Cooking Through History, period 2

[sharp_man]

"Welcome." Today, class would step into a wooden house, brightly painted. "There are any number of ancient cuisines we could discuss once humans got the hang of further techniques. Today we will be making Babaofan - Eight Treasure Glutinous Rice - a Chinese food that has been documented from around 1000 BCE, or three thousand years ago.

"It is a type of congee, or rice porridge. Rice was first domesticated in China around ten thousand years ago, and has fed more people over a longer time than any other crop in human history. There are several legends as to how this particular dish came about, and it is still eaten today, mostly upon special occasions. Eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture. It is made from glutinous rice and a combination of eight "treasures", traditionally fruits and legumes. Some of the commonly used ones are dried dates, lotus seeds, candied plums, sweetened winter melon, red bean paste, assorted nuts, vegetables, meat, or potatoes. Since we're replicating the ancient foods as much as possible, we will be using ones that were most likely available then: lotus seed, red dates, longan, goji berries, winter melon, apricots, and lily bulbs. These are meant to balance tastes and medicinal properties - each ingredient has a different taste and different properties."

He waved to the wood-fired stoves awaiting them. "We will be cooking the rice and ingredients in pots, steaming and boiling. These were the earliest attested cooking methods; frying was not known until much later, when the materials in use allowed for higher heats. So, cook your food, and let me know if you have any questions; I will be making my own."

Bad Ass Bitch Survival Guide; Friday, First Period [10/04].

[died8yearsago]

So the jello had just been a one-off thing, which was good, because dealing with it had been super annoying and if it did turn out to be anything more than that, she might have had to cancel her class, which would be bad because it was October now, which meant they had some work to do before Halloween.

There was a sign on the door to the classroom, simple and straight forward and to the point, and something the students should generally start expecting half the time for this class, anyway:

Gym.

At least this time it came without the threat of any punching, right? And when they arrived for the period, they'd find the gym all decked out for an obstacle course, with some very specific focuses.

"Stealth," Rosa said, maybe with a faint grin because this was one of her favorites. "Because there's a point in every girl's life where they're going to need to sneak into or out of something without being noticed. And unless you're some kind of magical ninja from who even knows where and I don't care anyway, that sort of thing takes time, practice, and patience. So take a few minutes, stretch out, get limber, and then we're going to see just how well you can do getting through the courses without making a sound. And yes," Rosa added, looking over at Lana assuming she was there, "I know some of you have done this before and that some of you," it was literally just the one, that she knew of, "have abilities that make it a whole lot easier than the average person, so do yourself a favor and try to do it without. And do your friends a favor by not helping them, because then they won't learn shit for when they have to do it without."

That said, she moved on.

"First step: laser course. Only instead of real lasers, we've got ropes, and each rope has bells on it, so if you hit it, we know, I blow the whistle, and you start over. If you manage to make it through that, then we've got platforms, made of nice creaky wood, so they're noisy, and if you're too noisy, back to the start. And then there's the window." Yes, she'd rigged up just a freestanding wall with a window in it. "Get this thing open and slip out without too much noise. Out of all this crap, this one's probably the most useful. Be careful, though, because there's some bells on the other side. Wouldn't want to set one off and have to start over again. And finally, if you think you're real bad ass, we have this rope climb. A rope. With a bell on it. See how far you can get to the top without rining the bell or, if you really want to challenge yourself, without special powers, and then you can be smug about it.

"A few tips: don't be afraid to take your time. Focus on your breathing and the balls of your feet and keeping low to the ground. Don't let something like clothing or hair trip you up: a buckle scraped at the wrong moment could give you up like that." She snapped her fingers. "And to give you all an idea and prove that I'm not just full of shit...I'll show you what I mean."

She shrugged off her jacket, tossed it aside, rolled her neck a little, and approached the first course. One deep breath, a pause, and then she swept through the tangle of cross-crossing ropes in a fluid motion that she hadn't spent all morning practicing to make sure it was still as perfect as last time or anything, shut up, but, yeah, flawless, and thank god, because that would have sucked to biff it like that right in front of the class.

"Any questions?" she asked. "Take five, warm up, then we'll get started. You," she quirked her chin at literally anyone, there was no way you could tell if she had a particular person in mind, "you'll go first."

[[ ocd is up! huzzah! ]]

Fandom Library, Friday

[crack_that_whip]

Well, after yesterday, Trevor was stuck cleaning jello off a few unlucky books. Which was going to take up at least half his shift.

But that got him closer to being done at the very least. He could appreciate that.

Until the jello got stuck on him, that is.

Practical Civics, Friday, October 4, 2019

[heroic_jawline]

"Well," Steve said, blowing out a breath, "the government seems to be imploding in real time and that is just--" he ran a hand through his hair, "--horrifically depressing and more than a bit scary."

"Remember when it was just a normal dumpster fire?" Tony asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I miss that."

"Let's make this completely, crystal clear. Asking another country to help your election campaign, whether you're a mayor or president or even just a candidate is a felony. Tying it to a vulnerable nation's need for weapons to protect itself against a Russian invasion?" Steve's face was a picture. "I don't toss 'treason' around lightly, but. Yes. Definitely impeachable. This makes Nixon look like a choir boy."

"Twice! He did it twice!" Tony needed to take a deep breath.

"ONCE LIVE ON TELEVISION." Steve.

Another deep breath. "So to avoid having blood pressure spikes in class, we're going to talk about the stupidest news story yesterday: how a moron felt that making up his own opposition research where Senator Warren was carrying on an alleged affair with a 24 year old Marine would possible be considered a bad thing."

"Telling us that Senator Warren is a dominatrix cougar was somehow supposed to deter people from voting for her," Tony said. "I hope that's her Secret Service code name now."

Steve snorted. "Okay, in an effort to keep this slightly on topic, let's discuss propaganda and its effects on a population. Because right now that is a real problem. The White House released a rough transcript with the President asking for a personal, political favor from the Ukrainian president, and 4 in 10 Republicans don't believe it happened. How do you combat that kind of wilful ignorance? Do you even try?"

"How would you solve this issue?" Tony asked. "Murder is not an option."