ready to change

dhag, if you can get yourself to a Middle East Good shop. get yourself some tins of brine cheese, its white salty, nearly feta like, but its suourbe and dirt cheap. As anither cherzy thing look for tins it jars of Puck. it’s a cheese like spread.

If you get the bribe cheese crumble it, mix it with garlic, diced onion, spinach and a smidge of nutmeg, smear on filo pasty, roll up bake… or use it to fill canaloni

My husband was held up at gunpoint at 6:10 am this morning. He is ok, he was not shot.

We have had a shitty week, generally. Our car broke down, and we can’t pay for it until Wednesday, so, for the past 10 days, he has been walking to his job as a convenience store clerk. He works 3rd shift, full time, no benefits, over a year without a raise. Because, you know, it’s one of those “unskilled” labor jobs that isn’t necessary at all, therefore, he doesn’t deserve a living wage. Three jobs between us, no kids, and we still get SNAP. This country and it’s corporations treat some of us like living garbage. Anyway…………..

He was supposed to get off at 6, but the interim manager (who is filling in for the manager out for 6 weeks for surgery)can’t do anything. My husband always has to stay late.

So, a regular customer came in, mid 20s, and he was drunk. My husband at the register, the manager walking around. The robber kept coming up to the register to buy something small, he would pay, then say he didn’t want it and then get something else. He apparently was trying to look in the drawer.

The manager asked my husband should he call the police. My husband said no, he knew the guy, he’s ok. But then, with the back and forth, husband realized that robber had something in his pocket, like something was stuck. Robber finally walks up to the register, where my husband had the drawer open, draws his weapon, points it at me husband’s chest and says something like “I am going to cap you, give me the money.”

This is when the manager walks out of the back with the phone in his hand. He froze. My husband slammed the register closed and he knocked the gun away. At some point, he hit the panic button. After hitting the guys hand, he hit the floor, yelling at the manager to do the same.

Robber panicked and ran. The cops called a few hours ago to tell us that they had picked him up.

My emotions are bottlenecked. After my husband picked the guy out of a mugshot line up, the cop said that he had expected this guy to do something drastic, that he had been involved in levying a fine of over 3k on this young man. For weed.

Unemployment in my county hasn’t been below 18% in almost 20 years. Yet, you pick someone up for weed, proceed to ruin his life over it, and push him into doing something like this. I’m not saying what he did was right, and I have the luxury of giving him the benefit of the doubt because he didn’t hurt my husband (if he had, I would be calling for his head).

But the richest among us are NOT the hardest working, paragons of society that we are told they are. They aren’t smarter than the rest of us. When they get caught with weed, they can pay their fine. Being poor is like a never ending spiral, it’s almost impossible to not get sucked down sometimes.

I can’t believe that we are still allowing lives to be ruined over a fucking plant. We are not free. Go visit a hooker, smoke a joint, and go tell the cops. Then come back and tell me how free we are.

As far as I am concerned, the war on drugs(which is, in reality, a war on the poor)is a dismal failure. And I blame it, and the privatization of prisons, as a large part of what happened.

I have gone on way too long, but thanks for letting me unload. I needed to vent, thanks for allowing me the space.

@Raysa
I don’t understand either. In my mind, if people stopped making most drugs illegal and invested in drug awareness campaigns and health care for the addictive, MOST of the criminals in the WORLD would have infinitely less power and would everything be better for everyone! Not to mention that considering how expensive police and jails are, they would still have most of the money back.
In my mind it’s SUCH A RETROGRADE, puritan way of thinking! Four things I think make no sense forbidding: Topless women, drugs, prostitution, and abortions. It’s like I am living in the goddamn middle ages. How can your minds still be so far back?
Even though, I believe it’s not only a question of morals. The morals of the mass change quickly, if they get a push from the goverment and from rich people. Truth is, drugs and illegal prostitution are the most lucrative businesses in the world. The question, deep inside, is purely economical. It’s murder. We see those guys as criminals, but they are the victims.

I am sorry for what you’ve been though. Hope he is not too scared. He shouldn’t have reacted :/