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https://www.glutarama.com/dairy-free-baileys-recipe/

I used this recipe today to make vegan Bailey's and it SLAPS SEVERELY.

Notes: I used 500ml of oat milk instead of any cream, and the texture is pretty good. Could have used some cream but wouldn't be worth it for how little it would need. I'd add a bit less whiskey though. It may be a TINY bit strong. Maybe 200ml instead of 250.

Pilau rice is surprisingly easy to make so I'm gonna post recipe here.

1. Wash and drain ur rice. However much u want for ur meal.
2. Optional: fry an onion.
3. Put rice in pot. Put oil in pot. Fry the rice with spices. I used let's say half a teaspoon of pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, garlic powder, salt, coriander, fennel seeds. Lots of turmeric, like a tablespoon maybe. Stir it up until all the rice is yellow and coated with spice and it smells nice and toasty.
4. Pour in however much water cooks ur rice amount. Add some chicken stock if you're feeling spicy.
5. Cook it however long you cook ur rice. Idk all rice is different ur the expert on your own rice.
6. The rice will taste so good I am literally just eating spoonfuls of it.

NAK'S FENNEL SEED AND CHOCOLATE COOKIE RECIPE.

INGREDIENTS

120g softened butter
100g brown sugar
50g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
160g flour
200g chocolate chips (or smashed chocolate bar)
5g fennel seeds

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Crush fennel seeds and chocolate. I smash them with a rolling pin.
3. Mix softened butter and sugar until combined and only just beginning to lighten
4. Fold in egg and vanilla extract
5. Add the dry ingredients and mix
6. Place on baking tray in large blobs. I used a heaping tablespoon. Not too close because they'll spread
7. Bake for 9 minutes, or until golden and no longer wet on top
8. Let cool. ENJOY THE DELICIOUS TASTE OF FENNEL SEED.

EXPRESSING EXTREME INTEREST. This sounds incredibly fun!!!

More of a general question than a Book Club one, but what do y'all do to sit down with a book and focus on it, away from worldly distractions? I've been wanting to get back to reading more but it's hard to find the right way to get my mind to that place and commit to it.

If I'm starting a new book, I need to do it on public transport or while waiting for an appointment at the doctor's or similar, so that it gets a good attempt at sticking in my brain long enough for me to pick it back up. And then if I'm on the bus again I'll be like "oh right, book!". This may not work exactly if you don't use public transport that often but you may have similar periods of time that's otherwise hard to fill.

Okay, thoughts on Carmilla!

Sorry but you are not allowed to view spoiler contents.

Okay, so I finally have a physical copy, and uh. When the description was lesbian vampires I was thinking like, gal pals with maybe love implied. But wow this goes hard immediately. I have some mild spoilers cause I've seen random pages - but I like spoilers - mostly I'm just surprised by how unabashedly gay it is. So many snuggles and declarations of attraction! Once I'm done reading it I really wanna read some reviews from the time.

She used to come down very late, generally not till one o'clock, she would then take a cup of chocolate, but eat nothing; we then went out for a walk, which was a mere saunter, and she seemed, almost immediately, exhausted, and either returned to the schloss or sat on one of the benches that were placed, here and there, among the trees. This was a bodily languor in which her mind did not sympathize. She was always an animated talker, and very intelligent.

"me"

I was invited to a secret club today! It's the people from [REDACTED] but it's a secret cause it's not all the people from [REDACTED].

Here's a poem that came up in school and I thought was neat, and just now googled and found out the context was very different from what I had initially thought. Try guessing! :D

One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.




When I first read this I was pretty sure it was about dementia, which at the time a relative was suffering with - the perspective of someone who is becoming used to losing their memories and being unable to keep track of the events of their life. It starts off with forgetting names and places, then having trouble remembering keys and this causing panic, then forgetting whole sections of their life story, embodied by 'losing two cities', 'a continent'. Finally, losing the ability to recognize their loved ones, but having lost enough connection to their expression and emotions that 'it's no disaster'.

So uh turns out it's probably a lot more literal than I thought - the author did keep actually losing things that mattered to her, and literally leaving cities and continents. The author was also prooobably gay, spending much of her life in what Wikipedia calls "intimate relationships" with other women, but this was kept secret. At the time of writing this poem, her, uh, companion had just gotten married to a man, and the poem was repeatedly redrafted to make the "even losing you" stanza as vague as possible, which I think is kind of a form of loss and acceptance in itself. It's apparently about personal healing and growth after loss, being like, yup, it sucks, but I'm getting so good at recovering!

I... still prefer the dementia interpretation more tbh, it seems so close to what my relative was going through, even unintentionally. Death of the author and all that. But also I wish my English teachers had been able to say at the time "this may have been influenced by queerness", cause this is like the third thing I've looked back on where it seems like it would be relevant but was ignored :P

Packed Lunch, by Tanvi Roberts

Still I remember the care he took each morning: rising early, like steam
from the green at the bottom of our street, not with the breaking
of light or out of any need, but with his sleep cut short
by the alarm. In his pyjamas he'd walk, slowly, blinking his eyes
into waking. And I – can you believe it – would be angry, as only
a well-loved child can be, even to hear his alarm, for it disturbed
me. I slept well and longer, woke up, panicked, gunned down the stairs
to find him there, in the kitchen, walled in by stacks of Hovis crusts,
tomatoes bled into a steel katori – for otherwise, the sandwiches would go
soggy. Whirlwind of adolescent importance, I picked them up and slung
them into my bag, barely thinking, I never looked
back. I savoured the luxury of walking away, of ignoring the man
behind bread, which was lunch, which was love, which was cut
into triangles, which was neatly packed.

[Just Talk About the Weather]

One of my favourite poets right now is Jay Hulme, a queer religious poet. I think my favourite of his less religious poems is Just Talk About the Weather

They told me not to swear at the bishop,
I said not to worry,
said I knew small talk when I saw it,
said what a shitty day for a party;
it's pissing it down out there.
Did it fuck up your fancy hat?

This is fantastic! I've heard of him + seen some of his religious poems, which I didn't really connect to as much, but this is so playfully irreverent I love it :P I shall have to investigate more!

[The Orange - Wendy Cope]

Hello! I want to read more poetry! Please share some poetry you like (either posted here or by a link), and perhaps your thoughts on that poetry, and your thoughts on the poetry that is here.

Let's start with a cheerful classic!

The Orange - Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.



It's so simple and lovely! Just the contentment of a life, finding things to take joy in, sharing those things out with friends and doing Stuff. And the rhythm is so easy and simple and smooth, just like the life it's portraying. A peaceful, ordinary existence depicted in a little poem with the vibrancy of a juicy orange!

Shorter terms good! Shorter transition period also good. It does seem kind of confusing having all of them be the same dates except February, and also having the variation in transition periods - would it be possible to shift it to January/April/July/October, with some kind of provision for them happening late for the first go round? Or time them so they start at the start of the month so that there doesn't have to be all the date variation? But it's not a massive deal, so.

Finally, Hanne's done. She hangs up her apron, puts her piercings back in, and runs the new burn on her forearm under cold water for a moment. Off with the regulation uniform black shirt, on with the... well, still a black shirt but it's softer, doesn't smell faintly of milk, and has outlines of fox on it, which is cute.

On her way out, as she's squeezing behind a table, Tarragon yells to her from the counter - "Hanne! Before you go. Here."

One Hanne fights her way over to the counter, he hands over a cupholder with six coffees in paper cups and a box of pastries balancing on top, all wrapped up with a big striped red and green ribbon. Hanne tips her head to the side - "Tarra, I'm sure I'm about to feel very flattered, but uh... why?"

"It's for those lot over City Hall," Tarragon says with a smug grin. "Nhysa wants us to get on their good side so she can run that big Elhek's-victory-over-the-spiders-day event." Nhysalynn - their boss, a very short woman who is apparently insistent on befriending every single person in Summit and then charging them absurd prices to take place in strangely themed raffles. Tarragon actually likes her for some reason Hanne can't fathom. He nudges the cupholder closer to Hanne until it's poking just off the edge of the counter, "And you're heading that way anyway, right?"

Hanne is quite sure that getting her to deliver goods after her shift is over goes against some kind of labor regulation but quite frankly she's probably lucky to have this job so she simply nods. Tarragon gives her a cheery little wave as she leaves, and Hanne gives back a curt nod.

She crosses the road, balancing the package precariously against her chest. By the library she passes a woman scrolling through a tablet, not even looking at it - Hanne recognizes a technomage when she sees one. Really she should have studied technomancy. That's what's in demand these days, not elemental magic. Who needs to work with the elements directly when you can get a machine to do it for you? Even the cafe had hesitated before hiring Hanne - they'd just installed a coffee maker for technomages to mentally interface with, and Hanne's partially there in case the machine goes down and they need to rely on old-fashioned coffee for a bit.

Is it too late to retrain as a technomage? Probably. Hanne's just turned 24 and half of her life has been devoted to the branch of magic she loves, despite advice to the contrary. She's terrible with technology but the elements come easy to her. For example: the cupholder and box of pastries are an awkward shape to carry, so Hanne lets it drift in midair in front of her, a smooth wind holding it up and stable. A cold wind, specifically. She's sure City Hall will really appreciate Nhysa's little gift. Who doesn't love lukewarm coffee? And maybe she can make some little quip when she delivers it, mention that Nhysa said they liked it this way. Maybe a comment about all the events the cafe holds, said in the tone of someone forced at gunpoint to recite an advertisement. Perhaps she can ask if they have any advice for an elemental mage who can't -

The wind drops, and Hanne snaps out of her thoughts to realise that the coffee is no longer in the cups and is now all over a person.

"Oh shit," she exhales, "I'm so sorry." Thinking fast, she rifles in her bag - "Look - I have a shirt you can borrow if you want to change, there are bathrooms in the library, erm, the cafe can pay you back if you have serious injuries..."

It started, as many things do, with a book.

The Elementary Guide to Elements, to be exact. Hardly a masterpiece; a garish little slab of a book with advice outdated even at the time of its release and an author that seemed far too impressed with his own attempts at humor. But for seven year old Hanne it had been a revelation. She'd sneak it out from her parents' bookshelves and hide under her bedcovers to read it, her eyes straining in the dark, attempting to make flame spark from her fingers. Fortunately, she had been too young then for real magic. Only years later did it occur to her that beds were flammable. But by then she had already fallen in love with magic, knew she would become a mage. She'd planned it all out, the path she had to study, more books to read, spells to practice -

"Hanne!" hisses Tarragon, "do you have the drinks yet for table six? I'm taking their sandwiches out, hurry up."

"Ah," Hanne says eloquently, and gets back to work.

She checks the orders that have piled up, searching for table six - ah, one orange tea, one latte with deer milk. While the coffee grinds in its drum, Hanne boils the water for the tea, putting her hand to the side of the pot and sending a rush of fire through it until it's near simmering. She pours out half a jug of deer milk, which is usually about right but she's terrible at the measurements, and sets to steaming it, hot air bubbling up from the base of the jug until the milk forms an acceptable level of foam and the roaring sound of the air reduces in frequency. All the glasses they use for lattes are dirty; Hanne crosses over to the sink, adds some soap, plunges her hands into the basin, and makes the water wash the dishes for her. Plucking out a glass, the water evaporating instantly, Hanne assembles the latte, and then the teacup, saucer and spoon, and then takes them over to table six - "sorry for the wait!"

On her way back to the counter she glances out the window, at the library over the road, at the typical Summit weather, at the streets full of people. And when she returns somehow there are six more drinks to make. At least her shift is over soon.

All the stories Hanne tells to herself about her great inspiration, all the magical skills she's acquired, all the passion. It all boils down to this, she thinks as she spins a whirl of hot air through the next order, a storm in a teacup.