I guess I needn’t have brought a book to this Chongqing spicy noodle shop because THEY’RE PLAYING NIRVANA IN FIRE Episode 50 oh no JINGYAN BBY
Mary
@kilerkki.bsky.social
I read voraciously, write occasionally, and take a lot of photos of food and cats. Queer, married, she/her. 🇨🇦
Dreamed Supernatural returned with Sam & Dean investigating a Black Water Demon that moved through the pipes to infect a young mother, her care team, & Dean himself; but as great as it was to see the Winchester Boys again, I am now TERRIFIED to get up and go to the bathroom.
Last pasta sauce of the season? I had to buy Romas at the farmer’s market to supplement our balcony-grown San Marzanos and Early Girls. Italian sausage, balcony herbs, Ontario red wine, and my umami best friends: doenjang, soy sauce, & Parmesan rind. (Plus 5 hours’ simmer time.)
help us 90s rachel leigh cook's problematic anti-drug psa, you're our only hope
If you have a chance to see All Wishes Come True! (八仙!) in theatres, TAKE IT. Absolutely stunning animation & fight choreography, creative xianxia worldbuilding, hilarious & touching script. 100% worth the price of admission. (Don’t get movie theatre popcorn tho. That’s worse than you remember)
This weekend we went Away, to a charming little hotel in an artsy small town on the shore of Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay. We’ve walked lakeshore trails, marveled at the sunset over the harbor, hiked through hardwood forests and limestone caves, relaxed in hammocks, and eaten some very good food.
A malatang hotpot place near us is doing a promo where you bring in your heaviest book, weigh it, & get a proportional deduction from your ingredients’ weight while you read & eat hotpot. So now I’m feverishly calculating which of my 800+ page cookbooks is heaviest…
Humble Bundle is running a 38-volume C.J. Cherryh collection, including what looks like all the Chanur & Morgaine books, as well as most of the Foreigner sequence & Alliance-Union books. Incredible deal: www.humblebundle.com/books/best-c...
Humble Book Bundle: The Best of C.J. Cherryh by Daw Books
Enter new universes of adventure and mystery with this bundle of ebooks by C.J. Cherryh! Pay what you want and support BINC!
humblebundle.com
Made this peach loaf today! Added walnuts in the batter and rolled oats to the streusel; used only brown sugar bc apparently we’re out of white? Next time I’ll add a bit more cinnamon & cardamom to batter too. There WILL be a next time: this is fantastic.
smitten kitchen@smittenkitchen.bsky.social · last mo.New! A magnificent dream of a loaf cake studded with wedges of tender, spiced, pie-like peaches and finished with a craggy streusel. It took me six summers to get this right but all of the best things are worth the wait. smittenkitchen.com/2026/08/peac...
4.5 qts of balcony-grown San Marzano & Early Girl tomatoes, cooked down into 8 cups of tomato sauce with balcony-grown herbs (oregano, thyme, rosemary, & basil), local garlic, and red wine from the shores of Lake Ontario.
New! A magnificent dream of a loaf cake studded with wedges of tender, spiced, pie-like peaches and finished with a craggy streusel. It took me six summers to get this right but all of the best things are worth the wait. smittenkitchen.com/2026/08/peac...
“[T] the demand these women are expressing is not primarily for bodies. It is for a moment — just one moment — of being the one who looks, the one who desires, the one whose appetite the world has arranged itself to satisfy. … [A] forgiveness of all the ways life has disappointed.”
Sighing at the Spring Breeze — China's unlikeliest sellout
Bare-chested men in hanfu are filling second-tier city theaters across China, one screaming audience at a time.
northwardseaside.substack.com
Just ate this entire (delicious) bowl of Chongqing pea & minced pork noodles by myself bc 1) it was too spicy to bring home to my delicate wife & 2) if I’d given up at any point the laoban would have thought I was conquered by the spice, which I was NOT. but now I’m ~83% noodles by volume.
Telling our boy cat he doesn’t HAVE to come in from the sunny balcony to accompany me to the bathroom, I won’t perish if I leave his line of sight for 30 seconds, I don’t need a guardian to watch me at all times— Paladin: oh okay, you want me to sit outside the door and CRY
One of the great parts of a cross-cultural marriage is explaining literary allusions to each other. “Why do we say speak of Cao Cao and he appears, was he really ambushing everyone everywhere all the time???” vs “Mary Magdalene dried Jesus’ feet with her HAIR??? Wasn’t she wearing CLOTHES?????”
Courtney Milan@courtneymilan.com · last mo.I am actually fine with teaching the Bible as literature, or as an adjunct to history, not religion, but we should not limit ourselves to the Bible as the only religious literature/history taught
Quick trip down to Niagara again this morning for peaches and pastries. Every day with @meowbrey.bsky.social at my side is the best day.
Lingering near the mason jar display in Canadian Tire trying to convince myself that despite this year’s renovation bringing some much-needed storage space to our tiny condo, our lovely little kitchen still doesn’t have room for me to become a Person Who Cans— (But what if!??)
Tried a new-to-us Shenyang-style barbecue place tonight! Cooking over charcoal gives the meat an amazing flavour, and the deep fried rice cakes were a delightful discovery. Every meal ends with toasted marshmallows—perfection.
Mom finally read Robin McKinley’s PEGASUS (2010) and texted us in distress about the (nonexistent) ending, thereby giving elder sister and me a chance to revisit 16-year-old rage: you ASOIAF fans thought YOU had it bad? (Going on 20 years’ wait for Melanie Rawn’s THE CAPTAL’S TOWER, too).
Last week I sent these photos to my family group chat, and my oldest niece said “I’m finishing up my internship in Detroit next Friday, how about I come over and help you eat another shawarma.” And this weekend she CAME and we DID!!
Mary@kilerkki.bsky.social · 2mo agoFoodie crawl on Shawarma Row in Scarborough today. Unfortunately with only two stomachs we tapped out after only two places, but the Iraqi mixed shawarma in fresh tandoor bread and the Syrian beef kebab on a tomato-seared saj were both incredible. We’ll be back for more!
Dinner tonight is Smitten Kitchen’s peach & burrata salad with mint, pistachios, and hot honey; served with toasted Asiago sourdough & a few slivers of prosciutto.
Playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 about a year and a half after everyone else, and I just finished the Act I climax: WOW. Also, hello Ben Starr Clive FF16!!! I’ve missed your growl.
Foodie crawl on Shawarma Row in Scarborough today. Unfortunately with only two stomachs we tapped out after only two places, but the Iraqi mixed shawarma in fresh tandoor bread and the Syrian beef kebab on a tomato-seared saj were both incredible. We’ll be back for more!
Overnight, a masked bandit broke into our kitchen. Armed with opposable thumbs, he proceeded to sample everything on offer. I’d just visited the farmers market, so the menu was extensive. I can now share a highly specific peer-reviewed list of what this particular raider did & did not enjoy. 🧵
Raccoon's Evil Smile: 'Good, Good'
Alt: Raccoon's Evil Smile: 'Good, Good'
static.klipy.com
Spatial constraints dictate priorities: 50% of my books are in storage but those on display are first organized by size (heaviest below, solid hardbacks at edges, mmpb inside) & theme, then author (with authors I think would be friends or particularly exciting enemies next to each other). You?
Immigrant Punk@porcupunk.eurosky.social · 2mo agoEnough of the horrors and doom scrolling. Let's talk about something fun. How do you arrange your books?