Chit-Chat: What's On Your Mind Today?

[Ancaster]

A friend gave me a Christmas cactus in full bloom about 10 years ago.  After that first year it never bloomed again, but I kept it because any plant that survived my non-green fingers ("thumb" to Americans!) deserved a spot in my dreary flat.  It would put out stubby little buds every year, but without fail they'd fall off after a few weeks without ever flowering.

Fast forward to 11 months ago, when I moved to a new place that actually gets sun.  Out of loyalty to something that had survived the last 10 years with me, I brought the cactus with me to my lovely, sunny new place.  It has proved I made the right decision to move, albeit many years later than I should have, by blooming magnificently and brightening my days even further.

Keep the faith everyone!

Edited December 14 by Ancaster
"later" not "late"

[Calvada]

25 minutes ago, Ancaster said:

A friend gave me a Christmas cactus in full bloom about 10 years ago.  After that first year it never bloomed again, but I kept it because any plant that survived my non-green fingers ("thumb" to Americans!) deserved a spot in my dreary flat.  It would put out stubby little buds every year, but without fail they'd fall off after a few weeks without ever flowering.

Fast forward to 11 months ago, when I moved to a new place that actually gets sun.  Out of loyalty to something that had survived the last 10 years with me, I brought the cactus with me to my lovely, sunny new place.  It has proved I made the right decision to move, albeit many years late, by blooming magnificently and brightening my days even further.

Keep the faith everyone!

My "Christmas" cactus blooms usually twice a year, in November and March.  Perhaps for Veterans' Day and St. Patrick's?  I call it my holiday cactus. 

[Ancaster]

19 minutes ago, Calvada said:

My "Christmas" cactus blooms usually twice a year, in November and March.  Perhaps for Veterans' Day and St. Patrick's?  I call it my holiday cactus. 

I like that.  (Or we could rename it "Politically Correct Cactus" - I used to think mine never bloomed because I'm Jewish.)

[SoMuchTV]

Regarding Christmas/Holiday cactuses (cacti?) - when we bought our first house about 40 years ago, the previous owners left behind a very sickly looking one.  I went ahead and watered it once in a while (and presumably put it where it would get some sun; I don't really remember at this point).  It eventually bloomed occasionally, when it felt like it.

At some point several years ago I read somewhere that to force blooming, you should put the cactus in a cool dark place for the month of November and ignore it - no water or sun.  I've been doing that for years now (hang it in the garage with a black trash bag covering it), and sure enough, in early December I get lots of bright pink blooms!  (The usually dry up and fall off before actual Christmas day, but close enough.)

Disclaimer, though.  At some point I started some cuttings from it in a smaller pot, and haven't given that one the "November" treatment, and it blooms too.  So...

[Absolom]

When I was a teen I had a huge luxuriant Christmas cactus. The only problem was it wanted a west facing window for afternoon sun. The only one positioned to put a plant in front of it was in the walkout basement.  So the lovely plant brightened up the sewing room!

[Ancaster]

1 hour ago, Absolom said:

When I was a teen I had a huge luxuriant Christmas cactus. The only problem was it wanted a west facing window for afternoon sun. The only one positioned to put a plant in front of it was in the walkout basement.  So the lovely plant brightened up the sewing room!

Doesn't the fact that you have a dedicated sewing room mean that it is somewhere you go often and are there for a while and can enjoy your cactus?  (Or am I misunderstanding "sewing room"?  Having said that, I have no idea what a walkout basement is either!)

[Bastet]

16 minutes ago, Ancaster said:

Having said that, I have no idea what a walkout basement is either!

One where there's a door to the outside, rather than one where all four walls are below/mostly below ground level so that you first have to go back up into the main part of the house and then exit to the outside.

[shapeshifter]

20 minutes ago, Ancaster said:

Having said that, I have no idea what a walkout basement is either!)

My daughter has a "walkout basement." They are very common here in the Rochester NY area. I've never seen them before. I think walkout basements are a split-level house in which the bottom level has a door to the outside. 

ETA: like what @Bastet said too👋

Edited December 13 by shapeshifter

[PRgal]

7 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

My daughter has a "walkout basement." They are very common here in the Rochester NY area. I've never seen them before. I think walkout basements are a split-level house in which the bottom level has a door to the outside. 

ETA: like what @Bastet said too👋

We had a walkout basement growing up.  It wasn’t a split level (meaning the floors weren’t staggered), it was just the way the house was built/the way the street was.  Is the house on a hill?

[Absolom]

52 minutes ago, Ancaster said:

Doesn't the fact that you have a dedicated sewing room mean that it is somewhere you go often and are there for a while and can enjoy your cactus?  (Or am I misunderstanding "sewing room"?  Having said that, I have no idea what a walkout basement is either!)

The basement for us was more of a summer thing. I generally only had time to sew when school was on holiday. When the plant bloomed in December all the activity was upstairs in the kitchen or the room with the tree. So I got to enjoy my plant about three times a week. We laughed and said the plant was shy.

As said above the walk out basement was ground level with regular doors on the back of the house. The house was built into a hill with no windows on the front basement wall that was entirely below ground level.  Higher windows were in the back half of the side walls as the slope fell toward the back.  From the back, it was a two story house and from the front a one story.  

[PRgal]

36 minutes ago, Absolom said:

The basement for us was more of a summer thing. I generally only had time to sew when school was on holiday. When the plant bloomed in December all the activity was upstairs in the kitchen or the room with the tree. So I got to enjoy my plant about three times a week. We laughed and said the plant was shy.

As said above the walk out basement was ground level with regular doors on the back of the house. The house was built into a hill with no windows on the front basement wall that was entirely below ground level.  Higher windows were in the back half of the side walls as the slope fell toward the back.  From the back, it was a two story house and from the front a one story.  

Sounds like the house I grew up in!!! I spent my teen years in a house that was sort of a reverse of my childhood home - the garage was on the lower part of the hill with stairs going up to the front doors.  There was a door to go outside in the basement, but you had to walk upstairs.

[annzeepark914]

My Holiday Cactus (that used to be known as a Christmas Cactus!) blooms between Thanksgiving & Christmas, then before Easter, and then sometimes for Mother's Day. It sits in a west facing bay window...except during Xmas when it's booted out so the tree can sparkle for the neighborhood 🎄

[Ancaster]

22 minutes ago, annzeepark914 said:

My Holiday Cactus (that used to be known as a Christmas Cactus!) blooms between Thanksgiving & Christmas, then before Easter, and then sometimes for Mother's Day. It sits in a west facing bay window...except during Xmas when it's booted out so the tree can sparkle for the neighborhood 🎄

I hope your cactus knows how much it's appreciated during the rest of the year, before it's ignominiously booted at Christmastime.  Have you at least given it the dignity of a name?

(My grandma had a large cactus like this one that she called Big Willy - I know she was completely innocent as to the double entendre, but my brothers and I weren't.)

Edited December 14 by Ancaster

[SoMuchTV]

50 minutes ago, Ancaster said:

I hope your cactus knows how much it's appreciated during the rest of the year, before it's ignominiously booted at Christmastime.  Have you at least given it the dignity of a name?

(My grandma had a large cactus like this one that she called Big Willy - I know she was completely innocent as to the double entendre, but my brothers and I weren't.)

Oh now I wonder if we’re talking about different things or you’re making a joke. This is the kind of Christmas cactus I’ve been talking about 

[Ancaster]

12 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

Oh now I wonder if we’re talking about different things or you’re making a joke. This is the kind of Christmas cactus I’ve been talking about 

Yes, I'm sorry if I was unclear.  That is indeed a Christmas cactus - Big Willy was one of these (below), but more "upstanding", if you get my drift.  (Off to my corner before I get banned.  And no, I haven't been at the eggnog.)

 

 

[shapeshifter]

3 hours ago, PRgal said:

We had a walkout basement growing up.  It wasn’t a split level (meaning the floors weren’t staggered), it was just the way the house was built/the way the street was.  Is the house on a hill?

Yes, their house is on a hill. Like this:

3 hours ago, Absolom said:

the walk out basement was ground level with regular doors on the back of the house. The house was built into a hill with no windows on the front basement wall that was entirely below ground level.  Higher windows were in the back half of the side walls as the slope fell toward the back.  From the back, it was a two story house and from the front a one story.  

 

[annzeepark914]

My Holiday Cactus is by a nice window in the dining room. It has no name. It will resume its place in the bay window a few days after New Year's Day. I have no green thumb and must be just lucky with this plant 🤓.

[Yeah No]

On 12/12/2024 at 9:01 AM, EtheltoTillie said:

Maybe too late but the solution is to have a dedicated black and white laser jet printer. Also much faster.  I have one workhorse HP that is 20 years old. The toner cartridges last a really long time. We have no need for color. 

My mother had one and of course when I worked I had access to color laser printers any time. I sometimes print in color. I don't absolutely need to but I like having the option. If I had the room for two printers I'd get one. My husband has a color printer. I suppose I could send my documents to print on his printer when I need something in color but he's such a Luddite and over-anxious about technology that I often steer clear of using his equipment. 

[Yeah No]

On 12/12/2024 at 9:53 AM, shapeshifter said:

True.
But before I tried the popping out and then back in of the color cartridge in my HP, I switched to grayscale, and it still refused to print without the color cartridge being replaced, which it should have. 
Maybe I need to check driver updates? 

That's a good question. I don't know if updating the drivers or firmware would help. I had the same problem myself as you describe above. I doesn't care how I print, it just won't let me print unless I replace whatever toner it's bothering me about.

I read an article about this issue a while ago that claimed that there were some printers that don't make you change color ink if you want to print in black and white or grayscale but I forget which ones were mentioned and I'm too tired right now to research it. I think it's not just about the brand but the model. You might need to buy a more expensive model to have that option.

[Ancaster]

11 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

My mother had one and of course when I worked I had access to color laser printers any time. I sometimes print in color. I don't absolutely need to but I like having the option. If I had the room for two printers I'd get one. My husband has a color printer. I suppose I could send my documents to print on his printer when I need something in color but he's such a Luddite and over-anxious about technology that I often steer clear of using his equipment. 

I haven't had a printer in years because of the cost of the cartridges.  Admittedly I rarely need to print anything these days, but when I do I go to my local library.

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, Yeah No said:

That's a good question. I don't know if updating the drivers or firmware would help. I had the same problem myself as you describe above. I doesn't care how I print, it just won't let me print unless I replace whatever toner it's bothering me about.

I read an article about this issue a while ago that claimed that there were some printers that don't make you change color ink if you want to print in black and white or grayscale but I forget which ones were mentioned and I'm too tired right now to research it. I think it's not just about the brand but the model. You might need to buy a more expensive model to have that option.

Probably any Epson would work. Next time my cartridges run out I’ll look into it. I hate to throw printers in the garbage and the electronics recycling around here is 20 miles away in the wrong direction, which makes my Piriformis syndrome act up.

 

4 hours ago, Ancaster said:

Admittedly I rarely need to print anything these days, but when I do I go to my local library.

Before I retired from the college library I could print unlimited high-quality B&W or color for free.

One year, half an hour before the printed senior thesis final copies were due on a weekend, the printers all went down except the color laser printer in the library’s computer lab across from the reference desk. I ran up hundreds of dollars in print fees on my free account printing the last minute theses. 
Cost of a dozen grateful, relieved students? Priceless.

[EtheltoTillie]

We do need printers for work and other reasons, but even if I didn't need it often, I'd still keep it.  It doesn't cost anything to keep the printer as a just in case.  These days a lot of people don't have them, though. 

I still print out the NYT crossword to do in pen.  I don't want to do it on line. 

Edited December 14 by EtheltoTillie

[Browncoat]

1 hour ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I still print out the NYT crossword to do in pen.  I don't want to do it on line. 

I hate doing crossword puzzles online.  They always seem to want you to do clues in order, and that's not how I work.

[StatisticalOutlier]

22 hours ago, Bastet said:

One where there's a door to the outside, rather than one where all four walls are below/mostly below ground level so that you first have to go back up into the main part of the house and then exit to the outside.

I learned that watching House Hunters.  Bah to people who denigrate cable TV--it's very educational.

[Ancaster]

5 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I learned that watching House Hunters.  Bah to people who denigrate cable TV--it's very educational.

Indeed.  I would have no idea about the many plastic surgery options there are for me without cable TV.

Edited December 15 by Ancaster

[StatisticalOutlier]

Actually, cable TV caused me to miss a timely diagnosis of shingles.  In my 60's I developed my first fold of skin--on my side, near my waist.  One day there was a rash in the fold.  But I wrote it off because I've seen those 600-pounders on TV and I know what evil lurks in folds of skin.

The rash persisted, and my boyfriend suggested shingles, and he knows NOTHING about shingles, or really, anything medical, including the ravages of age (he's younger than I am).  He somehow pulled this shingles thing out of his ass, and was right.  But my delay caused me to be too late for the window for when the drug treatment is effective.

That made us even.  He's a real car guy--does his own work on his cars, and replaced the radiator on our motorhome.  Several years ago he took off one day in his car and turned around and came back because it was overheating.  He had an appointment to get to, so there was much vexation.  I said, "Maybe it's the thermostat?"  He hopped on his bicycle to go to the auto parts store and brought back a thermostat and installed it and it fixed it! 

I pulled that thermostat suggestion completely out of my ass; I know absolutely nothing about thermostats.  How I knew thermostat (and he somehow didn't think of it) and how he knew shingles remain great mysteries in our life together.

 

[StatisticalOutlier]

And speaking of pulling things out of your ass, last night Mr. Outlier and I interrupted our reading in bed with a discussion about the periodic table of elements.  It started because I told him about a funny story on the Graham Norton show that involved the oxygen concentration in the air we breathe.  That led me to add that apparently usually it's about 30% and I wondered if that's because it's H2O and the "O" is 1/3 of the total if you add 2 Hs and the one O.

He just looked at me, and I realized I was giving the whatever-it-is for water, not air.  What an idiot.  So he starts kind of explaining hydrogen and oxygen, and how they're at the beginning of the periodic table, and we started trying to name as many of the elements as we could.

And I was pulling some crazy ones out of my ass.  One of the first was "Argon.  It's a noble gas."  The hell?  I know less about argon than I know about thermostats, and what in the world is a noble gas?  And cesium.  Where did that come from?  I started going through the alphabet and came to K and said, "potassium."  I pulled that one out of my junior high chemistry class ass.

And he was chipping some in, in a more orderly fashion:  what elements do we mine for?  Copper, nickel, lithium, molybdenum.  He got mercury, and I was embarrassed I'd missed it because I played with it (on the kitchen counter!) when I was a kid (you could buy a vial of it at the drug store).

Sometimes I'd name something and he'd say no, that's a compound, not an element, and try to explain it.  Salt.  NaCl.  It's a compound. 

And some digressions, like what do they make steel out of?  What do they make magnets out of?  He knows that kind of stuff.

It was such fun, because there was no actual periodic table involved.  It would have been a massively different experience if he'd just gone and gotten his phone and pulled up a periodic table for us to peruse.

This is the sort of thing I miss so much.  Because come today?  Neither of us consulted a periodic table, because it doesn't matter.  It was the journey, not the destination, and when a phone gets consulted, it's never about the journey.

[Ancaster]

31 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

And speaking of pulling things out of your ass, last night Mr. Outlier and I interrupted our reading in bed with a discussion about the periodic table of elements.  It started because I told him about a funny story on the Graham Norton show that involved the oxygen concentration in the air we breathe.  That led me to add that apparently usually it's about 30% and I wondered if that's because it's H2O and the "O" is 1/3 of the total if you add 2 Hs and the one O.

He just looked at me, and I realized I was giving the whatever-it-is for water, not air.  What an idiot.  So he starts kind of explaining hydrogen and oxygen, and how they're at the beginning of the periodic table, and we started trying to name as many of the elements as we could.

And I was pulling some crazy ones out of my ass.  One of the first was "Argon.  It's a noble gas."  The hell?  I know less about argon than I know about thermostats, and what in the world is a noble gas?  And cesium.  Where did that come from?  I started going through the alphabet and came to K and said, "potassium."  I pulled that one out of my junior high chemistry class ass.

And he was chipping some in, in a more orderly fashion:  what elements do we mine for?  Copper, nickel, lithium, molybdenum.  He got mercury, and I was embarrassed I'd missed it because I played with it (on the kitchen counter!) when I was a kid (you could buy a vial of it at the drug store).

Sometimes I'd name something and he'd say no, that's a compound, not an element, and try to explain it.  Salt.  NaCl.  It's a compound. 

And some digressions, like what do they make steel out of?  What do they make magnets out of?  He knows that kind of stuff.

It was such fun, because there was no actual periodic table involved.  It would have been a massively different experience if he'd just gone and gotten his phone and pulled up a periodic table for us to peruse.

This is the sort of thing I miss so much.  Because come today?  Neither of us consulted a periodic table, because it doesn't matter.  It was the journey, not the destination, and when a phone gets consulted, it's never about the journey.

Just in case there is someone left on earth who hasn't seen this, here is Daniel Radcliffe and The Periodic Table:

 

[StatisticalOutlier]

4 hours ago, Ancaster said:

Just in case there is someone left on earth who hasn't seen this, here is Daniel Radcliffe and The Periodic Table:

Aah, so radon is an element.  We weren't sure.  (And of course I identified it as "that stuff that people have under their houses.")

[PRgal]

Did you guys hear about this?

https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/12/13/sesame-street-deal-canceled-max/amp/

[Anduin]

2 hours ago, PRgal said:

Did you guys hear about this?

https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/12/13/sesame-street-deal-canceled-max/amp/

Nope.

[shapeshifter]

One of the updated verses for the Twelve Days of Christmas song?

[PRgal]

I'm quoted in a new Very Well Mind article about overcoming cultural differences.  I'm not that big on cultural identity, but was "forced" to identify with something.....  

[crazycatlady58]

18 hours ago, PRgal said:

I'm quoted in a new Very Well Mind article about overcoming cultural differences.  I'm not that big on cultural identity, but was "forced" to identify with something.....  

so I had to look up Dim Sum ( misspelled?) to see what it looked like and cannot figure out what freaked the guy out,but I will eat whatever is put in front of me unless it is had hot peppers in it or rare meat.

[shapeshifter]

19 hours ago, PRgal said:

I'm quoted in a new Very Well Mind article about overcoming cultural differences.  I'm not that big on cultural identity, but was "forced" to identify with something.....  

Your contribution is lovely.
But now I'm imagining the Seinfeld version in which the new husband horrifies his new wife's family by stepping on a teacup and smashing it. 😉 

[PRgal]

30 minutes ago, crazycatlady58 said:

so I had to look up Dim Sum ( misspelled?) to see what it looked like and cannot figure out what freaked the guy out,but I will eat whatever is put in front of me unless it is had hot peppers in it or rare meat.

Dim sum could be anything on a dim sum menu- spring rolls, dumplings of all sorts, rice roll…..chicken feet can freak some people out.  I don’t eat it.  I probably shouldn’t have participated because it makes me more “ethnic” than I’ve ever felt. 

Edited December 17 by PRgal

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, PRgal said:

Dim sum could be anything on a dim sum menu- spring rolls, dumplings of all sorts, rice roll…..chicken feet can freak some people out.  I don’t eat it.  I probably shouldn’t have participated because it makes me more “ethnic” than I’ve ever felt. 

Having been reared in a home where we were admonished to not even reveal our religious background, I can relate. 
But I still think your contribution was a thoughtful example that might help others figure out what they would like to incorporate into their blended family occasions.

Edited Tuesday at 09:44 PM by shapeshifter
typo

[PRgal]

1 minute ago, shapeshifter said:

Having been reared in a home where we were we admonished to not even reveal our religious background, I can relate. 
But I still think your contribution was a thoughtful example that might help others figure out what they would like to incorporate into their blended family occasions.

The honest truth is that I didn’t really have to make too many changes other than adding holidays and creating some of our own traditions (which is done regardless of whether it’s an inter-something family or not).   Maybe I’m lucky to have more been raised in a more integrated family? 

[Ohiopirate02]

On 12/15/2024 at 8:27 PM, shapeshifter said:

One of the updated verses for the Twelve Days of Christmas song?

It's one of the Twelve Pains of Christmas

 

[Mindthinkr]

I went to the post office to mail something today. As I was standing there with some ready to go Christmas cards the postal lady said “Are those square cards?” I replied yes. Evidently square cards cost an extra 28 cents to mail. I had no idea, but now all my cards will require the extra postage. 

[shapeshifter]

16 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I went to the post office to mail something today. As I was standing there with some ready to go Christmas cards the postal lady said “Are those square cards?” I replied yes. Evidently square cards cost an extra 28 cents to mail. I had no idea, but now all my cards will require the extra postage. 

Having mailed at least 1,000 cards and letters in my long lifetime, it was long ago that I was first told about the surcharge on square envelopes. It was due to sorting machines limitations. I just looked it up and see:

• Since July 15, 1979, a surcharge has been added for non-standard envelope sizes. (https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/domestic-letter-rates-since-1863.htm)

But I would think modern scanning equipment would be able to discern the directionality of the printed or written lines, and, in fact, this has probably been the case for 10 or 20 years. I wonder if a different clerk would have let it go? 

I recall the local post office where I lived 2001-2021 — in a lovely, historic building — had 2 slots for mail, still labeled for out-of-town and local, but they all went into the same bin.

Edited Wednesday at 01:57 PM by shapeshifter
my usual typo

[StatisticalOutlier]

10 hours ago, crazycatlady58 said:

so I had to look up Dim Sum ( misspelled?) to see what it looked like and cannot figure out what freaked the guy out,but I will eat whatever is put in front of me unless it is had hot peppers in it or rare meat.

If rare meat squicks you out, you might have trouble with some of the dim sum dishes.  The chicken feet, as PRgal mentioned--the ones I've seen on the carts, there's no mistaking them.  But they're usually on the bottom level, so you don't see them unless you look.

And some of the items are rather gelatinous, sitting in a thin dark brown sauce that doesn't stick to them and slides down into a pool on the plate.

Personally I love the gringo friendly dim sum (e.g. not chicken feet), but I know people who would not like it at all, so I've never even tried to get them to go.

[PRgal]

12 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

If rare meat squicks you out, you might have trouble with some of the dim sum dishes.  The chicken feet, as PRgal mentioned--the ones I've seen on the carts, there's no mistaking them.  But they're usually on the bottom level, so you don't see them unless you look.

And some of the items are rather gelatinous, sitting in a thin dark brown sauce that doesn't stick to them and slides down into a pool on the plate.

Personally I love the gringo friendly dim sum (e.g. not chicken feet), but I know people who would not like it at all, so I've never even tried to get them to go.

In Toronto, cart service dim sum restaurants are a relic of the past for the most part.  High rent, fire codes and people just wanting things hot are one of many reasons.  Plus it's easier to ask waitstaff about ingredients than the (usually) older ladies who push carts.  Servers are more more fluent in English too.

[StatisticalOutlier]

6 minutes ago, PRgal said:

Plus it's easier to ask waitstaff about ingredients than the (usually) older ladies who push carts.

Do people really ask about ingredients?  In English?  I always acknowledged the point-and-eat aspect, and the understanding on everyone's part that communication wasn't going to happen. 

I'm a huge fan of pineapple buns and bbq pork buns, and Toronto is memorable because there was an area that had a bunch of Chinese bakeries and the buns were remarkably cheap.  Like pineapple buns at 3 or 4 for $1.00 or something insane like that.  But we were on a mission to try a bunch of different ones, so we had to pay the relatively high prices (like 75 cents each!) at other places.  The winner?  Any pineapple bun that's right out of the oven.

If you've going on a pineapple bun hunt in Vancouver, on the other hand, open your wallet.  Remarkably expensive.

And, tourist tip:  (1) Pineapple buns don't have pineapple flavor, and (2) bbq pork buns don't have to be refrigerated, so you can carry them with you for eating on the go, now and later.  Days later.

[annzeepark914]

I never knew people bought & ate chicken feet until someone brought them to the office (in Raleigh) as proof to a co-worker that yes, chicken feet were sold as food items. 

[PRgal]

52 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Do people really ask about ingredients?  In English?  I always acknowledged the point-and-eat aspect, and the understanding on everyone's part that communication wasn't going to happen. 

I'm a huge fan of pineapple buns and bbq pork buns, and Toronto is memorable because there was an area that had a bunch of Chinese bakeries and the buns were remarkably cheap.  Like pineapple buns at 3 or 4 for $1.00 or something insane like that.  But we were on a mission to try a bunch of different ones, so we had to pay the relatively high prices (like 75 cents each!) at other places.  The winner?  Any pineapple bun that's right out of the oven.

If you've going on a pineapple bun hunt in Vancouver, on the other hand, open your wallet.  Remarkably expensive.

And, tourist tip:  (1) Pineapple buns don't have pineapple flavor, and (2) bbq pork buns don't have to be refrigerated, so you can carry them with you for eating on the go, now and later.  Days later.

I often do due to food sensitivities.  I ask in English because my Cantonese is survival!  If I bring a friend who has major food sensitivities and I ask about cross contamination I can’t! 

[Bastet]

I grew up seeing chicken feet in dim sum restaurants and in soup at a (Chinese) friend's house, but I never tried them until I was an adult.  Why eating the foot was somehow different than eating the rest of the leg, I do not know.  Now they're in the grocery stores, so obviously many other people have gotten over their aversion, too.

I've never cooked them, though; they're good (tastes like chicken 😄) but nothing I crave, and I've always heard it's easy to get the texture wrong.

[Trini]

9 minutes ago, Bastet said:

Why eating the foot was somehow different than eating the rest of the leg, I do not know. 

Hardly any meat on 'em! 👎

(You do you, if you like them, of course)

[Bastet]

3 hours ago, Trini said:

Hardly any meat on 'em! 👎

(You do you, if you like them, of course)

But skin and bone impart the most flavor, so taste was clearly not the reason for my initial rejection.  It was the ingredient being unfamiliar and remaining a visible body part (like how some people won't eat whole fish because of the eyes) that had me shying away as a kid/teen.  If someone tries and dislikes chicken feet, groovy, but if someone will eat multiple other parts of the chicken but won't even try the feet, that's a myopic decision and one I was shortshighted enough to make for a while.

[lookeyloo]

My grandma, an old Jewish woman to me back then, (she was about 50 back then) came from Russia when she was 6, in 1905, to Central NJ. suburb of NYC.  Back then when I was old enough to go with her, we went to the chicken store where she picked out a live chicken and the fellow killed it and mostly plucked it and we went back home and she finished the plucking and sometimes there were egg yolks inside that she boiled with the chicken.  She saved the feet for herself because she thought they were a delicacy.  None of us complained.  She also said they made the soup jell up better when cold.  Probably so.