fucked up how cooking and baking from scratch is viewed as a luxury…..like baking a loaf of bread or whatever is seen as something that only people with money/time can do. I’m not sure why capitalism decided to sell us the idea that we can’t make our own damn food bc it’s a special expensive thing that’s exclusive to wealthy retirees but it’s stupid as hell and it makes me angry
bread takes like max 4 ingredients counting water and sure it takes a couple hours but 80% of that is just waiting around while it does the thing and you can do other things while it’s rising/baking
plus im not gonna say baking cured my depression bc it didn’t but man is it hard to feel down when you’re eating slices of fresh bread you just made yourself. feels like everything’s gonna be a little more ok than you thought. it’s good.
bread is amazing and it’s also been sold to us as something really hard to make? Every time I tell someone I made a loaf of bread I get reactions like “you made it yourself???” and “do you have a bread machine then?” I haven’t touched a bread machine in probably 10 years. You CAN make your own bread, folks, and it’s actually pretty cheap to do so. I believe the most expensive thing I needed for it was the jar of yeast. It was about $6 at the grocery store and lasted me MONTHS (just keep it in the fridge.) The packets are even cheaper. destroy capitalism. bake your own bread.
You can also make your own yeast by making a sourdough starter, so that cuts cost even more.
But you have to feed the starter daily/weekly and that means it grows quickly, but there are tons of recipes online for what to do with your excess starter. Cookies, pretzels, crackers, pancakes, waffles, you name it!!
Make it even easier – “No-Knead Bread”. All YOU do is mix the ingredients together and wait until it’s time to heat the oven. The yeast does all the rest.
Here’s @dduane’s first take on itand the finished product. We’ve made even more photogenic batches since.
Kneading is easy as well; either let your machine do it, or if you don’t want to or don’t have one, get hands-on. It’s like mixing two colours of Plasticine to make a third. Flatten, stretch, fold, half-turn, repeat – it takes about 10 minutes – until the gloopy conglomeration of flour, yeast, salt and water that clings to your hands at the beginning, becomes a compact ball that doesn’t stick to things and feels silky-smooth.
Here’s what before and after look like.
My Mum used to say that if you were feeling out of sorts with someone, it was good to
make bread because you could transfer your annoyance into kneading the
dough REALLY WELL, and both you and the bread would be better for it.
Then you put it into a bowl, cover it with cling-film and let it rise until it doubles in size, turn it out and “knock it back” (more kneading, until it’s getting back to the size it started, this means there won’t be huge “is something living in here?” holes in the bread), put it into your loaf-tin or whatever – we’ve used a regular oblong tin, a rectangular Pullman tin with a lid, a small glass casserole, an earthenware chicken roaster…
You can even use a clean terracotta flowerpot.
Let the dough rise again until it’s high enough to look like an unbaked but otherwise real loaf, then pop it in the preheated oven. On average we give ours 180°C / 355°F for 45-50 minutes. YM (and oven) MV.
Here’s some of our bread…
Here’s our default bread recipe – it takes about 3-4 hours from flour jar to cutting board depending on climate (warmer is faster) most of which is rise time and baking; hands-on mixing, kneading and knocking-back is about 20 minutes, tops, and less if using a mixer.
Here ( or indeed any of the other pics) is the finished product. This one was given an egg-wash to make it look glossy and keep the poppy-seeds in place; mostly we don’t bother with that or the slash down the middle, but all the extras were intentional as a “ready for my close-up” glamour shot.
I think any shop would be happy to have something this good-looking on their shelf.
We’re happy to have it on our table.
Even if your first attempts don’t work out quite as well as you hope, you can always make something like this…
can we have more posts like this in future please? this is really useful and could help those who are struggling
My class of 18-36 month old children bake bread independently every morning. It’s not rocket science!
also the rise (haha) in store bought bread is considered to be part of why coeliac disease and wheat intolerance is so on the increase. Traditionally bread would be left to rise overnight when the ovens were turned down. That allowed the gluten to almost entirely break down by the time it was actually baked often 10-12 hours later.
But supermarket bread?? it gets about 15 minutes to rise. 15 paltry minutes. Because it needs to be forced to rise so fast, the yeast is fed with an outrageous amount of sugar and the gluten never gets the time to break down and so there’s a higher quantity in the bread. so there’s more gluten AND a ridiculous amount of sugar.
Little reminder that the “supermarket bread” thing here appears to be a US or North American thing.
Most supermarket white bread sliced pans here in Ireland and in the UK have no added sugar, and presumably are left to rise normally.
I need to pull you guys up hear – for a lot of people it isn’t that making your own bread or cooking from scratch is “viewed” as a luxury” it’s because regularly doing so IS a luxury.
Cooking and baking from scratch requires – access to fresh ingredients; time; space.
Yes I know there are some people who manage to do so in tiny kitchens and some people fit in cooking around a hectic schedule (but these people usually enjoy the process so are getting downtime from it as well as actual food).
If you are working long shifts, multiple jobs, studying and working, working and doing child care, working and a carer for an adult you simply don’t have time to bake and cook from scratch regularly. Or you might but you would have no time for anything else like sitting and resting, or enjoying a hobby or activity. If it is something you only get the time to do occasionally then it becomes a luxury.
If you have a disability you may not be physically able to cook from scratch regularly – this is often wrapped up in “time” because it relates to having the time to cook when you are physically capable of doing so. Chronic health conditions or disabilities that limit your ability to do an activity essentially act as a time suck that take time away from you being able to do something. The time and ability to cook becomes a luxury.
Access to fresh or basic ingredients is a difficult one. This is often a balance of time and money. Ingredients that you have easy access to from your local grocery store may be limited. Some base ingredients can be affordable, but others may not be. The alternative is going to stores further away or multiple stores to pick up the ingredients you need. This takes time to do, (there is also the added fuel or public transport costs). This issue can be compounded by health limitations that mean travelling further to go to the shop that sells the thing or going to the big busy market is simply not possible. For people who are limited by resources, budget, time or location access to suitable ingredients is a luxury.
Then there is access to the things you need to cook. You may be able to find some items cheaply in charity shops but it’s a bit hit and miss and you need the time to be able to wait around for those items to appear or to visit a number of shops to see if they have them in. Or you need to be able to buy brand new. Again it’s a balance of time and money to make everything from pans to spatulas to mixing bowls available (and I’m not even considering electrical items or actual stoves here). Access to that equipment can be a luxury.
Poor people who live in small homes may have tiny kitchens which they struggle to actually cook in. They may not have space to store a full set of pans or other items, they may not have a stove or working oven. They may only have a tiny fridge and no freezer if at all. Additionally if you are in a house share situation or even if you have a family in a small home you can’t take up a lot of time and space using kitchen facilities because other people need that space too. having regular, adequate space and facilities to cook from scratch is a luxury.
Yes, there are people who manage to cook great things from scratch on a tiny budget or in small kitchens and so on but usually these are people who have other privileges i.e. the person on a tiny budget may work from home and have the flexible time to put the effort in. Additionally these are usually people who get enjoyment out of cooking from scratch. There is an additional benefit to the effort needed i.e. it’s not just about sustenance it’s also about quality time spent. That’s a big motivating factor. We can’t chastise people who don’t get that pleasure and for whom cooking is a chore if they want to spend less time doing and maybe more time doing something they like like reading a book, watching TV or just snoozing.
We certainly shouldn’t chastise people who are already extremely limited on time to not want to spend all their free time, space or money on cooking.
The reality is that in a lot of modern hyper capitalist societies like the USA and the UK, cooking from scratch is a luxury for a lot of people.
It shouldn’t be, but it is.
Chastising people and trying to jolly them along with “helpful” advice about this great bread recipe you have doesn’t help. It doesn’t actually solve any of the factors that is making it a luxury.
All it ends up doing is shaming people who are not able to cook from scratch due to their circumstances. It can also have the effect of trying to make people feel guilty for not trying enough. It essentially says “if you wanted to you could do this. If you wanted to you could spend literally all your “free” time, money and effort cooking, but you don’t want to. you just aren’t trying hard enough.” and let me tell you that is toxic. That is the sort of toxic rhetoric that is spouted at poor and disabled folk all the time.
It’s similar to the people who look at people like Jack of cooking on a budget fame and say “why are the poor people complaining, if they just tried hard enough they could eat fine. If they wanted to they’d have plenty of money for food.”. While completely missing the message that cook books on “how to stretch £5 to feed two people for a week” shouldn’t even have to exist.
In our society cooking from scratch is for a lot of people a luxury.
It is not viewed as a luxury.
The issue is not people being stupid, or not trying enough.
The answer is not to be smug about your bread or to make blog articles about “5 hacks to making soup”.
The answer is to challenge a society and social structure that has made the very basics of living – preparing food to eat – into a luxury activity. We should be asking why people have to work so many hours each day that putting a ready meal in the microwave is preferable (or the only option) instead of cooking. We should be asking why market forces have made it so that some basic ingredients cost more than pre-prepared ingredients, why these aren’t widely available and why companies are allowed to charge premium prices for limited stock.
We should be looking at why housing is an ongoing issue, why people are forced into tiny houses, house shares (not happy communes) and sub par housing that doesn’t have proper cooking facilities. We should be asking why private rents have sky rocketed while social housing has been more than decimated and why there are tax breaks to housing developers that push up the cost of buying or renting but not to those who wish to renovate existing housing stock to make it suitable accommodation.
We should be asking we social care and support for disabled people and their carers is so poor that many disabled people end up with malnourishment because they simply can’t afford food, the facilities to cook it or have the support they need in order to feed themselves.
this is not a case of “ho ho, if only those plebs knew how to make this simple loaf!”. This is a case of “why the hell do we continue to support an economic system that makes cooking from scratch a luxury?”
This reminds me of that old triangle in business: quick, cheap, good – choose two. I.e. if you want quick and good, it won’t be cheap, if you want quick and cheap, it won’t be good, and if you want cheap and good, you’ll have to wait a while.
Only with food, the three points of the triangle are quick/easy, cheap, and nutritionally good.
If you want to have food that’s quick and cheap, its nutritional value is going to be appalling.
If you want to have food that’s quick and healthy, you can buy prepared vegetables, and smoothie mixes, and even microwave meals that are full of fresh vegetables. But all that costs a lot of money.
If you want to have food that’s cheap and healthy, you can grow your own vegetables, and bake stuff from scratch, etc. But that takes a huge amount of time and effort.
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-You discover a new document in your “completed” folder. It’s 20k words of fantasy and adventure. You have no memory of writing it.
– You take a sip of your coffee and set it down to type. After a moment, you take another sip only to find the cup empty. You have written ten words.
– You go to take a shower and discover writing on your skin. Dialogue, character description, tips for edits. You don’t remember bringing pen to flesh.
– The cursor blinks at you. You blink back. Time stretches as you blink, back and forth, back and forth until, at last, you both stop blinking entirely. Nothing gets written.
– The same word appears three times in the same paragraph. You edit them out, only to find them, again, three paragraphs down. You close your laptop and decide to go shopping. You stare at the word flashing by on the way to the store. You feel followed.
– Your pen carves vicious corrections onto a printed copy of your story. Later, you will not remember the way you grit your teeth while editing or why calling a character effervescent is “superfluous.”
– There are words scrawled on receipts, on post its, on torn out scraps of paper all over your room. You recognize your handwriting on most of them and choose to ignore those bits in handwriting you do not.
– Your mom asks about your day. You do not know how to explain the exhaustion in your bones or the way your neck aches with the weight of eyes you’d tried to leave on the page or the way your fingers are still typing phantom words against your thighs. You tell her nothing happened.
– Your roommates are concerned. You have not spoken in days. You wonder who it was you were whispering to last night as you scratched out another outline at the kitchen table.
– Your computer screen goes dark while you stare at your last sentence, trying to think of where to go next. You did not know that your lips could curl like that or your eyes could look so black.
ON POINT. Some additions:
– You are in a work-meeting when someone says the word. The word which you have been grasping for, for the past two days. Now you must scribble it down somewhere.
– You read a brilliant story. You get inspired. You write stuff. You forget about the story. Months later you think of a perfect plot. A perfect story. A Pulitzer-worthy work of art. You write it down fuelled with passion and coffee. Your writing buddy casually mentions your story’s similarity to the one they read a few weeks ago. Horror ensues.
– You are on the bus. A stranger catches your eye. There are worlds hidden in those eyes and you write down one (1) perfectly crafted sentence in your notes app. This will be it. Your novel. It isn’t.
– You see a black cat lurking in an alleyway. You follow it. (One must always follow black cats for they are the keepers of secrets). You play out an entire future in your head in which the cat leads you to an enchanted forest with witches and mages and dragons and magic. In which you save the world with the help of an invaluable sidekick. An hour later you find yourself nursing one of many scratches. The keeper of secrets doesn’t like to be touched.
-You read a sentence. Its eloquence overwhelms you. You will never be able to write like that. You cower under your blankets (plural) and weep.
-You read an old piece of yours. You think, wow I am capable of stringing words together. You read something you wrote five minutes ago. Agony. Disgust. Who allowed this person near a computer.
I stumbled upon an editor’s blog, and this was the most persistent advice they gave to several people.
Sounds easy enough, right? Well, it appears that most people don’t think about it. It does not only help you see if the rhythm and pace is working like you want it to, but it helps you reconsider your word choice.
Don’t do it while you’re writing, though. While you’re writing, just let everything out.
Do it during the revision/edition/proofreading/however you call it, or after you finish one or two paragraphs.
So, I’m reading aloud my piece, but what the hell do I have to look for?
Well, for starters:
Does it sound awkward? Is it confusing?
Does the word choice work?
Does the punctuation work?
Is a line running on like a coursing river to the point you need a second breath to finish it? On the other hand, are there a bunch of short, repetitive sentences that make you stop every second?
Is it full of long words that take you a while to pronounce correctly?
Of course, sometimes you need sucessive short sentences. Sometimes you need long sentences. That’s what this is all about, to confirm your story is working the way you want it to.
You can also read other people’s work aloud. This is what I do sometimes. When I’m reading and I think I haven’t fully understood a sentence or there’s something that just bugs me, I read it aloud.
This is particularly helpful when writing scenes that just need to evoke a certain mood on the reader.
For example, you’re writing a sex scene (or smut, for my fellow fanfic/roleplay writers). This scene has to make the reader feel all hot and bothered and, you know it, not awkward.
Read it aloud. Does it make you laugh? Unless the point is to make the reader laugh over the characters’ awkwardness, it shouldn’t make you laugh.
So, really, change the word “penis”. You will only get to make me laugh like an immature 12 year old.
-Alex
Yeah… not changing the word penis. It makes you giggle like a 12 year old? Your problem.
Honestly people, an arm is an arm, a leg is a leg, a penis is a penis and a vagina is a vagina. Don’t make such big deal out of it. It’s just anatomy and we all use our anatomy to have sex.
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the Triplets of Bellevilleis about an elderly woman searching for her son who was kidnapped in the middle of a Tour de France race. It’s largely free of dialogue, but the sound effects and such are wonderful. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature—it lost to Finding Nemo.
A Cat in Parisis about a young girl and her cat who discover mysteries in the course of one night. It was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, but it lost to Rango.
Persepolisis based on an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi about her early life in Iran. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but it lost to Ratatouille.
the Illusionist is about an aging magician and an imaginative young girl who form a father/daughter relationship. It was also nominated for a Best Animation Oscar, but lost to Toy Story 3.
The Rabbi’s Catis a story about a cat who swallows a parrot and gains the ability to speak like a human. It is set in 1920’s Algeria.
Ernest & Celestineis the adorable story about a big bear and a little mouse who forge an unlikely friendship. It was also nominated for an Oscar in Best Animated Picture, but lost to Frozen.
Kirikou and the Sorceressis a story inspired by West African folklore that tells the story of Kirikou, a boy who was born with the ability to walk and talk, who saves his people from an evil witch. The film was popular enough to spawn sequels and a stage adaptation.
A Monster in Parisis a 3D animated musical film that is reaaaaalllly loosely based on the Phantom of the Opera. It’s set in 1910 and is about, surprisingly, a monster that lives in Paris, and his love for a young singer.
The King and the Mockingbirdis an 80’s film about a cruel king titled Charles V + III = VIII + VIII = XVI, who is obsessed with a young shepherdess, and whose attempts to capture the young girl are thwarted by a mockingbird whose wife the King had previously killed.
Those are probably the most famous of the feature length animated films.
But the animated short films are just as glorious. Here’s a compilation of a bunch of short films and I can link you to others as well.
Sorry for the long answer but I just really love French animation.
Reblogging over here. French animation tends to do better with diversity than Disney does, hahaha.
I should add “Le Tableau” which is really beautiful, especially if you love art. This movie is highly poetic !
“A château, flowering gardens, a threatening forest, here is what, for mysterious reasons, a Painter has left incomplete. Three kinds of characters live in this painting: the Toupins, who are entirely painted, the Pafinis, who lack a few colors, and the Reufs, who are only sketches. Considering themselves superior, the Toupins take over power, chase the Pafinis from the château, and enslave the Reufs. Convinced that only the Painter can restore harmony by finishing the painting, Ramo, Lola, and Plume decided to go looking for him. Throughout the adventure, questions will follow one after the other: What has become of the Painter? Why did he abandon them? Why did he begin destroying some of his paintings? Will they one day know the Painter’s secret?”
I would highly recommend Ernest & Celestine as the animation is beautiful, the characters are really moving and the story conveys a great message about love, friendship and oppression.
Another thing : have you seen how these amazing movies lost to american big productions ?
Don’t forget about Kirikou et la Sorcière.
They didn’t forget! Kirikou and the Sorceress, up there.
May I suggest Dragon Huntersfor myself? This 2008 feature-length film is based on the 2004-2005 cartoon Chasseurs de dragons, by the same makers (available fully online, by the way). The music, by Klaus Badelt, is hypnotic. The world is beautiful and strange, the characters lovable… and the dragons, really good.
A young russian girl goes for a trip to the North Pole to find the boat that her grandfather, a famous explorer, used for his last adventure during which he disappeared… Visually stunning, and very cool story and characters.
Avril et le Monde Truqué / April and the Twisted World
The story is set in a world where science never went further than steam and coal, since it’s been years that all scientists have mysteriously disappeared. April is the daughter of two scientists who disappeared when she was a child. As an adult, April too turns to science in secret, and will discover the reason why scientists have been disappearing all this time. Humour, atmosphere, mystery… And based on the graphic style of veteran legend comic book artist Jacques Tardi!
Aya de Yopougon / Aya of Yop City
The everyday life of Aya, a young woman who lives in Ivory Coast at the end of the 70s. Very nice mood and humour!
Adama
A young african boy goes after his older brother who left to fight for France in the war. This will lead him for a whole trip to Paris and beyond. I mainly like it for the graphic style. An interesting look for a 3D movie since they used animated textures.
Astérix: le domaine des Dieux / Astérix: the mansion of Gods
By far my favorite movie adaptation from the Astérix comic books series. This one revolves around an ingenous plan set by Caesar. He builts fancy appartements for rich romans near the Gaulish village, hoping that the Gauls wont attack civilians but will sitll get annoyed enough by the roman population to want to leave their village… and the plan works way too well.
Lascars
How 2 guys from a popular neighboorhood of Paris spend their holidays after being robbed of their trip to a paradise location. One of them tries to borrow money from a local criminal, and the other one finds a job in a rich family.
Very funny, but very not for children as well (drugs, violence, swear words, and sex!)
Le Magasin des Suicides / The Suicide Shop
The Tuvache are a really rich family in a town where nobody is happy to live. They made fortune in selling suicide articles. Unfortunately for them, their youngest son is a really nice, happy little fellow who wants to make people’s lives better… the first half is really worth watching, for the black sense of humour and originality.
Dofus, Livre 1: Julith / Dofus , First Book: Julith
For all you Ankama / Dofus / Wakfu fans! And for the others as well, since it’s not required to already know the Wafu universe to understand the movie. Follow the adventures of Joris, a young orphan who lives in a wolrd where the Dofus are special magical dragon eggs that grant tremendous power to their owners. Extremely good animation and funny characters.
Le Château des Singes / A Monkey’s Tale
A movie by the same director who made Le Ableau, Jean-françois Laguionie. A tale about two populations of monkeys, one tribe that lives at the top of the trees, and one that lives on the ground. One day, a young monkey form the tribe of the top will go meet the tribe of the bottom, who seem to live in some medieval kind of way.
U
Now that is one weird movie. About a unicorn named U, who came to help a girl who is not happy with her parents cruelty. Bur that girl isnt very nice herself…
Now a last quick word about studio Folimage, which is the one that produced A Cat in Paris: most of their movies are must-see. Like, really. Just look at all these visuals!!!
Phantom Boy
La Prophétie des Grenouilles / Raining Cats and Frogs
Mia et le Migou / Mia and the Migoo
They also produce short movies that can be gorgeous. My favorite is Le Bisclavret!
i was asked to recommande french animated movies by a friend so here is the full list for everyone to enjoy (again)
C.A. Jacobs
C.A. Jacobs 