That’s what we used emulsified sauces for (in addition to flavoring) when I was working in kitchens. Mayo for instance is a tasty sauce, but it’ll also prevent the bread from absorbing moisture from the other fillings.

I don’t know why, I’m pretty sure hotdogs are more expensive per pound than ground beef at my local shop. 70/30 (which is fattier than I normally purchase) was $3/lb last time I was there, hotdogs are almost double that. Maybe that’s just a local thing?

I think this labelling is just marketing. Given the name of the product contains “hamburger” they can assume anyone buying it already knows they can add ground beef. I think they just added hotdogs to the label to give people ideas about other proteins they can use.

It’s been decades since I’ve eaten Hamburger Helper, but I recall liking it more with hotdogs.

It’s a fiber supplement, helps stuff move along and kind of fends off hunger until lunch since I’m fasting (except for the protein powder) 18 hours every weekday.

Weekdays: 5g psyllium husk, 5g creatine, 30g whey protein, double Turkish coffee, 1 liter of water.

Weekends: 3 thick cut slices of bacon, small potato grated and fried into hash browns, 2 eggs sunny side up, pour over coffee, in addition to the weekday supplements.

My wife eats oatmeal or a French omelette during the week, which I make. And something more hearty on the weekend, depending on her workout schedule.

There are some of us who wake up early to work out and have breakfast with our significant others before work. You don’t have to be old to appreciate spending time together, or make room for it in your life.

My wife leaves for work at 7:30a, I’ve been up since 5:30a spending the morning with her. Sometimes those two hours are the highest quality time we’ll spend together all day, fewer distractions.

Why not have both? I’ve lived in the western US my entire life, but I think pickled herring is delicious, and I made rillettes (which is like a pate) just the other day.

Rich people aren’t even in the graphic, they’re way off the top of the scale. The top of this graph doesn’t even get you into the top 5% in my state.

You sound reasonable, and I don’t have all the information, but maybe I can play devil’s advocate.

Suppose your friend is actually a good dad, and is using his time without his kids around to catch up with his friends, listen to what’s topical in your life, and then do something other than talk about his kids?

This is a non-rhetorical good faith question: should kids be the sole focus of their parent’s lives once they have them?

I agree that kids need to be the top priority once people have them, no question there. But aren’t parents allowed to have lives of their own as well?

I don’t have kids and I’m at the age where most of my friends have them. The folks I knew whose only focus was on their kids gradually phased out of the group. Many of those people ended up divorced unfortunately. The parents I see regularly spend most of their time on their kids, but also have hobbies and interests outside of just kid stuff.

People who have their own lives in addition to being good parents seem to be happier and more well rounded. It also makes connecting with them easier for people without kids. I’m up to date on their kids, go to birthdays, and occasionally babysit. We have kid friendly dinners at each other’s homes, go camping with kids, etc… But we also go out once in awhile without them, catch games, play golf.

I feel like that’s healthier.

I generally agree with you, with my one exception being The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, fantastic movie.

With the lapels meeting so high on the chest I’m not sure that person is wearing a vest, so I’m guessing a 2-piece

The apocryphal story is actually kind of interesting.

Roads and right of way established during the pre-firearm era were that you’d ride on the left, with people going the opposite way on your right. This was so you could use your dominant hand (usually your right) to use a sword to defend yourself.

Roads after firearms were available often established right of way with riding on the right, with oncoming traffic on the left. This is because when you shoulder a firearm on your right shoulder it’s easier to aim left.

Stagecoach drivers would sit in the left seat, with the extra person sitting on the right, holding a shotgun, hence the colloquial term for the front passenger seat.

I have no idea how true this is, but it makes for an interesting story.

You’re being obtuse. Separate men’s and women’s clubs work just fine IRL. Sports, social, and charity are just a few examples in my local community which are thriving.

Again, you make some great points, especially about profit motive and lack of strong consumer rights.

If I want a smoker I can monitor on the fly I will look at something like that thermometer paired with a standard steel smoker that will last decades.

When I’m not going old school with my stick burner I run a Yoder YS640S with a Fireboard controller. The Yoder is an extremely high quality pellet smoker which given proper maintenance will last longer than I’ll be alive. It and the Fireboard are designed, built, and shipped from the US (where I live), which is also nice. I don’t know exactly how Fireboard runs their cloud services, but from looking at the privacy policy and sniffing the unit’s traffic (a few years ago) it looks like Google Cloud and Analytics. They also disclose that if you use the Fireboard outside of the US, that your data will be stored and processed in the US, which is interesting, but may be misleading.

Fireboard is an interesting company, they started out by making temperature monitors and blowers for retrofitting into home built smokers, which I think is pretty cool.

I had a fire unrelated to my smoker which destroyed the smart bits of the Yoder, and both Yoder and Fireboard customer support were excellent to work with to help me rebuild my smoker.

I’m not stanning for either of these companies, perhaps just explaining why I’ve opted to make some tradeoffs for the convenience this particular product offers.

If I need to adjust it remotely I will look at why I need this option first: is it realistic that I would just adjust it without checking the contents?

Yes. I’m primarily looking at internal temp curves. Sometimes that prompts a simple pit temp change, sometimes it means I need to interact with the contents like spraying or wrapping. I’ve cooked often enough on this unit to know what the contents look like and how they react to smoke given the internal and pit temp curves.

Generally speaking I agree with your take on garbage consumer products being designed to extract money from the consumer before crapping out early and being thrown away. I think I’ve done well to select the products I have to keep that from being the reality with my pellet smoker.

Depending on the internal temperature curve I may need to change cook temps in the pit, which I can do remotely. I also monitor the curve to determine when to spray and wrap, and other activities, depending on what is smoking.

You make some good points.

I live a mile and a half from the ocean and run my smoker for long periods. It’s really nice to monitor and change the temp while I’m drinking the beer you refer to from the sand. I make a few quick runs back up the hill to tend to things, but mostly I’m free to be elsewhere for the 12-ish hours the smoker is running. It’s really nice, not a hard requirement, but really convenient.

I guess it depends on what you consider passable.

It’s loud enough on 25% to disturb my neighbors, it’s clear and defined enough for me to watch normally and hear everything at 7%. There’s no observable delay, and the installation is clean enough to make my wife happy. It wasn’t cheap, but I wouldn’t consider it expensive.

Some films are meant to be watched in large formats with insane audio that just can’t be replicated at home. The Dune movies and Oppenheimer are a few recent examples I can think of that looked incredible in 70mm IMAX. I live in a major metro area and there are only 3 screens within 50 miles capable of showing 70mm properly. I choose to go out of my way to these theaters once or twice a year, if a great film is showing.

Short of films shot and shown in a true large format there’s no way you’ll find me in a theater.

I’ll watch content on small screens if I’m on a plane. Otherwise it’s my 80" living room TV with passable surround sound.

Having itchy palms because of an allergy might happen commonly in terms of a large population, but it is not common to have this condition. If it happens to you then you should get it looked at instead of biting them. This is the correct and acceptable response. Putting your hands in your mouth and using your teeth because something is wrong with your palms does not need to be normalized.

If people have itchy palms for any reason, I’m not shaming them. I’m pointing out that putting your hands in your mouth is strange.

I don’t know why, but ok?

Itchy palms sounds more like an allergic reaction than a common issue.

People have itchy palms? Itchy enough that they bite them?

That’s fucking weird.

That’s literally never happened to me, it sounds super strange. Are y’all putting stuff on your hands that’s tearing up your skin? Do you moisturize regularly?

I have sensitive skin, but spend a lot of time in a kitchen with wet hands. Unscented soap to wash my hands about a dozen times a day, and unscented moisturizer to keep my skin from cracking. I’ll use a thicker waxy moisturizer during the winter when it’s really dry out.

I use my hands for weightlifting and golf, so I have to manage my callouses, and in the kitchen I’ll pick up various small cuts and burns. My hands don’t look perfect but they’ve never… itched?