Hah! Well you’ve hit the nail on the head, I’m in California and clam chowder with good fresh clams is a rare treat.

I use canned clams in my chowder, and I usually reach for some fatty pork product to render fat for sauteing the veggies and as a finishing garnish (I once splurged on some guanciale, but wasn’t a discernable enough upgrade to be worth repeating). Interesting to know that the chowder isn’t traditionally thick. I can’t think of a single time I’ve had it at a restaurant where it wasn’t, which is why I was adding extra thickeners to try to match that expectation.

Yep, didn’t have any bacon in the house, but I like having a little meaty salty bite in my chowder, and turns out spam fried until crunchy fits the bill!

Oh certainly try it, clam chowder is one of my favorite soups. Both New England and Manhattan style are delicious, but my inner fatass prefers the New England.

I differ from the usual recipes in that I’m a sucker for really getting some good browning on the vegetables before adding the liquid. The flavor is worth the trade off of having a tan colored chowder rather than the pale cream of the traditional New England style.

I agree, soup weather is the best!

Oh dear, I just thought that they’d get leggy like basil, maybe I should pinch the flowers off…

Probably because it was a big event and everyone wanted to be out to watch the roads switch sides.

Aww what a sweet baby. I’m sure he appreciates the comforting after the vet <3

Yes! We call those her leg warmers too :D

Sure does! Another little standard issue cutie

Maybe a beef belly cut that’s been smoked and thinly sliced, similarly to regular bacon?

As someone with ADHD, the results of this study are encouraging, but limited. They summed it up well in the article, but the study only covered people who were self-microdosing and then self-reporting, which leaves lots of uncontrolled variables.

“This study is a naturalistic prospective study, meaning that we measured participants over time without manipulating any variables such as substances and doses they used for microdosing during the study,” Haijen said. “In contrast to a controlled lab-based study, where drug- and dose uniformity is guaranteed. Also no control group was included, so we cannot say if this effect was purely because of microdosing, or if other factors, such as placebo- or expectancy effects, were the main force behind the changes we observed. So this study should be seen as a first step in this research direction, as more and controlled studies will hopefully follow.”

Goodness, that is terrible, I see why they’re looking to replace it.

I know right? My first thought was put a heating pad on the windowsill, and the cat will be much more likely to choose that spot.

When it’s finally his turn with the brain cell.

Why thank you! There’s a few “genres” of cooking and baking that I know well enough to freestyle, and a lot of it is just tasting and knowing how to balance if you’ve gone too far in one aspect or another.

Like for example, I wouldn’t normally make this with corn in it, but I’d tossed a bunch of jalapenos in with the pork that had turned extra spicy with heat stress from a recent heatwave in my area. So in tasting the stew, I decided it was overly spicy, and dumping in a half cup of corn took the spice down a notch.

What a cutie!

That was my first thought, but I think the legend is just wrong, as I don’t see that second red next to the blue anywhere.

I grow pretty much everything from seed because it’s crazy cheaper (after some upfront costs). For the price of one or maybe a few seedlings, you can buy seed packets with hundreds of seeds. Seeds also make trying out unique plants possible, as often times nurseries don’t carry a wide variety to choose from.

Some of us embrace the crumb life.

Depending on the zone you’re in yes. I’m in 9b and rarely get freezing temperatures, so I can grow things over winter that might not survive in colder areas. Some brassicas are especially frost tolerant, so it would be worth looking into and seeing what you can grow in your area.