Good Eats

Typically, I am not your go-to source for recipes. Sure, I can suggest the wonders of the air fryer—the ever-tasty chicken wings! I can TOTALLY hook you up with gameplay strategy if you ever find yourself on Cutthroat Kitchen. However, among my "very particular set of skills," there is not a masterful snapping of movement into the culinary arts. That said, I could put it ALL on my air fryer to carry my day-to-day workload. However, it sustained a season-ending injury and is out. Yes, my air fryer is busted—it'll be the first thing we'll pick up whenever we find our new home! "No-no, set the toilet paper down. We MUST pick up that Instant Vortex 6-quart Air Fryer!"

That said, yesterday, I experimented with a couple of things that worked. Trust me, I'm what you call an expert.

Ground Beef

1. Make 4 patties from 1 lb (just grab that flat Ziploc from the fridge because you plan life).
2. Give a pinch of Redmond's to each side for each patty. For extra credit, catch a pinch into your mouth. Watch those eyes!
3. Bake those cookies on a sheet at 350° for 20 minutes.
4. Flip at 10 minutes. Then flip the patties.
5. Finish it on a skillet that's prepped with a layer of bacon fat. Because we cheat.
6. Split half for tomorrow and shove the other half down your gullet. Sing "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man" or play Snap!'s The Power in front of Castle Grayskull.

Ghee?

1. Grab two sticks of Kirkland's butter. If no bongos are available, throw it in a saucepan.
2. Medium heat or low heat—whatever. Seriously, just whatever. You can be blindfolded and not mess this up.
3. Wave goodbye to the water and dance to KC and the Sunshine Band's Get Down Tonight
4. Let the separation happen from the milk. Laugh at the weeping farewells between them for YOU are doing this and you're a heartless bastard.
5. Now, it's your turn: grab the tissue and sing Time to Say Goodbye toward the brown bits on your filtered pour.
6. Drink some burnt coffee because you forgot to let the tea kettle sit first before pouring it into your french press.

If you burned the butter (as well) like ME on the first attempt, you're gonna have suspiciously sweet goodness! Or if you simma down na, you'll pour out a golden liquid.

I've found after watching this, my mileage varied: Homemade Ghee From Butter Recipe | 20 Minute failproof ghee recipe from Unsalted butter. Would've been helpful to catch it on the front end.

The Spotlight on Spotify

As my linking on this page mildly suggests (UPDATE: re-linked to YouTube Music), I am back on Spotify. My run with YouTube Music was a good one. But the streaming sound just seemed a bit off. Despite my premium subscription, its search results would bring up YouTube versions—don't get me wrong—this is a GREAT feature for a live thing or a cover—I want a Rock Sugar world. That said...

I suppose I began to slide away as I recognized that they had the scores for every season of Stranger Things with the exception of season 2. Oh, sure, I had my copy uploaded to them for private use, but as I attempted to create a page of links, I just had some guy's copyright-iffy, copy on YouTube. Clearly, it made me wonder what other content I was missing. At a premium price, I seriously doubted YouTube Music—especially as it's not a whole lot different from what I can get for free! I mean, yay, I can turn off my phone screen with premium. Woo hoo.

To be fair, I ran YouTube Premium which includes Music. I will say I do enjoy not being hassled on my TV with ads. So, yes, in summation: turn off my phone, turn off ads. Fun features for the entire family!

The Facilitation of Facebook

What? How? Shazbot, man! Facebook? Didn't we JUST hammer that death knell? You wrote TWO posts about it!

For whatever reason, Facebook is a network hub. Clearly, I don't need to explain Facebook—"Have you heard about this thing called television?" I get it: back in the day, we had AOL Instant Messenger. Folks moved on to MySpace, but I never could see the vision of that platform—I suspect it had something to do with my own site starting in 2002 or maybe because 2004 was such a visceral year for me. People are tied to Facebook.

Why do I return?

Connect. To hear people. And hey, I like to toss inconsequential things on there that I wouldn't do here! (Oh, who am I kidding...) I don't lay out the scaffolding of my thoughts like I do here; these are too dear to me. And goodness-no would I ever type up my morning devotional like I have here! Running a personal site is like an actor alone on a stage: you can't look out at the audience; it's a vast, dark emptiness; here's just that one spotlight landing on your face. It's easy to turn inward with a blog.

Encourage. Maybe in some small way, I can say something that might click which could add to someone's spark. Sometimes, we get self-absorbed; we see others as two-dimensional. And wearing the shoes of another might lead to a recognition that they are as complex as we ourselves are.