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akr

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Posts posted by akr

  1. 10 minutes ago, NYCFree said:

    We are getting into ridiculous minutia here. Some people feel that Gabriel is so great, the only reason people must be against him is due to their unfair prejudices. Others feel that there is evidence that perhaps he would not be great to work with, other than his race and gender.

    Agreed. I don't get the impression Gabriel is terrible to work with, just not everybody's first choice. Somebody's going to be the last pick even when all of the choices to pick are pretty good. I'd have been more worried about being paired up with someone who's been a bit hit or miss in their culinary judgment - under these weird cooking conditions, of course, as they're all evidently very successful in real life - or whose preferences about what and how to cook didn't match up well with mine.   

    • Love 2
  2. 25 minutes ago, TVbitch said:

    Personally, I like a NY Strip steak, and I would never put sauce on it. Didn't see that or the ribeye. Maybe they call it something different. Don't know what the Scotch is ...and I just don't care enough to google it.

    Scotch fillet is ribeye. NY strip is from a particular part of the sirloin. 

    • Useful 2
  3. 7 hours ago, seltzer3 said:

    So, I'm really confused by the whole Dan's bao situation.  Where Dan was freaking out that he didn't have enough time to proof.  I thought the masterchef kitchen had proofing machines that speeded up the process.  I remember this because I was confused how people were able to make roti and other breads in less than 2 hours, and people said there were proofing machines.  Did Dan just forgot they had a proofing machine, or do they just not have it?

    Yeast is still a living thing - you can optimize the conditions for it to activate, but it's still going to take time. He used some sort of warming drawer, and I'm not sure what a "proofing machine" is beyond an optimized warming drawer. I'm guessing they have small proofing drawers at their stations, and larger machines for when they need to make a lot of dough for a crowd.

    • Love 1
  4. 5 minutes ago, rmontro said:

    I thought this show was exceptionally weak, aside from the Muppet Show sketch.  Olivia Rodrigo was the best part.

    Really? I thought it was fun, with a much better than average hit ratio. I fast-forwarded through Olivia Rodrigo, but she seemed fine - I've just aged out of being interested in most of the musical guests. 

    • Love 4
  5. Fruits contain seeds, and develop from the flower of the plant. Vegetables are other parts of the plant. I believe the legal case was instead looking to the intent of either legislators or parties to a contract - did they mean fruit vs vegetable in the botanical sense, or according to a more colloquial understanding, based on how we use them as foods. When we say "eat your vegetables," some of the things we're talking about are technically fruits, and the law will follow that common understanding where appropriate.

    • Love 1
  6. 3 hours ago, EllaWycliffe said:

    Well, there definitely is a tone of "all men suck" on this show, which is unfortunate. One significant reason I see Gilead's world building not working is that men don't universally hate women. Do none of these men have sisters or mothers or daughters? Does Nick not have a mom? Or a sister? What about Fred?

    I don't know about that - I can think of counterexamples. The men in Canada don't suck (Luke, those working with the refugee movement, the prosecutor who tried to talk Serena into defecting, etc.), and there were men working in the underground who got June between safe houses when she made a run for the border way back when (i.e., when she holed up at the former offices of the Boston Globe), and certainly the secret Muslim fellow who agreed, despite the grave risk, to help her hide (and ended up on the wall for it).

    There seemed to have been men at Mrs. Keys's place who were in on the hiding of the handmaids who came with June. The Bradley Whitford character clearly has redeeming qualities. June has run across at least one other housemaid where the head of household refused to participate in the rape ceremony, even though this puts everyone at risk if they are found out. I'm sure I could come up with others.

    Naturally we see plenty of the worst behavior of the men of Gilead, because that's what causes all the harm. But there are certainly glimpses of men who have retained their humanity and/or are working against the regime. 

     

    • Love 7
  7. 1 hour ago, circumvent said:

    More than half the world doesn't have heat or A/C and they survive.

    Well, countries survive (so far) but people die. During heat waves there are excess deaths, and presumably many other people who are adversely affected far short of dying. Excess mortality from a heatwave in August 2003 in France, for example, was estimated at 15,000, or an excess of 55% over normal. (70,000 in Europe as a whole). Per https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950160/

    "From August 1st to 20th, 2003, 15000 excess deaths were observed. From 35 years age, the excess mortality was marked and increased with age. It was 15% higher in women than in men of comparable age as of age 45 years. Excess mortality at home and in retirement institutions was greater than that in hospitals. The mortality of widowed, single and divorced subjects was greater than that of married people. Deaths directly related to heat, heatstroke, hyperthermia and dehydration increased massively. Cardiovascular diseases, ill-defined morbid disorders, respiratory diseases and nervous system diseases also markedly contributed to the excess mortality. The geographic variations in mortality showed a clear age-dependent relationship with the number of very hot days. No harvesting effect was observed."

    According to https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069107003770?via%3Dihub there were 70,000 excess deaths in Europe as a whole during that roughly 2-week heat wave, and there have been fairly frequent serious heat waves since, with accompanying deaths (people were shocked at the mortality, though, and have gotten a little better at protecting the vulnerable by checking in on people & providing cool places for people to go). We've seen similar results in heat waves in Chicago and other places in the US - the one in France was one of the more extreme ones and so the first I thought to google for details.

    I know I handled heat better when I was younger, and I'm not that old. Mostly I just don't manage to get much done, though. People who are on some prescription meds also lose some of their capacity to withstand extremes in heat. 

    That said, Max should look into more efficient means of cooling his apartment, rather than just letting his daughter be miserable unnecessarily. Let it be 80 inside, sure, get a fan, get better insulation or better shades, but in the meantime turning on the AC for 10 minutes when she comes through the door hot, so she can get comfortable, is not that big a deal. Maybe instead of comforting her with a (warm!) hug, get her some ice water or a popsicle or something. And the rest of the episode was just exhausting and ridiculous. Sure these are real issues, but the approach is ludicrous. I don't know why I started watching this again, and I guess I'll see the season out, but I'm done after that. 

    • Like 1
    • Love 13
  8. 4 minutes ago, greekmom said:

    I still stand by my comments last weekend in regards to who is benefiting from Gilead. Seriously no one. Not even those in charge. Because if they were benefiting they wouldn't have all those shady side deals happening (as Lawrence had). 

    At a certain point, it's not about what you gain from the system, it's what you gain from it not being overthrown and you being tried for crimes against humanity or subjected to the wrath of those you abused. Nobody wants to end up like Mussolini, Ceausescu, or Qaddafi, whether they still believe in the ideology of the regime or not, and at lower ranks you don't want to be on the wrong side of a civil war. It's not that the people at the top benefit, vis a vis where they might have been before the system came into place, so much as that they have a lot to lose when it all falls apart.   

    • Useful 1
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  9. 17 hours ago, chocolatine said:

    What kind of person asks a loved one to join them in something so dangerous?

    Someone who knows their loved one is committed to the same cause?

    2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

    What a small world it is, June and Moira just happen to run into each other in the middle of recently bombed Chicago . . .

    . . . 

    The big non Moira shock of the episode was seeing people in Gilead actually doing fun things, with a bunch of the Aunts playing cards, listening to music, working out, etc. I thought that everyone in Gilead except for the Commanders at Jezebels spent every second of the day doing their assigned task or sitting around being sad.

    No kidding on the Moira point! That felt utterly implausible.

    As for the playing cards, treadmill etc., it made me think of the rec room of a mental hospital (at least as they're portrayed on TV/in movies) - there may be things there to keep you occupied, but I'm not sure I'd characterize it as having fun. I think their assigned task in this instance is waiting for the next assignment; in Lydia's case, maybe she's there while they figure out whether to put her back into commission in some fashion, or get rid of her (do bad Aunts go to the colonies?), or a sort of purgatory while she reflects on her failures, so that she's more controllable in her next outing.  

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    • Love 7
  10. Now that's more like it! Even the bentos that got mixed reviews looked appealing.  I think it helped to let them play to their strengths (and ask for a well-balanced meal so "play to your strengths" can't mean make yet another ice cream, or fussy dessert). Great Master Class, too, which I'm sure helped them elevate their own presentations.

    (I'm not sure what they thought was so strange about Tom's - seemed mostly sort of California/Mediterranean to me. I guess the squid needed more explanation - I don't remember what flavors he added to it and it looked bland, but maybe the sauce was supposed to go with that (I was assuming it was for the asparagus, but could work with both). Pete's was the weird one, although I'll take their word for it that it worked. The arugula strawberry thing looked interesting, but I thought the cauliflower rice & crudite compartment looked weak, and the bouquet of herbs & lettuce also seemed very insubstantial, and the duck & noodles didn't obviously go together with any of them.)  

    Whose weren't shown? I don't remember seeing Kishwar, Conor, Aaron, or Dan, even in prep.

    Of the bentos we did see that weren't top 4, the dishes that stuck with me as things I'd love to try were Tommy's age dashi tofu, his squid & his omelet (maybe he should have gone for something green instead of replacing the botched sashimi with beef); Sabina's scallops even though it's the sandwich they praised (but yes, the pickles were clunky); everything in Amir's box; and whatever it was in Linda's that they said was super spicy (with chaser of watermelon). (Oh, I forgot Elise - overall it looked tasty, but the tomato salad seemed a little obvious. The broccolini and quail looked great, and I'd love to try the donuts as planned rather than as executed.)

    • Love 2
  11. I think the desserts chosen were appropriate to the challenge - they asked for light desserts, and the focus was the pasta, so it was best to put the bulk of the effort into the entree & main anyway, & a sorbet or ice cream with fruit or tuile is exactly the sort of dessert you'd probably want at the end of that meal.  Although Tom's dessert saved his group, he also got dragged in to help with the pasta, so the potential need for this was something all groups probably took into account, or should have.

    Still way too many ice creams and granitas for a single season, but not because of this challenge. For once, it actually was the correct choice.

    • Love 3
  12. I think it's a leap to assume that the rules that applied to the group of three will also apply to the passengers. There's no particular logic to anything in this show, for starters, but also it would be hopeless to get them all to do whatever it is they're supposed to do, and as a plot direction that doesn't work well. I don't see this show becoming some subtle examination of how people come to terms with fate.

    Perhaps the three's fates were intertwined in this particular way because they were coconspirators in a crime when they died (if I remember it right). (I mean, who the hell knows, but in general I just think anything these characters are currently certain of is bound to be proven to be incorrect, or at least just a part of the truth. That, ultimately, is the plot device that keeps this show going. They're trying to do the right thing, they're trying to figure things out, and they don't know enough about anything to get any of it quite right.) 

    • Love 2
  13. Perhaps she had money salted away from her before life somehow - couldn't get herself across the border but transferred assets before they were seized. The other thing I wondered about is if there were US assets in Canadian or other international banks, etc, that those governments could freeze or seize, and use to fund refugee programs.   

  14. 3 hours ago, MrsRafaelBarba said:

    Is Frankie really dead?

    Or

    Just dead to Cathy mentally?

     

    I thought it was the latter but in the latest episode it seems her daughter found the death certificate she'd tucked away in her closet, along with the heroin. I couldn't see it well, but I think it said something about a head injury.  

  15. (On the other hand - I'm much more used to the phrase "the proof is in the pudding," than the longer version. Maybe it varies among the English-speaking countries.)

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  16. 5 hours ago, katisha said:

    To me, cool is original," he says, without apparent irony regarding the fact that it would be impossible to think of anything less original than making ice-cream with an unusual ingredient on MasterChef.

    Not to mention, that it's essentially the same thing he did in the last episode, just different flavors. Cherry chiboust with coffee granita (with the granita getting all the praise); olive ice cream with cucumber granita. 

    After hearing that 8 different people made cucumber granita, I'm probably not going to watch this one. The MCAU twitter feed has a 5 minute compilation on Pete's dish, and a bit shorter one on Tommy's, & I'm getting the impression nobody else did anything interesting, aside from Eric apparently making scrambled eggs instead of carbonara, and nearly lighting himself on fire; so - is there anything more I need to know? Probably not.

    Honestly, in most years, wouldn't at least half of the contestants be cooking at Pete & Tommy's level?  At this point I usually have favorites and I just don't. Well, I like Depinder & Kishwar a lot, and I guess Tommy, and I can respect Pete & Therese, but after that they just kind of all blend together as people who sometimes cook good food but don't really have a ton of things in their head to draw on once they get past the dishes that got them on the show. So, after Conor (mulletbae? really?) has success with granita, everybody decides granita! is the way to go, I guess, because they don't have enough ideas of their own. 

    Also there was a guy on twitter going on about how "desserts have spoiled Masterchef" and desserts aren't even really food, just elaborate playdough for children, that how often do you even order dessert when you go out to eat? - and I'm right there with him at this point. Carve off the desserts into a separate show (Reynold and someone who does pastry can host), or give them a season-long dessert budget (you can make up to ten desserts in a season, and then you're done), or something. Take away the ice cream machines, the blast chillers, and allow them only a very limited supply of sugar (I do want people to be able to pickle things & make nuoc cham, or fish sauce caramel for a hot pot, for example) for at least half of the challenges.

    But, I know this show has a history with the elaborate desserts and a bunch of fans who grew up watching Masterchef & deciding they want to be the next Reynold, so that'll never happen. Still, I am beyond bored.

    Here he is - Julian Brown, apparently a radio guy. twitter link to (embedded) Youtube video of him on the radio, on how "Desserts are Killing Masterchef." (text teaser: Desserts aren't food. It's edible Lego. Dayglo vanity projects for Instagram. Fancy children's food for overage sugar nazis."). https://twitter.com/JulianBrownNote/status/1391273438971523081?s=20

     

     

     

    • Love 5
  17. 17 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

    You still have to light the burner itself with a match or lighter.

    I thought I remembered differently but I'm sure you're right. It's been a long time! (I remember lighting it a lot, too, but not because the electricity was out.)

  18. 1 hour ago, madmax said:

    ETA:  Power is out, your electronic ignition on the stove isn't going to work.  Just sayin'..

    Depends how old it is. The last time I had a gas stove it was fine so long as the pilot light hadn't gone out. (However, when the downstairs neighbors didn't pay the shared gas bill - in Vermont, in winter - no heat, no hot water, no stove. They did this twice! Both times the gas went out before a weekend (once, a long weekend) and nothing could be done until the power company was open again on Monday or Tuesday. The neighbors let me take a shower while I sorted it out. The jerks downstairs had an electric stove.) 

  19. 16 minutes ago, seamusjameson said:

    Tom's hat...please pack your knives and go.

    I don't need to see it again, but it looked cozy and I was amused by it ;). Maybe he'll break out some more in future episodes (preferably also funny, rather than dapper). They're clearly doing a lot of outdoor dining, presumably for Covid reasons. . 

    • Love 6
  20. 11 hours ago, Haleth said:

    I was so afraid Rita was softening when she learned that Serena is pregnant.  So glad she didn't fall for Serena's manipulation.  (I think she was starting to until Serena called her a friend.  That brought Rita back to reality instantly.)

    I think what really got her was Serena's assumption that she would be helping her raise the child! She may have some complicated mixed emotions about Serena, and been genuinely happy for her and/or about the prospect of new life, but Serena acted as if she were still a subservient household slave, and had always been content in that role. I thought was similar to Fred assuming that they were on good terms because he'd "never been cruel to her."  (a), define cruel, and (b), not good enough.   

    • Love 9
  21. 58 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

    he kept insisting that he was giving Tom vegetables because he hadn’t used them and the three largest components on the plate were smoked feta, watermelon and tomatoes. I realize there was some cucumber but he didn’t choose to highlight it when he kept talking about vegetables he was serving and it was a few slivers.

    technically, cucumbers are fruits, too ;)

    • LOL 2
    • Love 3
  22. The biggest change of events that I noticed was that instead of Maddox intercepting his wife and her divorce lawyer at a restaurant, after he gets a call from the restaurant about the reservation, he instead arrives home to a deserted house and divorce papers, I think the circumstances around, and wording of, the call were slightly different, too, so he didn't jump to the same conclusion as he did in the first go-round, but I'm not going to go back and check on the details of that.  

    • Love 1
  23. 43 minutes ago, katisha said:

    I just Googled it and found this answer: "The 'coral' is the developing ovary or egg sac, found in the carapace of the female; it turns red on cooking and is quite tasty alone, or beaten into sauces."  So I guess my next question is, how are you supposed to know if it's a female yabby? 

    I don't know about yabbies, but with lobster - you find out when you open it up, and there's coral (there are also some differences in the shell shape & swimmerets (the little legs on the underside) but it's subtle. Whoever sells it to you should be able to tell the difference). Not all females will have some, but with the one lobster I cooked that did (I've only cooked a few lobsters), it was pretty obvious. 

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