Roibos chai with a spoon of honey in a cup that looks remarkably like one I own!
I wasn’t tagged, but I luuuhtea and pretty tea cups. I call this moon-glow tea and I paired it with macaroons! I wanted the bougie-est cup of tea I could make! :D
The wonderful @heavyweightheart shared this awesome article with me some months ago, and I’m still cackling madly at the sheer huevos on the women who developed this recipe:
That’s a dessert - a type of French toast, if you will - that’s meant to look like chuletas, pork chops, and to throw off nosy neighbours set on selling out their crypto-Jewish (don’t get confused here, crypto as in hidden) neighbours to the inquisition.
Y'all. These kickass women developed a kosher, pork looking dish. That’s classified as milk
Anyway, read the article. I’m just focusing on the spite bits, bc gremblin. ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯ It is about a woman who was tipped off about her Jewish roots based on her family’s recipes, which had been passed down to her:
When Milgrom was in her 30s, as a young divorcee she felt drawn to Judaism and she converted to Modern Orthodox Judaism. She married a Jewish man and then discovered she might have Crypto-Jewish heritage. She realized that her family’s unique culinary habits were actually related to kashrut — the Jewish dietary laws — and other commandments surrounding food preparation. For instance, tearing off a bit of dough and burning it is called hafrashat challah (separating challah), a Jewish religious commandment stemming from a biblical sacrifice.
The best detail about this entire story is that she had already gone back to Judaism before she even found out she was bnei anusim :’)
Anyway, her cookbook sounds amazing. Some of her recipes sound a little like how @sefarad ’s nonna makes things like bimuelos, measuring in egg shells and the like.
Last night, I called my mom in Siberia. She said that one of the major TV channels told a story of angry Americans blaming Russians for … high prices on sunflower oil and shortages.
In Russia, sunflower oil is one of the basic groceries like flour, sugar, or salt. Any price increase for sunflower oil and shortages of it would be pretty painful for an average Russian household, so the propagandists decided to use it as an example for their scary tales. Not gas prices, not even wheat, but sunflower fucking oil!
My mom had no idea that sunflower oil is not even popular in the North America. We both laughed for about five minutes after I explained her how poorly that story was created.
as ur friendly Neighborhood Nursing Student™ i feel somewhat compelled to remind everyone with the hot weather:
every liquid except sea water and alcohol hydrates you. It’s not CHUG WATER OR DIE. in fact, gatorade and the like are designedto hydrate you efficiently.
yeah, this includes coffee and tea and soda. the diuretic is notenough to cancel out the liquid. juices and milk have solids in them, sure, but they’re also mostly liquid! it counts.
your body can only absorb so much water at a time, so chugging 64 oz of water at noon and calling it good will do a wonderfuljob of flushing your kidneys, but not so much of hydrating your tissues. it’s more important that you’re getting consistent fluid throughout the day.
there’s a lot of fancy ways to determine How Much Water (Liquid) I Should Drink but honestly? 8 oz (1 cup) every other hour on cool days and 8 oz every hour on hot days should be fine (assuming you sleep for a normal amount of time per day…. i’m assuming ur awake 16 hours a day.)
figure out how many oz each of ur favorite cups is. it’ll help your guesstimation.
if ur urine is darker than light yellow, you’re dehydrated.
if u pinch the skin on the back of ur hand for a couple seconds and it takes more than a second or two go to back to normal then ur dehydrated.
In regards to #1, don’t take this as an excuse to drink the sugar water that they call sports drinks. They aren’t bad for you per se, but please choose water.
actually this entire post was written in the spirit of ppl using it as an excuse to drink sports drinks and soda etc
ppl have been commenting abt sodium levels in soda and sugar levels in sports drinks and thats all well and good but what i’ve noticed is that people who internalize “well, ONLY WATER hydrates me” but who HATE WATER remain horrifically dehydrated cause they dont drink anything.
so like. if ur a person who haaaaates tap water, this is absolutely me giving you permission to drink whatever fluid you can stomach. please take this as a direct excuse to drink nothing but gatorade if that’s what it takes to get enough fluid into ur body.
it’s not the healthiest for you, sure, but you’re a smart enough person to know that. please drink fluids anyways.
if u like water thats gr8. if you can stomach water that’s gr8. if you can’t, that’s okay too, and you need to stay hydrated just as much as anyone else, so pleasedrink.
I used to hate tap water, and in some places (looking at you, Iowa) it is legit disgusting, but one thing I do which helped a ton and was long term cheaper than buying soda or juice was to get a bottle of Angostura bitters. It’s a cocktail additive with a strong distinctive flavor, so although a tiny bottle is like $6 it will last you for ages. Put a small drop or dash in your glass then fill with water. It has a pleasant sort of herbal metal taste (I understand that those words don’t seem like they should go together but it’s hard to describe) which masks tap water. It also helps me smooth an upset tummy but your mileage may vary. It’s not something that will get you drunk, just a flavoring like vanilla extract.
If that all sounds like too much bother, dropping a lemon wedge into water also helps.
I am learning that lemon wedges are magical in almost everything I like to drink.
here is the magic that made me stop being chronically dehydrated:
because yeah, i can’t STAND plain water – it tastes like the inside of my mouth. it tastes like spit. imagine drinking a glass of ice cold spit. ugh. but add a squirt of this stuff to your glass of tapwater, and now it tastes like apple, cherry, lemonade, whatever.
i also got a bunch of these
and pre-prep them with flavored water, iced tea, iced coffee, whatever (or ask my helper to do it), and then when i’m thirsty but distracted and want to just grab some kind of liquid without thinking about finding a clean glass etc., i can just grab one of these.
because yeah, hating water is a thing, and dehydration SUCKS. so drink SOMETHING, don’t be a water purist. better to chug iced coffee than go without.
mio was a damn genius for comin out with that shit
can I just speak up here as someone who has been a nurse for 17 years? I heartily endorse this post and also give you permission to DRINK WHATEVER THE HELL IT TAKES TO KEEP YOU FROM BEING DEHYDRATED
especially in the summer, you can’t play around with that. drink something. seriously. for the love of kittens. DRINK SOMETHING.
I thought of this earlier today, too: If you’re trying to be really conscientious of the sugar levels in many drinks, a simple thing I do is cut my juice or gatorade like 1:1 with water. That way, it has just enough flavor, but it’ll also dilute some of the sugar content. Tbh, I find that some juices and such have too much flavor for my preferences anyway, so this also helps me want to drink more often.
HYDRATION FRIENDS! If you do not care for sports drinks or the like, but still want something that will help replenish depleted electrolytes, can I recommend…
SEKANJABIN?
Sekanjabin is a drink used across Northern Africa and the Middle East today and has its origins in medieval Persia. It is a vinegar-based drink (which sounds weird but I promise you can barely taste it if made properly). Modern sekanjabin is traditionally made with mint, or mint and cucumber. The first written copy of the recipe was simply honey and vinegar (10th century, in Fihrist of al-Nadim).
Here is my actual award-winning Pomegranate Ginger Rose Water sekanjabin:
Ingredients
2 C sugar
1¼ C water
½ C vinegar (white, white wine, or red wine)
1 C pomegranate juice
1 T rose water
3 ginger candies
Instructions
Bring the sugar, water, and vinegar to a boil. Stir for three minutes (sugar should now be fully integrated).
Add ginger candy; stir until melted. Remove from heat.
Add rosewater and pomegranate juice, stir.
Let cool to room temperature, then bottle.
To drink: add 1 part syrup to 5-10 parts water. Can be prepared hot or cold, but I think it tastes best over ice.
Notes
Sekanjabin is shelf-stable and will last a very long time. Feel free to play with the flavors and proportions of the base ingredients – other popular flavors include mint, lavender, and quince. It’s also worth noting that the different vinegars will affect the flavor of the final product.
I use Gin-Gin ginger candies. You could also use ginger syrup (1 teaspoon per candy, or 1 tablespoon/3 candies). You can even use powdered ginger, although the end result will have “floaters” in it as a result.
If you live in a large city, you may be able to find rose water in your local grocery store (in the middle eastern food area). Medium cities: you can find it at your local Middle Eastern grocer. Oftentimes in health food stores. Small towns: you may want to order online.
Rose water is not a common flavor in modern Western cooking. It is VERY easy to over-do the rosewater; if you are concerned about it tasting like soap or perfume, start with a teaspoon and add more.
It’s fun to experiment! Hate ginger? Try adding mint (both have soothing qualities for the stomach). Think pomegranate is boring? Try quince. Know you can’t stand roses? Go for lavender! You could make a bunch of sample bottles to see what works for you.
Storage: I put mine in (thoroughly cleaned-out) glass booze bottles. I also currently have two gallons in an old water container. A little bit goes a long way.
Awesome things about sekanjabin: it’s an AMAZING recovery drink. I had folks drinking mine when they were sick and thanking me afterward because it was the only thing they could keep down and likely kept them from dehydrating to the point of hospitalizaiton. I also had folks drinking it as a hangover cure – a higher syrup:water ratio than I’d usually recommend, but it worked for them.
Hydrate in whatever way works for you! But if you want those electrolytes, make you some sekanjabin.
This entire article is eye-opening, even as someone who has ADHD and has read a lot about it already. There’s so much more there than just the bit about the glucose-craving brain. SO. MUCH.
This might have been the bit that hit me hardest, actually:
it would be easy to misinterpret the following scenario as a standoff between two partners: Imagine that your partner asks you to pay the electric bill, and you say to yourself, “OK, I have time to do that today.” But when you sit down to do it, you keep getting distracted. The ADHD brain needs higher stimulation in order to complete this rote task with minimal payoff. Your ADHD brain says, “That task is way too boring, and I refuse to focus on it. Find something that interests me more, which offers me a bigger dopamine reward, and I’ll work with you.” It doesn’t matter that you know you should pay the bill as promised; if your brain won’t engage, it’s an ugly standoff. Perhaps, after a day of procrastination — when your partner will be home in 20 minutes and the bill is still unpaid — there may be enough of an adrenaline rush from a sense of crisis that your brain will engage and you pay the bill.
The ADHD brain and its owner are at odds with one another. It’s difficult to compel a disengaged brain to engage by force of will. In fact, much of the treatment for ADHD involves learning to psych out the brain, so that it will attend to necessary, low-stimulation tasks.
Appreciating the tug-of-war within that pits intellect against neurobiology increases compassion and acceptance for one’s hidden struggle.
sometimes i’m like “wow food is what connects us sharing a meal with my friends is a love language” and other days i’m like *looking at body* “you mean this thing is hungry aGAIN??”
