tumblr comedy I haven’t seen in a while and I kind of miss: when someone says like ‘smoothies are great’ and then someone else says ‘juices are great too!’ and the first person says ‘make your own post’ and then the second person says ‘okay’ and then you scroll down and theres a second post.

I also love seeing posts where someone says something that clearly sets up a joke and then has very obviously messaged their friend to question it in a reblog so they deliver the punchline with maximum impact. Haven't seen that in a while

make your own post

I love seeing posts where someone says something that clearly sets up a joke and then has very obviously messaged their friend to question it in a reblog so they deliver the punchline with maximum impact. Haven't seen that in a while

Tips for new adults

Damn, Rome really looks great in all four seasons

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home.  The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”

If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese.  Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.

Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)

Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.

From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.

the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.

volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.

so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.

of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.

it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.

So the “doggy bag” thing is real?

Y-yes? Is it not overseas?

Holy shit, this is the first thing in 760 days that has made me feel more positive about America.

Not only is the doggy bag thing real, but some restaurants make it EVEN COOLER. Here in Portland, there’s a restaurant that will literally create a foil animal sculpture with your food inside. Like. We love sending people home with leftovers So Much that we want to make them Even More Special than just eating out itself was.

I’m dying that people don’t realize doggy bags are a real thing. Even fancy restaurants treat that as normal and expected, even if one doesn’t usually need one because the portions are smaller. The only fancy places that look askance at taking home leftovers are ones that are trying to be more foreign as a fashion thing.

Many restaurants have branded bags and boxes with the restaurant’s name on them.

When Americans eat crap, it’s often more about food deserts and a complete lack of reasonable public transportation than about our restaurants having insane portions.

A food desert is an area with no supermarkets or grocers where the only place that sells food is a convenience store with twinkies. It’s very common to not live within walking distance of a place that sells ingredients. In the suburbs, it’s normal to not only live outside of reasonable walking distance of food but also for that distance to be a huge highway with nowhere you’re legally allowed to walk. From conversations with friends, this sounds relatively uncommon in most countries. Every place has some farms in the middle of nowhere, but US style suburbs aren’t the norm.

Meanwhile, at least in some areas, we tend to have a lot of storage space, so it’s common to go to the supermarket only occasionally and stock up for the week/month with things that will keep. We’re not usually buying 800 servings at once because we’re actually going to eat all that right now.

The way normal people shop for fresh vegetables a lot of places just isn’t possible in big chunks of the US, and it’s very much a class thing.

I’m kind of surprised no one brought this up yet but as a culture we had this huge economic disaster about eighty years ago paired with an androgenic ecological disaster in this big portion of the middle of the country that caused widespread famine and starvation

on the leftovers thing, if you’re only visiting for a short time (and thus wont be able to use any leftovers), try agreeing to order one meal to share with whoever you’re at the restaurant with, instead of each of you getting your own meal. It definitely shows off the portionability of almost all restaurant food. 1 meal per 2 to 3 people should work without creating any leftovers.

The first thing I usually do when I get a burger is cut it down the middle and decide which half I’m going to eat, and which I’m going to save for a rainy day. Then, I divide the side-food in a similar way (be it fries, vegetables, or whatever). If I’m visiting the south, known for its hardy portions (texas, alabama, etc), I’ll actually divide it further, eating (for example) only half (or less) of the burger, and none of the fries– which means it becomes 3-4 days of lunches… for the family I’m staying with. Yes. You can give your leftovers to someone else. In fact, it’s considered really kind, if they like that kind of food. And since they’re usually the ones that took you to the restaurant, it may even be their favorite type of food.

Food is really a sign of affection, in every possible way, from the trope of “mother’s day means serving mom breakfast in bed” to “cutting the wedding cake is one of the most important wedding photos” to “one of our holidays literally has kids running up to every house in town in costume to ask for candy” to “BBQ sauces are a generationally-passed-down tradition.” 

It’s not about the food itself, the food is a symbol of working (or paying) for an experience that your loved ones will enjoy. It’s the stubborn grandmas remembering the great depression. It’s the parents that remember eating fish cakes and stewed tomatoes in 1965, and deciding to make something edible instead. It’s the inexperienced kids handing their parents a gross bowl of shredded cheese and cheerios because they want to show that affection and haven’t figured out how to do it right yet.

There’s a restaurant in DC that specifically, as part of its menu, gives you an equal portion of specific “traditional” foods to take home. They’re packaged separately and half-baked so they reheat well when you get home.

If you have a potluck with friends, it’s perfectly normal to leave your leftovers of whatever dish you brought with the hosts, as a thank you for them hosting. It’s also perfectly normal, if you are hosting friends for a traditional meal like thanksgiving, to give them some of the leftovers to take home with them (like your grandma would do).

I recently hosted a big dinner, and one friend couldn’t come at the last minute. So I brought her leftovers the next day anyway, because that’s one big way Americans show we care.

In many areas it is an actual thing to make friends with new neighbors by going over and introducing yourself with a plate of cookies or pie. If I go to a dinner at someone else’s house, the very first thing I ask after getting the invite is “what can I bring?” because it shows i’m not an ungrateful guest. And if they say “nothing,” I’ll probably still bring a bottle of wine or something.

I’m gonna reblog again because I realised I forgot something huge.

It’s tradition, across the US, that when your friends help you move, you repay them with pizza. This is usually because pizza is easy to order in when everyone’s tired and most people like it (so you could theoretically replace it with chinese or something), but the fact is we repay kindness with food. And it’s very specifically, always food. It can’t be replaced with buying them a drink down at the bar or something. Someone helped you out and showed they care by sacrificing time and effort for you? You show your appreciation with food.

Food = love

As a constantly hungry human bean, I approve this post

the person I reblogged this from mentioned the Dust Bowl in the tags and yeah, if anyone’s wondering WHERE this food culture came from - a quick google search will tell you all you need to know!

Adding on to an already long post - but the Dust Bowl isn’t the only reason for America’s food culture. After all, lots and lots of places have been through famine. There’s a lot of factors at play, and food culture is important everywhere. Ours just manifests differently from other areas.

Leftover culture is so huge in the south. Every so often I see Lulu’s bakery in San Antonio, Texas go viral for its huge 3 lb. cinnamon roll (pictured below)

But let me tell you, I went to school a few minutes from there and it is never the case that the cinnamon roll gets eaten entirely at the table.

First of all, I’ve basically never been there unless I am bringing a visitor from out of town for a novel San Antonio experience or out as an excursion with a big group of friends. This is a place you come with a group of a lot of people to tackle this monster and STILL a lot will be left to bring home. Again, as stated above, this place is advertised as a family restaurant, serving large portions to groups of people who might have different eating habits and who are usually down to share.

Second of all, the most common way that I’ve actually ordered one of these is specifically to go. They come cold and shrink wrapped with written instructions on the best way to store/heat/eat them over the course of several days.

Everything IS bigger in Texas. We are used to smoking a whole brisket for our family on the 4th of July. But we will also be having brisket scrambled eggs, brisket sandwiches, brisket baked potatoes until the 10th of July.

Prince of Omens Part 21

We are halfway through! Also I’m sorry 😬

I just want a compass. Or a tattoo. I read stories where our soul mates show up in the lines of our palms. Or we are struck by lightning and discover our dream job.

I smile while handing over my resume, say: I know it's a little all over the place. I can't make money doing what I love and that's okay but I also dont know what I love anyway.

Some days I wake up and the answer is easy. Tomorrow I'll start the diet or study for a law degree or apply at the bakery. But mostly I wake up and it's hazy: I see my future like grit teeth. Oh I'll probably take that job I hate just for the salary. I'll probably settle down with the wrong person because I don't believe I deserve someone good for me. I'll probably live in a place I don't like the weather just because I'm too scared to leave.

I feel like my future just... Plods along. I see it in too-small apartments and being shy. I see it in always feeling like I'm running behind; always too old for this shit but never able to catch up in the end. Is this just adulthood? The supreme sharp loneliness like a corset? Having no direction despite desperately searching for it? I am happier than when I was younger, but still this feeling persists;

To have been given all this time and still feel like I'm wasting it.

im reading about cowboy phrases and sayings and like 95% of them are just solid life advice

like idk how accurate these are but somehow they manage to be both peak shitposting humor and genuinely helpful suggestions

fuck self-help books and therapy, all i need to make it in life is my trusty Cowboy Tips™

Tumblr owners be like “oh, nothing crazy! We just wanna make a few changes, maybe include some premium options, you know. :)”

We rioted when the background color changed from blue to blue, Mr. Tumblrman.

NASA playing God.

Holy shit

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Sorry to everyone in the notes. Man I wish this were a good solution to solving issues with droughts. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell all of the water that is raining had to be transported there for the test which is a large part of why droughts are such a big issue. We have plenty of water in the world but transporting it is difficult and not cost efficient. This water vapor is being ejected as it boils off, probably as it is acting as a cooling method for the extreme heat from whatever test they are employing so all of that water had to get there just like it would for any irrigation system that might be implemented in a drought. :(

The combustion of any fuel is going to create water (anyone who has taken general chemistry can tell you: CxHxOx + O2 → AH2O + BCO2), which might contribute to this cloud and rain as well, but most fuels are just as heavy to move as water, and probably more expensive because they are... explosive. The combustion also creates CO2 which is a big bad greenhouse gas. One option that might actually be a viable method for water creation though is burning hydrogen for fuel, which creates water without all that nasty CO2 (2H2 + O2 → 2H2O)! Don’t get me started though that most hydrogen production creates CO2 that’s a different episode. Quick google search tells me that NASA does use Hydrogen as a fuel for some things but not sure if that is what this is. Unfortunately H2 is difficult to store and move around as well as it is a gas unless at very cold temperatures (NASA does have some good storage methods)... But wouldn’t it be super if they were just combusting H2 and creating rain and getting energy out of it at the same time? With no CO2 production in the combustion?

I’m not saying we should take a bunch of hydrogen to burn for fuel and clean water production to Mars but...

Undo the Damage of Sitting

(Technically, this isn’t about saving your hands… but if you draw, you’re probably doing a lot of sitting, so…)

no one:

me: here’s a flow chart of 41 lgbtq+ book recommendations, have fun!

disclaimer: this is a very non-comprehensive list since I’m only including books that I’ve read

Since some people are asking for a list of the books…

Contemporary

Historical

Sci-fi/fantasy

some other books that I completely forgot to include on this list because I’m dumb:

Model to show how earthquake dampeners work on building structures

Source

What a wiggly strawberry macaroon !

u lie down and its like (• ) ( •) and thats just how it is

You lie on your side and it’s just (•)(• )

what kind of eyes do y’all have 

Anyway the fact that every song in TGWDLM is both a satirical take on classic musical theatre tropes while also being well written and relevant to the plot really shows off Jeff’s writing talents in a way his other shows didn’t and I fuckin love it

i’m sorry but a basilisk is an emotional support animal, because it supports my emotions of death and destruction