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akr

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Everything posted by akr

  1. She and about a million other people. I only exaggerate a little. I got the impression she was good enough to get some local work, and good for her! But that's not something that screams, go out & buy my makeup.
  2. Just from the descriptions here, I can't bring myself to watch. The only reason I watched before was to root for Lexi (& to some extent Ashley) to make it through without too much damage (the others seemed hopeless). I don't want to see people who are doomed to be train wrecks from the get-go - I hope to see people muddle through but ultimately be ok. Sounds like these ones were chosen because they're likely to be disasters. Lexi had another baby with Kyler (but managed to keep it quiet until the baby was born). I'd guess it might make sense for her to defer mortuary school (or whatever she's interested in by then) until the kids are in grade school or high school. She had them young enough that if she quits now she'll be in a good position to start a career in 10 years or so & do very well, but it would be hard to try to do everything at once. I suppose that's not telegenic, but it's every bit as real, & much more common, than people whose lives are a complete mess.
  3. She may be a nicer person, but it's hard for me to see why anyone would buy cosmetics from her, either. None of them have any unusual expertise or cachet - basically she's just a pretty young woman from Delaware/NJ, with a tangential connection to a shitty TV show.
  4. Choux pastry, creme pat & puff pastry? Sounds good to me! Mostly for the choux & creme pat. It's got the most important components of a good eclair, & I can't remember the last time I had one of those, so I'd be happy. A little would go a long way, though, & the puff pastry seems incidental. (Yes, eclairs have chocolate, but I never care about that, so long as they've got good custard in them, not whipped cream.)
  5. Aside from the terrine, I really wasn't inspired by much of anything this week (definitely none of the slices). Sorry vegans, but vegan baking rarely looks very good to me, no matter how much they try to act excited about it. I'm not vegan & while I could cook for someone who was, I probably wouldn't bake for them (but instead serve fruit or sorbet, or buy something, since sometimes fruit or sorbet might not feel satisfying enough. Perhaps if you can make a good olive oil or nut flour cake without eggs... If I'm going to go to the trouble of baking I want good results, so my sense is I'd rather serve (and eat) something that's naturally vegan rather than use a whole bunch of substitutions to come up with something that's only ok. If I'd rather skip dessert (in favor of having more of my vegan dinner) than eat a vegan one, that's what I'd likely offer guests as well, but with the option of some sorbet & raspberries to finish the evening. Perhaps some sort of peach & blackberry crumble using coconut oil in place of butter for the topping? But not slices or cupcakes. They're bound to disappoint.). I agree that the judges no doubt knew about aquafaba but pretended not to to give the viewers the shared sense of discovering something new & clever.
  6. They may not be obscure now, but I'm pretty sure they were before this episode of GBBO aired (the wikipedia entry on them would seem to bear this out - they date the episode to 2014 & the spread of them in bakeries to 2015). They certainly seemed to me to be one of the most obscure things they'd done when they announced them - certainly more obscure, for example, than Swedish princess cake or ma'amoul - & more comparable to the weird historical things they'd been doing. It didn't feel like a stunt bake, though, because the techniques, etc, were akin to things you'd expect contestants to know how to do.
  7. Me three - as to not being bothered at all by Rosie's "mumbling." Actually I think it's less that she mumbles then that everybody else is a little over the top half the time, so there's a contrast - it's part of why she's my favorite (aside from the occasional garish color choices). As to meat pies, I think the Trader Joe's freezer case ones (steak & stout or chicken balti) are pretty good, if you're in the US & have a TJ's in your vicinity.
  8. Also, an inch-thick crust indicates you've attempted a construction project, not a baking project. This is especially true if the crust isn't even cooked through, & it wasn't. On Reddit, people are suggesting they'd picked this crew based on their instagram pages, & that there were a bunch of people who were essentially cake decorators who wanted to be on TV. I don't know if that's true (it's probably an exaggeration rather than flat out false), but it would explain a lot.
  9. He'd screw it up, most likely.
  10. I wanted to try so many of these! Especially the offerings from Sunny, Anston, & Sue. The classic cinnamon roll recipe that Angela showed seemed simple to me, but that doesn't mean I don't want the recipe! I have an excellent one from my aunt, but I have no doubt that Angela's were superb.
  11. Maybe starting with an all-star season will help them get their footing, too. I really liked Matt, George, & Gary but I'm willing to give these three a shot. I just hope it doesn't become even a little bit more like the US or Canadian versions, or even the UK ones (which I like, but nowhere near as much as MCAU).
  12. Helena's shtick felt to me like a put-on to get on TV (and one copied from TV Network baking show contestants), so that Noel was able to engage with her just felt like more of the "let's put on an act" stuff that I've found so off-putting this season. (Rosie's wry, bemused responses to him work better for me, because her reaction seems entirely genuine). I finally caught the first episode of this years' Great Australian Bake Off, & found it all much more pleasant than this years' British one. The contestants seem much stronger, only one or two people seem a bit phony (it may be career-related in the most obvious instance), there's a broader range of ages & backgrounds so they bring different strengths to the shed, and the judges' enthusiasm is catching. I don't mind Prue although she did get on my nerves a few times in the last couple of episodes (& I certainly didn't find the mauve she called out one bake for to be particularly unattractive, or even different than a bunch of other similarly-hued creations on the very same episode). I don't think she's the problem - she's mostly a neutral factor for me. Noel & Sandy are fine, although Noel's pressing a bit much this year, & sometimes irritates me. The problem is the casting & the artificial encouragement of antics for the cameras. I don't dislike anyone, but they are too alike, and the lack of experience of most of the bakers really shows (& the lack of age variation creates a very different vibe - like watching a bunch of adolescents at summer camp). It's been a bit of a bummer & I'm probably only still watching out of habit. I won't be interested in seeing any of them again after their run here is over, although a few of them have been endearing on the show, whereas in the past I've been interested in what people might do next - because I thought they were good at what they do, and interesting people to boot.
  13. Jade is from Indianapolis and was raised by drug addicts, which explains a lot of her dysfunction, but I by & large agree with your take on her. Her grandmother may prove a helpful influence. The Mercedes, FWIW, was a used car so I don't think she actually spent that much on it. She seemed to both like it & be slightly embarrassed by it when she first got it, after, I think, a previous car stopped working.
  14. If you fail to take the bloodline out, you also need to be more careful not to undercook your fish, imo. Maybe that's what made the one piece particularly unacceptable. I don't know whether it cooks as fast or not - there may be a density difference - but I think it's grosser than ordinary slightly undercooked fish, & probably calls attention to how well the fish is cooked overall. In some species at least, I gather there may be a toxicity issue (nerve tissue concentrating toxins or something), but in others it's more a matter of taste.
  15. "not representative of our values" may simply mean "did not sell enough" or "called attention to the fact that our products suck." I don't think they would care much if the product had proven popular.
  16. I think it pretty much turns to shoe leather if you don't. It's very, very lean meat.
  17. No kidding. I'm hoping it's a regionalism. Where I live, it means meth.
  18. That's a strange way for an adult to hold a fork (Noah, in the picture above).
  19. If she's not a grandmother by 40 I'd be surprised. The twins will be 23 by then. Bare minimum goal: don't be a grandmother by 35 (!).
  20. I'm surprised the Mayo Clinic has an ongoing need for architects - I would have assumed they hired architectural firms whenever they might need to build or update something (or perhaps that is the situation)
  21. It keeps getting continued, but there's another court date coming up soon (I think Sept 9) - criminal charges that might actually have some teeth to them because of his criminal record.
  22. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bonus-episode-with-jared-harris/id1459712981?i=1000446954276 (which I came across via this tweet. The link in the tweet includes a short essay from Slava about the accident in Severodvinsk, etc.)
  23. I don't think that knife is sharp enough to pierce a balloon.
  24. Ben Trobbiani did an AMA (ask me anything) on reddit a few days ago & continues to pop in to answer q's in the thread. Just thought I'd point to it in case anyone is interested & hasn't seen it.
  25. Well, that was a false start . . . Maybe - or maybe he just preferred to hang out with the kids who are more his own age rather than with his little brothers & the people he sees every day at home. I don't think Jo comes off great in this situation, either. It's going to be hard on Isaac to leave him out of a nice trip or force him to choose, or to worry about who might be upset, etc. Both parents need to try to put Isaac's welfare first. There are consequences to having a child with someone when you are way too young, including that you are very likely to have to juggle parental responsibilities not just with your ex but with future children on both sides of the family, & the key is to put Isaac first, not get caught up in which parent is at fault.
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