#one of my coworkers has used the oven mitt we have in our room to handle the cart and when he touches customer's trunks

[stellamancer]

I think I would enjoy summer more if I lived somewhere where... going outside in the summer didn’t feel like waking straight into a goddamn furnace. 

#nikuniku spam #my job requires going outside a fair amount and like #it's so fuckin' hot #one of my coworkers has used the oven mitt we have in our room to handle the cart and when he touches customer's trunks #i also #do not wear shorts/capris even though we are allowed because #people don't turn off their cars when they pick up and damn exhaust pipe heat is pretty killer lmao

[fernpost]

Cycle 3 - A Meal

[link to ao3]

[first] - [previous] - [next] 

“Do we not have it?” Lup’s voice, just on the edge of unadulterated panic, filters through the room. It is borderline sweltering, and they’ve been at it all day.

If they don’t have it, it’s all been for naught. Taako bites at his nail, racking his brain, “fuck, do we not?”

Lucretia is sitting across the room, writing down notes from the day before. Her hand stills as she looks up, “it’s missing?”

Lup wipes her brow, before snapping her fingers and dropping to her knees, opening a small cabinet. She digs frantically through what they have, “if it’s not here, there’s none. I’ve looked all over- we honestly should have had it sooner but there was so much to do and-”

Taako steps behind her, hands resting on his hips to feign casualness. Lup adjusts her position and curses as she hits her head. Taako is about to comment, when she gasps.

He is silent as she jolts backwards with a cry, hand held in the air in success, waving it in the air, “we have it!”

Taako pulls it from her grasp, making his way towards the stove. Lup follows close behind, “if we had used the rest of the garlic last week, I would have jumped ship in shame.”

“Can’t make Mama Davenport’s special meat stew without it. Who are we to surprise our great captain with subpar stew.” Taako peels it quickly, cutting it up and tossing it into the pot liberally, firm in his lifelong belief that no recipe can have too little of the perfect allium.

Lucretia smiles as she scribbles in both of her notebooks from the table, “and Taako couldn’t have transmuteted more because…?”

Handing the spoon to Lup, he turns with an affronted gasp, resting his hand dramatically against his chest, “Do you think me a subpar chef?” With a snort, he kneels to peek into the oven, checking the status of the bread they are baking, “but actually, transmuted food is never as good as the real stuff. You can always taste the difference. It’ll do in a pinch, but for the occasion the Taaco’s spare no expense.”

“Ah, of course.” She goes back to her writing, content in listening to the two of them cook more.

After a few more minutes of gentle stirring, Taako sends Lup to grab Barry from the lab, where he’s been pouring over the same notes for a few hours now. Magnus, Merle, and Cap’nport should be back within the next half hour, if the Sending note Taako received is to be believed.

Considering it’s from Merle, who's to say. But preserving the heat of a dish with magic is much easier than making a dish from scratch, so it won’t be the end of the world. Anyways, Taako will give Merle shit either way.

Taako hear’s Lup laugh as she approaches, so he knows she successfully managed to wrangle Barold away from his work. He is already tired of their strange almost-flirting rituals, but it’s nice to see Lup so excited about something, even if it is a nerd like Barry.

(Taako is steadfastly ignoring how much he enjoy’s Barry’s company himself. Or Magnus’s. Or Lucretia’s. Or how comforting it is to talk to Merle. Or how welcoming Davenport always is. It all means nothing. They’re all still his coworkers. He definitely never seeks out their company. He pretends not to think about how the last time he was around the same people this long was his aunt, and he pretends not to think about how that ended. And it never feels bad when they leave on dangerous missions to look for the Light. Never.)

“Lup, the bread!” Taako calls out, pulling the stew from the stove and bringing it over to the table. Lucretia picks her notebooks up, bringing them over to the small sitting room and leaving them on the rickety coffee table (it wasn’t always rickety. Magnus had been trying, apparently, to teach Barry a wrestling move Merle had described to him once. Mending only goes so far). Lup crosses the small kitchen quickly, grabbing the oven mitts from the counter and pulling the bread out. It smells absolutely divine, of course.

Barry hovers near the edge of the kitchen, hands hovering awkwardly in front of him, “can I help-”

“Not after last time, Bluejeans.” Taako places the lid on the stew, turning to the fridge to look for the cider bottles he knows are in there somewhere from a small market they found near the end of the last year.

“Can you grab the plates?” Lup asks as she removes the bread from the tin and begins cutting it. Barry is quick to help, pulling the plates down from the cabinet right next to her (he’s trying so hard to not brush against her, it’s almost sad). Once he has a stack of seven, he pulls out the utensils as well.

Lucretia stiffens from where she has made her way to the window in the sitting room, peering out. “They’re back!”

Barry glances over, almost overbalancing and dropping the silverware as he gets distracted. After he regains control of the plates, he asks, “how do they look?”

“No worse for wear. No one’s limping or missing anything important, at least.” She pauses, and squints, “I think Magnus is a little singed, though.”

“He’ll be fine.” Taako waves it off. The big guy not getting injured would be more surprising.

Lup is bringing the tray with the bread over when the front door opens. Taako places the last cider down before calling out, “oh Captain!”

“We have a surprise for you!” Lup yells.

“What do you-” Davenport pauses, and Taako has cooked enough for the gnome to know he is smelling the air. “Is that stew?” He rounds the corner with the others. He looks tired, thick bags hanging heavy under his eyes.

They were supposed to be gone a week for a recon mission, but Merle sent a message saying they’d be a few days later. About halfway through them being gone, Taako had started digging through the books Davenport brought. One was, for some reason, an old cookbook. It was covered in scribbled writing, and a note left at the beginning detailed how Davenport’s mother gifted it to him when he left for his first job on a ship. One recipe in particular had a sticky note marking it, and Taako had glanced through the recipe. It seemed easy enough, so he brought it to Lup to make.

If she had said anything about him being a sap, he’d deny it. He just enjoyed trying out a new recipe.

“Are we going to eat or just bask in the smell?” Taako sits at his normal seat, not waiting to begin to serve himself. He passes the ladle to Lup, watching as the others join them. Davenport remains standing, only moving when Magnus kicks his chair away from the table, gesturing for him to sit.

The ladle is passed to their captain, who scoops some of the stew and stares at it, “is this…” Davenport looks up at Lup and him, squinting, “did you two go through my cabin?”

An overlap of “no,'' and “Taako did,” answer his question, and Taako quickly slaps Lup on the arm. “Was just looking at your books. You expect me to not read a cookbook you’ve got hidden away?”

Davenport doesn’t answer. He scoops up some of the stew and sips at it, obviously hesitant. It’s quiet in the room, before he smiles, “almost as good as my mom made it.”

A cacophony of mockery aimed at Taako blusters out, his own voice just barely rising above as he defends his honor and abilities.

No one mentions how their captain looks a little misty-eyed. It’s been a long three years.

Later that night, Magnus approaches him and Lup as they play cards in the sitting room, vaguely describing a pie his dad used to make on Candlenights, asking if the two of them thought they could recreate it.

Taako is offended that he believes they can’t.

#lup #taako #lucretia #barry bluejeans #davenport #magnus burnsides #the stolen century #taz balance #my works

[thesimplyluxuriouslife]

253: 36 Ways to Welcome Joie de Vivre into Your Everyday Life

"I firmly believe that it's the little things we do that eventually add up to a happy life. I am not asking you to change everything about the way you live, but perhaps to reconsider a few details of your daily routine. Remember that joie de vivre is not revolutionary —but it is evolutionary." —Robert Arbor, author of Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living

Sixteen years French chef Robert Arbor released a book that offers a personal glimpse into his everyday routines which adhere to the French's simple approach to living well. With time split between living in Connecticutt and living in a country home in Flaujac-Poujol, France, with his wife and two sons, he shares how the secrets of the French are really quite simple when it comes to elevating the everyday.

Yes, it took me far too long to pick up this book, but as soon as I did, his words were music to my ears as he too celebrates and revels in the everyday routines, cultivate seemingly simple rituals that are savored and deeply appreciated. A way of life that is inspired by his own upbringing in Fontainebleau, France, just outside of Paris.

Many readers recommended Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living and many readers have shared they return to read this book often to reminders of how to slow down and savor the lives they have worked so hard to have the opportunity to live. Joie de Vivre is a gem of a resource for reminding ourselves of the beauty of life - understanding that our lives are made up everydays is all we need to do to recognize and embrace a truly contented life.

While I will certainly be picking up the book many times more in the future, having highlighted and annotated heavily throughout, I wanted to share 36 ideas Arbor shares in the book as an introduction to how grand the everyday can be, and how it truly is quite simple.

~Be sure to tune in and listen to the podcast episode and more discussion on each point is shared.

1.Breakfast - enjoy alone and make it nice or with a very close friend, someone you like - make it your personal time of the day.

2. Savor the buttery goodness of a croissant on weekend or for special occasions

~TSLL's homemade croissant recipe~

3. Cloth napkins for everyday dining

4. Cultivate a routine you enjoy around your breakfast and morning "to give a quick thought to each day's potential".

5. Cultivate your own potager (vegetable garden) to "grow a few things to eat fresh". And only grow what you love to eat and share.

6. Disperse flowers throughout your potager, let go of perfection and separation.

7. Place your fresh, delicate vegetables and fruits (tomatoes, courgettes, most fruit) in a compote on the kitchen counter to be reminded to use them immediately (or very soon).

"A big part of comprehending joie de vivre is understanding that enjoyment in day-to-day life is the true key to happiness. Finding happiness in small things means that ordinary days are filled with pleasures rather than obligations. Joyful anticipation of life's everyday events is part of bringing joie de vivre into your home in a lasting way."

8. Grow your own garden of herbs

9. Make food shopping enjoyable - visit a special shop, a farm stand or make it a social engagement.

10. Enjoy good, seasonal food and revel in it.

11. Welcome cheese into your eating regimen

12. Regularly frequent le marché in your area when available

"Great food and ingredients can be found anywhere. One just has to make more of an effort and decide on a lifestyle choice about the quality of the food."

~All You Need to Know About the Markets in Provence

13. Make the kitchen the center of the house, but it need not be state-of-the-art.

14. No need to spend a lot of money to have a pleasant workable kitchen - regular height chairs, let go of the high stools, so you can relax and enjoy conversation - sitting back, etc. Only purchase the equipment you will actually use and buy quality items that will last. Here are a few ideas: 3-4 pots with lids, a cast iron skillet (keep it seasoned), a teakettle on the stove for boiling water, a Dutch oven or cocotte, but again, only tools you will need for the food you and your household enjoy eating.

~Why Not . . . Use Simple Changes to Transform Your Kitchen?

15. Have the basic cooking utensils stocked in your kitchen so no matter what the season, you can make what you enjoy: 3 sharpened knives (paring, chef's and serrated), 2 cutting boards, earthenware jugs full of different wooden spoons and spatulas, a stainless-steel spoon and 8-oz ladle, perforated stainless steel spoon, tongs, a whisk, 3 graduated mixing bowls, a fine mesh strainer, hot mitts, a hand-cranked can opener, cork screw, cotton kitchen towels, and a scale, measuring cups and spoons, rolling pin if you are a baker.

~A Cook's Kitchen (necessary utensils)

~A Baker's Kitchen (necessary utensils)

16. A well stocked épicerie (pantry) with top-grade items (In TSLL's 2nd book, an entire chapter breaks down how to step into your kitchen and enjoy the everyday meals)

17. Tidy your kitchen as you go to make the space a place you enjoy stepping into each time.

18. Lengthen and deepen (full and satiating) your midday meal as much as possible.

"This is a time for stepping away from your work — even if you are eating with your coworkers—and talking and thinking about something else . . . Whatever the company, the conversation is always pleasant and positive. And that, naturally, adds to the pleasure and anticipation of lunch. It is a real break from the rest of the day. Le déjeuner is not about using time, it is about taking time."

19. Enjoy a picnic and make it comfortable

"I do love a picnic in the French style, which, of course, means comfort, comfort and more comfort. First of all, a French person is simply not going to eat on the ground. Although we might lounge around on a blanket later, it is much butter to eat sitting up."

20. Reserve Sunday to enjoy a big Sunday lunch, focusing on pleasure rather than obligation.

21. And grab that nap after the lengthy lunch to add regular moments of rejuventation .

"Remind yourself that sometimes the best ideas and solutions rise to the surface when you're not thinking so hard."

22. Grab an afternoon break regularly with la pause gourmande to give yourself a treat - "a treat with a purpose" and offer the perfect solution to the "afternoon blahs".

23. Enjoy dinner in the dining room regularly and offer the opportunity for everyone to contribute (whether by setting the table, etc.) somehow.

24. Unwind after dinner with a little dessert treat (nothing too grand), and partaking in something you enjoy on your own or with others so that you can go to bed happy and content.

25. Share dinner with friends with a casual dinner party - only invite people you truly like and don't "overstretch yourself".

~10 Ideas Gleaned & Confirmed from My last Dinner Party, episode #235

26. Create a warm and inviting atmosphere, which means you need to be able to be relaxed and enjoy the evening as well. The goal: good food, good conversation and good fun.

27. Begin with apéritifs - small nibbles and drinks.

28. Have very small groups of flowers on the table to create a welcome, but not cumbersome table to sit around and enjoy the meal.

29. Add candles to the dinner table either in glass hurricanes, or small tea lights spread around the tabletop.

30. Add a low volume lyric-less music to the background, as the conversation amongst friends is the best music.

31. Enjoy cheese and a vinaigrette dressed salad course after the main course prior to dessert.

32. Add water to the meal to be enjoyed while enjoying glasses of wine with each course.

33. Dessert need not be homemade when you have a favorite local patisserie.

34. Savor the winding down at the end of the day and do not skip this important part of each day. Cultivate a pleasant ritual, perhaps a different one for each season.

35. Make lavender-scented linen water to add an inviting scent to your bed linens.

36. Enjoy a good night's sleep

"Americans are fascinated with how the French manage to live so well, and so contentedly, in their ordinary, day-to-day life. It's not just about cooking, decorating, or entertaining — it's about enjoying all the small details of domestic life." —Robert Arbor

May your everydays be full of simple pleasures and moments of joy as well as you remember how extraordinary your life already is at this very moment.

~Order Robert Arbor's book Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living

~SIMILAR EPISODES/POSTS from THE ARCHIVES YOU MIGHT ENJOY:

~14 Ways to Eat Like the French —Savor Good Food, Don't Fear It, episode #175

~20 Ways to Incorporate Your Love for the French Culture into Your Everydays, episode #144

~The French Way: How to Create a Luxurious Everyday Life, episode #23

~View all French-Inspired podcast episodes here

Petit Plaisir

~Call My Agent (Dix Pour Cent)

https://youtu.be/RvM0ZrxBwFU

~Images: TSLL Instagram (@thesimplyluxuriouslife)

Tune in to the latest episode of The Simple Sophisticate podcast

#tsllpodcast thesimplesophisticate

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Editors Note: Don’t forget to vote in our current Prepper Journal Writing Contest!

Getting Gear

I will stand by physical fitness and know-how as two of the seriously overlooked areas in disaster preparation. They apply to all disasters; car accidents, annual storms, all the way up to whatever apocalypse you like. Even so, there are facets of preparedness that do require “stuff”. “Stuff” usually means spending. That can be a problem for beginners, for people trying to budget, and for preppers traveling when disaster strikes.

One way we can lower the burden on what must be bought is by taking a page from the homeless, the hobos of old, and modern hobos. Other times, we can cut costs by heading to a different “department” to get our survival and grid-down supplies.

Good gear matters. “Get good gear over cheap” is excellent advice. But sometimes, you don’t really need gear to be all that good. And sometimes, you don’t have to spend extra – or anything at all – to get perfectly serviceable preps.

Steel “Tin” Cans

It would be the rare soul who doesn’t run across any soup, fruit, veggie, bean, pie filling, or pasta sauce cans. If we don’t buy or use them often, we can probably score some from coworkers or family, or from along ditches, in recycling boxes, or near park campsites (those … mutter-mutter).

Cans can serve a lot of functions for us, from pots to filters to stoves.

So, first meal, eat one of the bigger cans of fruit or beans, and you can build from there. If you’ve got a hammer and nail, some wire off a chain link fence or from a coat hanger, or some light chain, you’ve got a billy pot for over campfires, on the grill, or over candles – or, a way to transport smoldering coals and save matches.

Give it a pinch at the lip using pliers, snips, or your thumb and a rock, hammer, or file, and you can dimple a pour spout and have a fancy kettle for your disaster cooking.

With the next can, make a water filter using rock and sand, with activated charcoal an ideal “bottom” layer. Pre-filtering will extend the working life of any “real” filters you have, or clarify your water before you boil it. Socks or a cleaned mayo or peanut butter tub can be used to transport your filter.

With your now-clean water and a can or two from the next meal, mix up some bannock to bake on tuna cans or make slicing loaves in bigger cans. Any packaged baking mix – muffins to cake to waffles, with or without yeast or beer for breads – can be used for bannock (or griddle cakes, if you have oil or Pam).

If you have a can that will fit over your pie plate (tuna can) or loaf pan (soups, fruit, tomatoes), you can bake faster and more evenly. Those covers help boil water or heat foods faster.

You can also use your tuna cans to poach foraged eggs or cuisses de grenouille, while your billy pot simmers your pine and creeping Charlie tea or dandelion and cattail soup.

If you have tin snips or good wire cutters (tin snips and wire cutters are really handy tools, period), the sky becomes the limit with your cans.

You can use smaller or cut-down cans for Crisco, alcohol, or oil-based stoves. Larger cans can be cut to sit overtop those, or used in conjunction with all kinds of candle stoves. You can also cut and bend larger tin cans, line with foil to hold campfire coals or charcoal, and add a light baker’s cooling rack, light grill rack, a chunk removed from a grocery buggy with wire cutters to make a grill. Rocket stoves are another option, and hugely efficient.

Cans are also handy to keep you from messing up good pots anytime you want to melt wax – like for waterproofing matches or fire starters or dipping candles – and can eliminate some of the scrubbing if you decide to render down small amounts of animal fats.

A Good Knife

When you shop or price-compare online, specifically eliminate “tactical” from your search results. Type it in your search engine: “—tactical”. Pretty much always, but especially buying bags, boots, and knives, you pay for that word … without always getting extra quality with it.

Full disclosure: I love my Kershaw pocket knife, and I breathe a sigh of relief every time I unroll my Cabella’s butcher set. That said, my fishing kits all have box cutters from the Dollar Tree in them. They work well enough that as I sit in my current life spending $400 a month on Heartgard and NexGard to maintain my 18-36 month stash, I still have them in there.

Remember, an inexpensive fishing license is one of the reasons I can afford those dogs. It’s not like they’re not getting used.

My first camping-hunting-packing do-all blade was not from a sporting goods section, either. It was a scimitar-styled “cleaner” kitchen knife. I periodically find them as carving knives now. Blame it on habit, they’re my go-to – as is entertaining family and friends with samurai and pirate noises when I snag one.

It had a thick blade, a clip-point, and a full tang. I looked back and forth between the wooden handled kitchen knife and the equivalent “decent” (not “good”) woodsman knife, and I opted to pay half as much. Some cardboard, three buttons, dental floss, and $2 Goodwill cowboy boots, and I had a serviceable scabbard.

It feathered sticks, cut thick rope and cardboard, and butchered. I rarely baton wood, but I did use it to chip little V’s in the top and bottom of branches so I could “bounce-pull” or stomp-kick to break them.

Will today’s craftsmanship hold up the same? Probably not. Still, compare apples to apples the quality of steel, the tang and grip, and the versatility of shape you’re getting between kitchen and hunting or survival knives.

Dollar Tree Candles

We’ve all heard “you get what you pay for”. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes, though, what you’re paying for is a label or logo, marketing and advertising, and cart collectors (see Aldi’s business model). Sometimes, it’s worth “cheap”.

I buy Dollar Tree emergency candles, even though those are now 4.5-hour candles instead of 5-6 hour candles. They’re comparable to Coughlin’s emergency candles in scent, blackening, wick care, and flame steadiness, and I’ve never had them melt in whatever temp a black camper shell reaches when it’s 110 degrees outside.

I don’t buy their tea lights or votives. I don’t dislike them, I just buy bulk online. Wherever you get them, make sure the tea lights are the type with metal shells, not plastic. It’ll give you more versatility.

Dollar Tree also carries some pretty sizeable pillar and jar candles. I find them to be no shorter-lived or “sootier” than candles from Walmart or Bed, Bath & Beyond, just a whole lot less moolah.

Any of those candles can be used in conjunction with a tin can camping or emergency stove. You can use any of them to turn your oven into a stovetop during outages, or to bake in your toaster oven.

While you’re in the dollar store, don’t forget to check for a candle holder, hotplate (candle aisle) and oven mitt for your vehicle bag and your SIP/evac kit.

Other Dollar Tree Preps

If you shop at dollar stores, be aware of the unit-per-price locally and online, and the quality of items. Still, there are things at the Dollar Tree that I either can’t find elsewhere, would pay more, and that allow incremental purchases for tight budgets – and thus more well-rounded preparedness rather than a single outlay that only covers part of a need.

I wouldn’t buy duct tape, flashlights, foil, bandanas, q-tips or cotton balls for cleaning ears (they’re fine as a medical dabber or fire starter), or storage bags.

I’m not a fan of those green-lid Tupperware, either, but glance around them. There’s Betty Crocker storage tubs in a variety of sizes that do live a nice, long time and seal well. That’s an excellent way to keep various kits organized and dry, and way cheaper than Walmart.

I can spend 1.5-4x as much on shelf-stable pepperoni and salami, or a buck a pop on the same size/weight product. Same goes for some of the canned goods, soaps, and long sheaves of cleaning sponges. For the most part, the jute for garden, gift wrap, or wick or fire-starter use is fine – no need to spend more. Flip side: I don’t buy rope or bungees at dollar stores.

I’d rather see somebody with $20 and 3-5 family members get ten sets of jersey “liners” and leather “shells” than only 1-3 pairs of better gloves, total.

In other cases, I don’t actually need items to be of lasting quality. If I’m working through a short-term emergency, Dollar Tree aluminum bread and pie pans work just fine to keep candles from spilling and shelter them from drafts.

For cakes, starting a campfire, or inside a tin can or jar to burn off some dampness and chill in a survival shelter, Dollar Tree birthday candles do us just fine – they’re only getting used twice, at most (I reuse birthday cake candles in my bags and fire kits). Why spend more?

Bootstrap Preparedness

Check out news features about modern hobos for some of their survival tips. Even when it’s not a focus, there are clues for living with little or no income. Another major source for eliminating and reducing costs are curbside pickups.

A used or wrecked kiddie pool can become stash-back water catchment or a tarp. The “shrink wrap” thrown away after winterizing boats and unwrapping pallets has tons of applications. Plants have no idea if they’re growing in a $15-50 pot or a free trash can, storage tote, or filing cabinet drawer. They don’t know you got their mulch by raking pine straw instead of buying it, or that their weed barrier and your fire starter is cardboard from a liquor store or moving company.

There are lots of ways we can cut the cost of preparedness and hit bare minimums. It lets us expand elsewhere and buy some breathing room, without leaving us vulnerable in the meantime.

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from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

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