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What silly thing do you argue about with your significant other?
I don't think my wife and I are that weird here, but we have jokingly exaggerated arguments about stupid things we don't really care about. For example, She loves desserts a la mode. I have an apparently hot take that a la mode makes the hot dessert cold and the ice cream melted, and ice cream is better on the side.
Does anyone else do this, and if so, what do you argue about?
We bought a tableware set that has 2 different sizes of serving spoons, larger and smaller. I call the larger sized spoons the "normal spoons" and the smaller ones the "small spoons." She is the opposite, and insists the smaller sized spoons are normal spoons, and the larger ones are called large spoons.
Well, I suppose it depends on your 'normal'. The largest spoon (the table spoon) is commonly used for soups while the smaller spoon (commonly the dessert spoon) is most often used these days for cereal and such.
I would call the dessert spoon my normal spoon. Despite my big mouth, I despise how big the soup spoons are. Plus the smaller spoon helps me not shovel so much in my face at once.
I just asked my wife, and we both agree with your her on this. It's normal spoon, big spoon, and serving spoon...in our opinions.
Likewise - Normal, Big/Soup, Serving
Yup agreed here as well.
fwiw my set of spoons (bought from ikea here in Germany) did not come with dessert spoons and only had tablespoons and teaspoons. Makes it easy enough to avoid this argument -- big spoons and little spoons only!
(Also fwiw, I think Americans also call dessert spoons teaspoons, at least that's what I grew up with. I'm referring to the actual little teaspoons here though, which I didn't encounter much in the US.)
Huh, interesting, even at Ikeas near me the sets have dessert spoons and, though I can't say I take offense, I do correct people about the sizing thing, lest someone try to add a dessert spoon of salt to something!
Might be a regional thing? My roommates at other places here in Germany have typically had only these two types of spoons. I know they have other regional sizing things here (like the pillowcases in their duvet cover sets being sized for Germans' weird square pillows smh)
If you don't use the big spoon for cereal you're missing out
Sadly, too much cereal means too much chewing and, even more sadly, my jaw pain flares up.
So, I am missing out on all the pain I could experience, you're correct. I'm happy with the normal spoon.
Put it in a blender... It's going to taste the same... And you can eat it with s straw. I dare you!
I wonder what a captain crunch smoothie would taste like...
I’m sorry, are you telling me there are people out there, let alone most people, that don’t use the biggest spoon possible to shovel the maximum amount of cereal into their face for optimal crunchy cereal consumption??
We have big spoons and little spoons. There’s no normal spoon. If someone asked for a spoon, I would invariably ask “what kind?”
I call the big spoons, spoons. My girlfriend calls them shovels.
Soup spoons and dessert spoons, you mean?
I have a car that is black with a hint of blue. I claim that it is black, she claims that it is a blue car.
This argument has been going on for years and has gotten to the point that I will occasionally roll my window down at stoplights and ask random strangers what color my car is and update a running tally.
It's times like these I wish Tildes allowed images because I have to know.
There’s no rule against images. OP could link one if they so choose. (I’m also curious 😆)
That's just image only posts, you can share picture links if you want.
I built https://colorcontroversy.com/ a while back to settle this once and for all! Or, you know, probably just create further arguments like yours :)
When I see stuff like this online it makes me wish everybody had equivalent colour accurate screens. Hard to know how much of the controversy is due to differences in screens!
The color: vantablack.
My wife: "dark navy".
Sorry, Fluffy, I only like neutral colors. That car needs to go.
What's the tally so far? Who's winning?
She has the car out of town right now but the numbers skew heavily in the favor of black, something like 35 for black, 15 for blue, five for gray, and two for green (??)
Gotta love statistics when it has some odd ball answers
If the car is a bit reflective (so probably), location and weather is gonna affect the results heavily.
lol my wife insists these plastic bowls we have are blue but they're quite obviously green. This has also been an on going argument.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's likely your wife is right.
Women are generally better at discerning colour variations than men (But men are better at perceiving movement).
Link
Afaik discerning color variations is just physically being able to distinguish two colors from each other though, not assigning them to color words. Color names and categories vary by language and culture, so it's perfectly possible for a woman to be able to visually distinguish more colors but still draw the boundary between two color words "wrong".
If you've never read it, the XKCD color survey results are pretty entertaining. He breaks the results down by chromosomal sex and other demographic traits with his usual humor and insight.
Then there's that women often have more color words in their vocabulary. But that's hardly at play here, considering the two competing color words are blue and green.
I wager that's probably also socially conditioned anyway tbh, but yeah.
Now I want to make a conlang where women distinguish blue and green but men don't.
Those languages already excist.
Case in point, this thread :p
Nah the bowls are clearly green
My spouse has exactly the same "problem". I call things "turquoise", "teal", and other descriptors that are clearly in the range of blue hues, he calls them all "green".
It's a regular source of conversational confusion, like me saying "get the one in the blue box" and him calling a few minutes later to say, "They don't have any blue (sends a photo of a cerulean label) - should I get the green one?"
I've come to believe that he's either toying with me or that I really need to fix his monitors.
Turquoise is about halfway between blue and green though. I claim that neither(or possibly both) is correct.
"Turquoise (/ˈtɜːrk(w)ɔɪz/ TUR-k(w)oyz) is a blue-green color"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turquoise_(color)
"Blue-green is the color that is between green and blue. It belongs to the cyan family of colors."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-green
I would call this 'petrol' - e4ven if I don't know why that shade of darker turquoise is called that to begin with.
I have a similar thing with my partner - I have a pair pajama pants that are a very pale mint green pastel color but he insists they are grey!!! I don't get it. We've been debating this for years though.
She will only* cook eggs in the microwave. She calls them her "famous microwaved eggs". Famous where? I don't know. Certainly nowhere I'm from.
Whenever she happens to be cooking for that meal and there's eggs involved, the default assumption is that they will be microwaved. Because "the stove takes too long". Or she's "too lazy to get out the pan". The end result is that she's saved an entire, wait for it, thirty seconds(!!) of cooking time, and our eggs are rubbery and taste like farts. I have to either fight her or beg her to please make scrambled eggs in a pan for me this time. Each time I do this, I must make the same argument that I've just put in this paragraph. It is a constant struggle.
It doesn't stop there. When I'm the one cooking, she tells me that she doesn't want me to cook the eggs on the stove. Why? Because she's lazy. But I, like most people, am not bothered by the amount of effort it takes to scramble eggs. And I, again, have to explain why microwaved eggs taste like how a dog's butt smells, and I am willing to invest the extra thirty seconds and a dirty pan to have normal tasting eggs.
SO, if you're reading this, please stop subjecting me to your famous microwaved eggs. Please do not take away from my life the simple pleasure that is enjoying eggs like a normal person. I do not want them to be famous. I do not want them to be microwaved. I just want them to be eggs.
*EDIT: My SO has forced me to explain that "she will only microwave eggs if there's a single egg involved in the meal". I myself doubt the veracity of this claim, as she has, on many occasions, offered to make us breakfast sandwiches with microwaved eggs.
I'm sorry.
Microwaved eggs are perfect for eggwiches. Whisk an egg up in a small bowl with spices, nuke it in the microwave, slap in between a tasty crumpet with your choice of onions, tomatoes, sauces etc... you can' even taste the dogs butt.
Please friend, I will personally buy you a small skillet if it means you'll stop tainting the world with your fart-eggs.
This is the way, I was mocked once for my tiny one egg pan, then I made perfectly sized eggs for sammiches with it and my roommates came to see the light. I will fry eggs one at a time to make perfect sandwich eggs with my tiny skillet. (also there has to be butter or bacon fat...no canola is NOT the same)
This made me chuckle.
A perfectly microwaved egg isn't as tasty as pan fried with butter, but it should not smell like farts, unless it is overcooked.
If your SO continues to microwave your eggs, you should ask her to under cook your eggs.
Microwaved eggs are wrong, this is the hill I am willing to die on.
Isn't microwaving eggs dangerous? Like they explode or something? Or is that only certain configurations of egg.
I believe this is only if you don’t pierce the yolk
Fair enough, I figure whoever told me decided it was better to over-generalize than have me ecplode my face off.
For sure. Always easier to have a general rule than a rule with caveats!
The yolks on you when this inevitably eggsplodes on you. You'll be shelling out money for a new microwave after.
Microwaving eggs is dangerous and many people get burned on their face and eyes trying to microwave them. It seems benign but it's not safe. More information https://youtu.be/vdaKrT9x1Zc?si=cCEPtF2trWKWFXCm
I've done this. Didn't want to eat my hardboiled eggs cold and thought they would be fine if took the shell off first.
Got a steam burn on my lips and it took forever to clean all the egg bits out that got absolutely everywhere.
There was a trend recently where people would microwave whole eggs (which explode). Eg: https://youtu.be/O77e20S5B9k
oh yeah that's why I was warned against it I think
The only time I have seen nuked eggs "work" is when they're in a speciao egg poaching steam basket that basically poaches them in steam
Is it just raw cracked egg in a bowl? Why??????????????? The texture!!!!
Haha yeah I've seen those. There was also a social media trend a while back where, after having instant ramen, you add egg to the broth and microwave it to make a "steamed egg". I personally don't care for it, but it's not offensive at all.
But yeah. My SO's microwaved eggs are just microwaved in a bowl. Usually with salt and pepper. They're like erasers.
It's really dumb, but I grew up in the kind of house that had a rack of very elaborate 'display' towels in the bathroom that were for company only, so I was basically trained from birth to not find this weird. My husband grew up in a trailer in a national forest wearing muddy work boots in the house, so the first time he went to my parents and smooshed up all the guest towels after using the bathroom he was surprised by my mothers reaction to said desecration. Once it was explained to him they were for 'guests', he exclaimed, "Am I ....not a guest...!?" Explaining to him her insane nuances of guests and 'guest-guests' was pointless. He pretended to be A Savage Admist the Tea Party and ravaged my mother's towels every time he used the bathroom for the next twenty years~
Does your mother also have plastic around the remotes? I can understand the relative sanity of not using the guest towels yourselves but when an honest to goodness guest appears???? Maybe just put them away when there are actual guest.
Ha, no, but meeting my mother is an experience you'd never forget. Hopefully you'd love the cooking so much that you'd forgive her her persnickety ways, though.
For us it’s not a singular fake argument. She’s British and therefore really loves to banter.
She gives me shit all time over nothing, and if I play the game by being equally ridiculous in my counter arguments, she’s happy like a pig in shit.
Any topic will do, as long as it can be turned into something silly.
I think if I was married to a British person I would concede that aluminium is a cooler way of saying aluminum, but everything else is just wrong. Biscuits are cookies? Fries are chips? Everything is a pudding? Words have meaning.
Is your argument that we should value the relics of England that the French fought so hard to free us from?
"Words have meaning" guy suddenly no longer concerned with the meaning of words.
This is a fair criticism. I suppose my egocentric witty retort is that history is written by the winners, and Americans redefined the word after the war.
No one outside the US calls a main an entree, we're just puzzled how you guys could be so confused. The word "entry" is still gasping for air in there. It's not rocket science.
It doesn't even have consistent meaning here. Entree can mean 3 course meal at some of these restaurants.
The other thing to give into is the metric system. They created imperial and think it's bullshit. And they're right.
But I will die on Farenheit. It's a better way of measuring temperature for humans.
eh I moved from the US to Europe and thus have made the switch, and I used to make that argument about Fahrenheit, but honestly I do think it's just a familiarity thing. Once you have a good vibes-based approximation on a given scale it becomes easier to use.
I do suck at translating between them though. I have to compare the vibes rather than do actual math, and my vibes are not quite as accurate lol
In principle I think you’re right, but I lived in France for nearly a decade and Celsius temperatures never really meant anything to me. I had to memorize a set of guidelines, like, “15 means sweater, 10 means jacket,” and so on.
I think it probably depends on your individual exposure and how much you communicate about temperature in it. I've only lived in Germany for five years and I find it reasonably intuitive for all my day-to-day. But I only really use temperature day-to-day to complain, so I'll confess I'm not great with temperate ones like 10 or 15 (but then I never really talk about the 50s in Fahrenheit either tbf)
Agree 100%. If you're going to sway from imperial, Fahrenheit is better for "feels like" temps......and I'll note: the Brits deviate from imperial to measure weight in....Stone?
I mean, that's as made up and ridiculous as the pound instead of the Euro.
I grew up mostly is Australia so "feels like" is totally in C for me. Some of my childhood was in the UK though where they (at least they used to) use both for the forecast, but F is still meaningless to me apart from 100 being bloody hot by UK standards. The funny thing about Australia is that despite being entirely metric, most people still think in feet for human heights, so it's pretty common to see suspected criminals described as being "approximately" 183cm in the news. 183cm being ~6ft.
I think C definitely makes more sense for most things, but there's something to Fahrenheit. 100 is "hot". 0 is "cold". 50 is that brisk autumn day between. Low to mid-70s is that happy spot between autumn and summer that you want internal temperatures at.
With C, I know water freezes at 0 and boils at 100, but day to day, I find "what's comfortable for humans" to be more salient than "what's the state of the water in the room".
Temperature is an incredibly subjective thing, and how you perceive hot/cold will greatly differ depending on where you are.
0F and 100F are impossibly cold and hot where I live to the point that they are nonsense numbers, and is it really and simpler than just going "0C cold, 30C hot"?
I'm not saying either system is objectively true, but most countries don't generally go below 0F or above 100F generally, so it's a nice 0-100 scale that we use for other things too, like grades or review scores.
With C, if you grow up with it, you're fine, but it's not immediately intuitive. You regularly go below 0, and the 10s and 20s don't really mean anything in their own. In F, the 60s, 70s, 80s all have their own quickly understood meaning.
As someone who uses both, F seems much more useful just for a feel.
As someone who grew up with C I can't see how F is any more intuitive. I think you're letting your intimate grasp of F cloud your view on its ease. F's "60s, 70s, 80s" don't carry any more innate meaning to someone who's only a bit familiar with F than "00s, 10s, 20s" do with C.
Except that 10s don't mean anything. 10 C and 19 C are very different temperatures.
I'm not saying either have innate meaning by virtue of their existence. I just think the tens of F vibe better with the tens we deal with everywhere else. Not much better, this is a very silly and light argument I'm making.
I think this is entirely subjective depending on which system you grew up with. Having grown up with °C, I could flip your statement around completely and it would agree with it. Well, ok, you do go below 0, but that's actually useful information because now I know that I deal with icy conditions. But 0-10 is cold, 10-20 is chilly, 20-30 is pleasant, 30+ is hot.
60s? I dunno. Slightly below room temperature is all I know. How much below room temperature? I don't know. Do I need a sweater yet? Probably not. Time for shorts, if the sun is out?
F is also not immediately intuitive if you didn’t grow up with it. Americans are so funny about this point, you will not accept that both are basically the same and it’s familiarity that makes the difference!
Where I live we don’t go below 0. 10 is a jacket, 20 is a jumper, 30 is a t shirt, 40 is get to a swimming pool or stay indoors. Easy enough once you know
You dress the same for 10 and 19? I live in NZ, with C, and the difference between 10 and 19 makes a big difference in what I wear for biking.
No obviously those are approximates with a few degrees each way. The middle figures can go either way depending on wind/cloud cover/rain/etc
I'm not trying to be a dick here. The whole premise of what I said (and I want to emphasise that this is a very light hearted, low stakes discussion) it's that in F, 90s is bloody hot, 80s is hot, 70s is mild, 60 is cool, etc. It gives useful ranges in units we already use for most things (in tens). With C, you have to be more exact, because the range to play with is smaller, and it doesn't map as well from 0 to 0. 10 is a very different temperature than 20.
Look I'm American so I'm used to Fahrenheit, but your arguments are a little weak. Yes, 19 is very different from 10. But 70 and 79 are also quite different temperatures, simply by merit of 79 being basically the same as 80. The distance is a little smaller because the degrees are smaller in Fahrenheit, but that doesn't mean the amount it changes communication about the weather is that big of a difference. Yes, you probably wouldn't say "the 10s" in Celsius, but tbh you wouldn't say that in Fahrenheit either. At lower digits like that it's not so difficult to just say "around 10" "around 15" or "around 20". It's not even more verbose than "the 60s" or "the 70s" would be. And at least in Europe, saying "the 30s" is more than sufficient because it communicates the idea of "too fucking hot", much like "the 90s" would in Fahrenheit.
As someone who's adapted to both (and used to make arguments like the ones you're currently making), Celsius is fine. I promise it does not limit my ability to express how hot or cold or temperate it is by approximation. Precisely the only thing I think is better in Fahrenheit is the fact that it's easier to remember which temperature means someone has a fever (since it's roughly 100 degrees), because I can never remember which one that is in Celsius.
Thanks, I started typing most of what you’ve said here and then lost motivation part way through because I realised I’ve read this online discussion about a thousand times more than anyone ever needs to
I think Americans in global spaces tend to get a bit defensive too easily. The US units get ragged on a lot but there isn't a good defense for most of them because metric is objectively better. So they rigorously defend Fahrenheit, by far the least silly of the commonly used US measurements, without realizing how subjective their familiarity with it makes them. I used to do this myself until it turned out that actually, using Celsius on a daily basis makes it a lot more intuitive lol.
Friend, I'm not defending a thesis. This is a light hearted comparison between two equally valid systems. I'm basing my entire position on the number-feel of ten being nice.
I live in NZ and use C, not F. I'm well aware it's useable.
I do want to clarify and I'm not American, I'm Puerto Rican. Because of the American hold over the island, we use both units depending on the context. I specify because I think you're making a lot of assumptions about my nationality and location, and taking this (I feel) far more seriously that my initial comment meant to be.
I'm sorry if I came across as assuming your nationality, that wasn't my intention. This is an argument that repeats over and over on the internet and it can be very frustrating due to the sheer quantity of Americans making this same argument (as I said before, I used to do it myself). I was primarily trying to address the general trend in my comments about Americans rather than talk about you or anyone else in this conversation specifically.
I'm not really taking this conversation particularly seriously, but I do think it's worth noting that these kinds of conversations can get much more frustrating for people who constantly experience Americans trying to argue about how their ways are better. I assume since you're Puerto Rican you've got experience on that front yourself to an extent, but I think the particular types of Americans a given person has encountered online in conversations like this can really color their feelings towards what would otherwise be pretty lighthearted.
I honestly wasn't aware it was a touchy subject. Based on the amount of replies I've gotten, with varying degrees of intensity, I've obviously stepped on a landmine. It wasn't my intent to denigrate anyone's system. Like I mentioned, I live in NZ, so naturally I have to operate under Celsius, and it's fine enough. I do think there's a nicer feel to F for human going outside feel, but unsaid here is that we use temperatures for other things in life, like measuring fevers or food, and C is the king there (aside from K).
My point is that they’re both exactly the same amount of intuitiveness depending what you grow up with and trying to pretend one is somehow more innate to us is absurd.
I’ve typed out several responses now and all of them I get part way through before thinking “who cares”. This is silly. There’s no right and there’s no objectively better system because it’s all subjective
(and I just deleted a load more. Sorry if this sounds snippy, it’s not directed at you!)
We measure in context.
Bag of sugar? Metric
Your weight? Imperial
Height of a bridge? Metric
Your sons height? Imperial
I do almost everything in metric now. I gave up trying to figure out imperial measurements.
Just to clarify Stone is an imperial unit of measuring weight, and was carried forward from traditional English units. Also just to add US customary units aren't always the same as the Imperial units that they took inspiration from.
I will fight all day with anyone who prefers F. It's the worst part of the imperial system.
Oh here goes! Explain American usage of 'noodle' to describe pasta!
Btw, biscuits are not cookies, fries are chips but not all chips are fries, pudding is dessert other than a couple of very specific exceptions relating to the etymology of French 'boudin', now black pudding, but formerly 'encased meat'.
I'm American, and I don't know the "pure" definition, but noodle is different from pasta to me. When I think noodle, I think "little twisty egg noodle", and pasta is generally thicker.
The fact that you call a sausage pudding is precisely the problem. I don't even care about etymology. If you say sausage and cake are the same thing, that's messed up. Both can't be pudding. Pudding is a delightful custard-like treat.
Edit: just to point out "biscuits and gravy" only sounds gross in the UK. In America, this dish is respected and revered because we know what biscuits are. I challenge anyone who questions the American definition of biscuit to try biscuits and gravy and say it is a scone.
But a sausage isn't pudding! Black pudding isn't sausage if that's what you mean?
They said that pudding is 'encased meat'. But Brits also say sticky toffee pudding -- a cake -- is a pudding.
And look, I'll own up to weird American stuff. What we call cheesecake is definitely a pie.
Had that debate with several other Americans a while back about what cheesecake was. Conclusion: Closest to a tart, but really didn’t qualify for any of the three terms.
Noodle is the shape, pasta is the material. Not all pasta is noodle-shaped; not all noodles are made of pasta.
Spaghetti and vermicelli are noodles made of pasta. Orecchiette is a non-noodle made of pasta. Pool noodles are noodles not made of pasta.
Isn't it that all pastas are noodles, but not all noodles are pasta? Pasta is specific to Italian varieties of noodles (regardless of what they're made from), but something like egg noodles or Spätzle are not pasta because they're not Italian, despite being made with the same ingredients. That has been my understanding as an American, is there something odd about that?
This is generally speaking how I use these words (as an American), but my understanding is that it's the reverse in the UK -- they only use "noodle(s)" specifically for Asian noodle dishes, whereas I think pasta is used more generically?
Here's a blog post that goes into the subject in some depth.
Biscuit means "twice cooked", ergo extra crunchy. The US use of it makes no sense at all.
https://www.spectraaluminum.com/aluminum-vs-aluminium.html
Alumium was the name first given.
Throw that into the conversation and see what happens!
We should all just go back to that one and then everyone’s happy (or equally pissed off).
All in favour say “aye”
I don't want to say "aye" - but I also would love to see the confusion when a third pronunciation starts popping up!
Brit here as is my wife - nothing shows a loving British marriage more than the bants... the worse it would sound to an outsider the more loving.
Strangers who didn't know us overhearing us talking sometimes would wonder if we actually hated each other and on the brink of divorce 😂😂😂
Can concur. Not British, nor is my wife, but her mother is and those genes are strong. Which is fine, because I absolutely love the ridiculous, argumentative, loving banter it provides. Wouldn't have it any other way.
When we walk our dogs, I rate them based on barking, leash pulling, and how well they handle bridges. My wife always gives them a 10/10 whereas I don't. Honestly, she gives them a 10/10 no matter what the situation is lol, whereas I rarely do and it's a point of fun contention. I explain why they didn't earn a 10/10 and she says, "But they're dogs".
I absolutely love this.
Edit: My wife and I have discussed our dogs' walks earlier today. We came to a consensus that while our big dog walked with 7/10 behavior and our little dog walked with 6/10 behavior, the overall experience is, as always, at least 10/10.
I am not usually nostalgic for the twitter, but your comment made me wish for the days when the WeRateDogs twitter feed was an innocent and lovely thing on the Internet. Here is a screenshot of the perhaps most notorious exchange. While we are on the topic of internet nostalgia, there is also a Reply All "Yes, Yes, No" podcast episode
discussing it.
What ever happened to them that made them different? I was a fan as well. I saw the creator pop up on another dog's (lol) (adventuringwithnala) IG page, sounds like they're still active.
I don't remember what the kerfuffle was. I've basically left Twitter and am off all the Meta/FB apps, so I'm "out of the loop" as they say.
My favorite is when we don't want to do a chore ourselves, and then we start arguing whose fault it is that our kids are too lazy to do the chore for us.
E.g. if I don't want to take out the trash I'll accuse my husband of being the reason our eldest doesn't lift a single finger to help out and that I resent him for it.
Probably important to note that 1) we don't have any kids and 2) are referring to our cats & dog in the scenarios above ;)
Seriously though, the eldest is like 30 in cat-years and has never even offered to do the damn dishes. Lazy freeloader!!
This is by far the most wholesome one yet
When our dog turned 21 in dog years, we staged an intervention and told him it was time for him to get a job and start pulling his weight around the house. It was unsuccessful, but he's still a good boy.
She cooks and is really talented at intuiting what needs to be put in a pot for best results.
I bake and have a reasonable understanding how exact ratio's and process work for the perfect texture and taste.
It's a scene when these two worlds meet.
"What the hell do they mean by half a cup of carrots?"
"The batter was looking a little sad so I stirred in some flour before putting it in the oven."
" 'Until-cooked' is not an accurate measure of time!"
"It was taking too long for the butter to soften so I just melted it."
I feel this in my bones.
I cannot stand the lack of specificity in cooking instructions.
"until browned" also angers me. Light tan to nearly black is a big range
I can deal with the lack of specificity as long as I don't have to read your life story and x out of 25 pop ups to get to the recipe.
I would not care about anything but this.
It changes the chemical makeup of the butter and depending on what you're making, can change or even ruin the results in ways that won't magically become right just by cooling the butter (or finished food) down.
This is true but it's not necessarily intuitive to someone who's not used to baking. It's something you have to be taught (or ig learn through experience and experimentation, but I think most people learn it from someone else).
Absolutely. I only learned it when making a cake icing where it specifies to NOT put in the butter before the rest of the ingredients (egg, among other things) had cooled down enough.
I was impatient, and ended up with a tasty, but runny "icing" sauce, instead of the spreadable and smooth creamy texture it was supposed to have.
As someone who doesn't bake, I'm convinced that separating dry and wet ingredients does nothing and is a marketing ploy invented by Big Dish Soap to get you to needlessly dirty a second bowl.
If a dish includes baking powder, it probably used to matter -- there's both single-acting and double-acting baking powder, and single-acting is activated when it gets wet (so you don't want to mix it with wet ingredients until the last step), whereas double-acting also activates a second time while baking so that doesn't matter as much. In the modern US almost all baking powder is double-acting nowadays, but it didn't used to be.
Source: I live in Germany, where most baking powder is single-acting, and it's very confusing.
I was not aware of this. When the kids want grilled cheese I'd use the microwave to melt it down faster for the bread. Should I be setting it out prior?
I don't think it'll really be a big deal with a grilled cheese. Might just make the sandwich feel a little greasy. (A good countertop butterwell is a nice way to have soft butter on hand if you need it a lot.)
But in my understanding, butter is a fat/oil held together in a mold of milk solids and water. Melting butter breaks that mold and irreversibly makes it just the oil (ghee).
So when baking a harder dough like bread or biscuits (cookies), a softened butter will be coated in flower and hold in its mold as long as possible to become small butter beads. When baking, these beads will melt and steam up to make little air pockets for a more "fluffy" result.
The liquid butter just cooks the dough and it's good to brush on bakes to crust them up. My mom used to also add a little to box cake mix to make it a little more moist.
Few different options my favorite is reduced power in a microwave where you don't melt it but actually soften it (varies by microwave). I'm also a fan of mayo over butter (should be super thin). You can also make spreadable butter with a stick of butter and a 1/3 cup of whatever oil and put it in a mixer for ten minutes (should be soften) and it'll be spreadable and keep in the fridge in that state like any other spreadable butter but taste how you want.
Does it matter if it stayes the same texture as unmelted butter once it cools back down?
For several kinds of sauces and icings for instance, if you use regular room temperature butter the texture stays smooth and silky, whereas with melted butter it becomes runny or tends to separate.
Sorry what is the problem with sour lemon tarts?
Oh, tonnes. The one that’s been going longest is whether eating lasagne with mayonnaise is bonkers (it is. Undoubtedly. Not to mention horrifically disgusting)
I eat my spaghetti with mayonnaise in it, so I would have to agree with your so
WHAT. Like as well as another sauce or just straight mayonnaise and spaghetti? Is the spaghetti hot? Are you ok???
Like I mix the red sauce, noodles, and whatever pasta together. I know I'm weird lol
I’m so sorry to say it but yes that is bizarre and nauseating. The palate wants what it wants, I guess!
I can vaguely see a rationale on the horizon, but have no desire to join you in this madness.
(Extra egg/oil/vinegar in pasta sauce makes sense but it seems like the kind of thing you'd do during the cooking phase)
That's a fun one, and I agree....disgusting. I also don't understand this mayo grilled cheese trend. I tried it so you don't have to. It's gross.
Hot mayonnaise is vile, I don’t understand why you would willingly do that to yourself
Real question though, is it real mayo or "american" mayo? Because the latter is disgusting no matter what you do with it.
I can confirm that real Mayo is also disgusting hot as that’s all we use
It depends on how you use it, it should be such a thin layer that you can almost see through it. Anything more and it's vile.
I agree that there are lots of things that mayo isn't supposed to go on and would probably be considered horrendous in polite society. But I am very much the kind of person that would dump mayo on most things regardless.
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to side with your other half on this one too... It depends on the mayo. Some brands have a flavour to them that compliments a lasagna quite well.
What Mayo do you think goes? I disagree regardless of your answer but I am mildly curious (if nauseated)
I like kewpie in its place but I find it too sweet for most uses. Done right might not taste like Mayo but it will also not taste like butter, which is manna from the heavens themselves, so I don’t think I could ever prefer it
Any mayonaisse that has a bit of noticeable acidity to it, in my opinion.
That’s all of them here except kewpie, so we’re on the same page as far as taste goes! Still a no from me
Wow. Well. That’s not a combination I’ve heard of before, and so now I kinda wanna try it just out of pure curiosity.
Hey man, it’s your funeral.
(I might be flamed for this but I’ve never actually tried it, I just find the prospect of melted cheese and mayonnaise to be the devils combo)
Wait are you putting it between the bread? I've only ever used mayo instead of butter to help with crispy frying.
Personally a pro tip is add hot sauce or dry hot peppers mixed (I love flat iron brand for variety of peppers and heat) with mayo, sauce the outside edges of the bread and make spicy grilled cheese.
I’m not putting it anywhere mate! But yes I do know that if you’re going to use it, it goes outside. Still sounds gross to me though, I love butter and hate the idea of hot mayo
Fair enough, can't say I like the idea of heated mayo either.
To me, I don't have any mayo taste at all really once the sandwich is made which is why I feel a bit confused too. It just adds oil and a bit of the crispy shiny egg wash addition.
She insists that she is imaginary and I am at least 58% sure she is lying.
I think you need more information. If she's imaginary....whose imagination?
Not imaginary as in imagination. Imaginary as in imaginary number.
Op, have you tried acquiring a second instance of her and arranging them both at a 90 degree angle so as to form a square? The result should be your wife, only now negative instead of imaginary.
As for how to fix the negativity, try having her do a handstand. If that's too inconvenient long term, move to Australia.
Thanks for clarifying. I was confused. You were really able to get to the inverse root of the problem.
My partner will never stop to argue that cars (or any other vehicles) don't need names. I always have to name anything with wheels attached to it. I'm not a car guy, they are just vehicles of transportation for me as well and are picked on a form follows function approach, but for her it's just "car", while I go through list of names and their meaning as if I was naming a baby. Like my current car was re-imported and originally made for Poland (re-importing is a tax vs buying power thing very common in Germany, will explain in a different comment if needed). So of course it needed to be a Polish boy's name that can be pronounced, is distinguishable from Russian and has a good meaning.
Perfectly reasonable from me, isn't it? :D
This is gonna sound nitpicky but quick grammar correction: I think what you mean to say here in English would be "My partner will never stop arguing that ...", since "My partner will never stop to argue" means you want her to argue with you but she won't stop and do it. DeepL seems to think the difference in German is the presence of a single comma which frightens me.
Thank you. I was very confused by this and now I'm a little disappointed in myself because I didn't figure that one out despite having known so many English learners who do this because in their language the second verb always takes the infinitive form. I guess it's a compliment because I didn't notice any other hints that they aren't a native English speaker.
I take such comments as a compliment, indeed! I had my last English lessons over 20 years ago, and we had English just for six years. And in everyday life I don't need English at all as my job heavily relies on my native German. So for over 20 years I try to stay in practice just by using Reddit, reading English wikipedia, English news sources, playing PC games in English etc. Not perfect, but better than doing nothing at all - my French is entirely gone by now.
I've lived in Germany for the past five years so I've developed a bit of a spidey sense for stuff like this tbh. The German version (as far as I know; I'm barely B1 on a good day) even explicitly uses their equivalent of "to" for this sentence in addition to the infinitive so it's an especially tricky one.
Yes, you are right about the "to". It would be that she won't stop "zu argumentieren"
Figuring out where to use "zu" is a bit of a struggle for me ngl so I'm glad I was right lol
Noted! I am afraid that 20+ years after my last English lessons and no everyday use of English at all in professional or personal life it might be too late to completely change habits, but who knows? Most of the time I get even writing down currencies right on US based platforms by now - simply doing the opposite of what I'm used to is luckily an easy lesson. So maybe I'm still able to learn?
No worries, your English is otherwise really great! I mostly just added the comment because it could potentially confuse someone into thinking you meant the opposite in this particular case.
Totally reasonable, but you definitely need to give us the name now that you've explained your reasoning.
I like to argue for the historical definition of a sandwich, that food encased in bread which keeps your hands clean and one hand free for gambling is a sandwich. So a pop tart is a sandwich but grilled cheese isn't.
He just like to say anything that will cause a funny argument.
So my argument is that any accurate definition of sandwich must include the phrase "not including unsliced, encased meats".
This ensures the definition accurately excludes those things not commonly described as sandwiches (brats and hotdogs) while including. Things described as cold cut sandwiches (bologna, salami, etc.). To me, an encased meat within bread is a sandwich when it is sliced and spread horizontally along its long axis.
I can eat a hot dog and play poker at the same time without getting the cards dirty so it is therfore a sandwich.
The only problem with this definition is that it technically includes burgers as sandwiches
because they ARE sandwiches
Only if the bun isn't greasy and the condiments are used conservatively.
I don't see how that matters. Reubens and cubanos are both condiment-forward and greasy, but no one's going to argue they're not sandwiches.
I do! They don't meet the definition of a sandwich as set by the origin of the word. They would not have allowed the Earl of Sandwich to gamble with one hand and eat with the other without getting his cards dirty. Had you brought one to the Earl of Sandwich he would have said "this is not what I asked for" and therefore is not a sandwich.
Oh so you believe in imperial units of measuring sandwiches.
So what consitutes bread?
Is it bread if it is dough that is baked at the same time as what it encases?
Does it have to be made ahead of time, meaning any "sandwich" must neccessarily be a minimum two step process of first baking the bread, then making the sandwich?
I would join in on this argument, only deciding which side I am on once I figured out which side was funnier!
It can be baked at the same time as the bread, but not if it makes the bread greasy because then your hands will not be clean for gambling. So a beef wellington is not a sandwich, but a pot pie can be if the crust is dry and you eat it carefully enough.
This is a wonderfully insane take!
So if I put waaaaaaaaaay too much mustard on my sandwich, just absolutely dripping with the stuff, it's not a sandwich anymore?
Correct.
I’ve read the thread, considered the arguments and decided that you are technically, i.e. the best kind of, correct. However, I am going to need a new word to describe not-sandwiches.
I'm surprised there's no mention of the Cube Rule in this thread yet...
This has turned my whole world topsy-turvy
That's because the cube rule is ridiculous.
I suppose we'll have to find another hungry Earl and all him what he thinks.
My wife insists our cat has two legs and that her front-pawsies are her hand-pawsies. No, no, I say, those are just her front-foot-pawsies and she actually has four legs.
"But she grabs with them!"
"But who walks on their hands?!"
I have definitive proof that cats think their front paws are actually hands, and that's the evidence that counts.
Anatomically your wife is correct but it’s in the category of “tomatoes are fruits” to me. Science can take a back seat on this type of question
They're hands because there's a bunch of activity cats don't use the back legs for that they used their hand paws for: cleaning, hunting, batting things off the counter, door handles, fighting, test touch and freak out when it moves, get water, scratching post, touch your face to wake you up for meal time, ....
To side with your wife -- have you ever seen a gorilla walk? They walk on their hands too.
Not really an apples:apples considering gorillas have hands and cats do not. Gorillas also regularly walk on their legs alone, while cats do not regularly walk only on their hind legs.
Gorillas are typically quadripedal though -- they walk bipedally only occasionally. Obviously it's still quite different, but it's still a flaw in the "who walks on their hands?” argument.
Cats have neither hand pawsies nor leg pawsies. Only 4 lethal weapon pawsies.
I grabbed a keyboard the other day with my foot while on the couch. Doesn't make my feet hands.
How animals would wear pants.
Whether the rider or the horse is the actual athlete in things like equestrian olympic games, namely dressage.
I have had the same thought about horse-based sport and it’s obviously the horse. You couldn’t replace the horse with a human and have the same sport but you could replace the rider with another human (or not have them at all if the horse is well trained). Therefore we should be seeing podiums of horses with massive medals at the Olympics
I've also had this thought and to me it's ridiculous to assume that the humans are athletes unless they all have blind draw on horses that were raised by an objective third party and rated independently as athletically similar to one another.
Either that or they all must ride each other's horses in turn to average scores across all horses and see who is the best.
I don't actually know the mechanics of any horse sport, but it just seems ridiculous to me. Clearly the horses are a variable that are difficult to control, so how can you assess that a particular rider is just a better athlete than another?
Would you make the same argument for any other sport that uses equipment? Like say for archery, should every archer use every bow and average their scores?
Well of course not, there's much less variable in something like that. You can produce several bows or guns with fairly consistent standards of quality within enough margin that the results should be based firmly on quality of competitor.
Horses are living animals, they're never going to be the same no matter what you try to do. At least I don't think so, but I literally know nothing about the sports.
While I don’t think an all-for-all makes sense since each athlete will have different preferences for a piece of equipment’s tuning and features, there is an argument to be made about attempting to level the quality advantage in an ideal world. If an athlete manages to get a sponsor with deep pockets or ties to a cutting-edge R&D department, for example, they’ll be able to get their hands on objectively better equipment which gives them the advantage over an otherwise equally skilled athlete. If every competitor had to use equipment from a standardized range provided by the venue (with prior testing and approval by all parties, of course), it would level the playing field in that regard.
Where we enter our acreage my spouse calls the bottom of the driveway. I call it the top of the driveway. She's obviously wrong. 7 years and she's still wrong.
Does it run north south? North is top
If there is no elevation change and it doesn't run north south then you're both wrong.
Hell, I wouldn't even say north is the top. I'd just say that it's up. The only way a driveway should have a top is the elevation. But the fact that he calls it their acreage instead of their property makes me think there's a bit of a dialectical difference.
In general, I'd say the entrance to a driveway is bottom, but only because most driveways I've seen slope down away from the house. Top and bottom should refer to elevation.
Is it flat or is there an incline?
If it's flat, the top of your driveway to me would just be whichever side you start on at that time (i.e. you're at the top when you start to enter or start to exit the property, the bottom at the end of that).
My wife and I argue about what the “Good” silverware are. I have serious opinions about what makes a utensil good and my wife thinks they’re an abomination.
If we really need a babysitter or we can just lock the kids in their room with a bowl of water.
Don't lock them in a room with water. After reading Roald Dahl's story about witches and how they melt in water, my friend and I doused the walls in their bedroom with water to prevent being afraid of the dark.
While we cared more about the witchiness, or lack thereof, in the room, their parents didn't particularly like what it did to the wallpaper... laughs in adult understanding now
Fair point. No water then. Perhaps just a single, frozen microwaveable burrito.
No microwave though.
Spouse and I have a whole category of discussion topics we've labeled "bar-guments", like the kind of relaxed social conversation you'd get into with a complete stranger after a drink or two.
We'll playact emotional involvement in who's right or wrong, but there's an implicit agreement that it doesn't matter at all. It's things like, "would you rather get in a fight with a big cat that weighs the same as you do, or your weight in housecats?". Hot takes welcome, but again, it's completely a social bonding exercise rather than something that might tear at the foundations of our relationship, like the merits of going completely vegan.
Are the house cats capable of working together? Because I’ve seen cats fight and they’ll smack anything, good chance they start fighting each other. I’m taking the house cats
That was my first thought, then I happened to wonder if it was past their usual feeding time, and came to the conclusion they'd yowl until I was a quivering heap of cat slave rushing to do their bidding. Give me a straightforward predator/prey relationship any day.
Ahh but they probably wouldn’t hurt you so then you just bide your time until escape (or suffer extreme Stockholm syndrome and adopt them all)
Could you share more of your go-to bargument topics? I’d love to hash some of these out with my friends.
This is just a start, but there are plenty of variations on the theme. As I mentioned, no serious Holy War topics, no "Linux is the one true OS" stuff.
I have dark brown hair but half my family (on my wife’s side) is mistakenly under the impression that I have black hair.
We actually don't argue much, mostly joke around. My wife doesn't agree with my choices in dinnerware or silverware. Apparently we have "too many" and I'm "dumb" (which appears to always be the case).