i taught a baking class for 12 year olds today and we made your garden variety chocolate chip cookies, but i’m a big believer in Questioning Everything and the who/what/where/why/when/how behind things, so the first part of the class was purposely letting the kids do things the wrong way, to show and explain why we do things the way we do.

“why do we bake cookies at 180 for 9 minutes when we could do 400 for 2 minutes?” -enter the godawful lump of coal with a still gross wet and uncooked inside

“why do we have to scoop out little cookies instead of doing the whole tray?” -ok well that one you can technically do if the spread is even. you just end up with one giant, structurally unsound cookie. “PLEASE CAN WE MAKE GIANT COOKIES” (we did make 1 giant tray cookie)

we talked a lot about why consistency is important, but i don’t think it really hammered home until i said “okay everyone gets ONE cookie, that’s fair, right?” and then handed out cookies of hugely varying sizes. + baked one fat lump of a cookie that still wasn’t done at the 9 minutes, vs the regular one i put in that came out charred by the time the first was actually done.

we also made a row of cookies where each one had one single differing ingredient omitted, like a cookie with no flour, or a cookie with no butter, and laid them all out on a single tray to bake together to see how each ingredient affects the outcome.

two of the little girls added cocoa to their cookie doughs until it matched the colour of each others skin to make best friend cookies, and that almost made me tear up a bit 🥺

got briefly distracted (…for over half an hour…) talking about how eggs form when someone cracked an egg and it had 2 yolks

expertly tolerated being asked how old i am (just turned 31 the other day) which was immediately followed by asking if i watched the moon landing live on tv

was so focused on keeping track of all the kids that in the end i forgot to make a cookie for myself, but it’s ok because one of the girls gave me this

tiny……….

the class went well and they asked if i wanted to do another one in a couple weeks and i said yeah, and they’re taking uh… fuck, what’s the word for inventory when it’s people?? attendance?? whatever, they’re trying to see who’s interested to get a feel of if it’d be 1 three hour class again or if there’s too many kids so we’d do a couple classes. anyways, i love the emails from Concerned Parents.

“will there be knives involved?” we are baking cookies.

“what temperatures does the oven get to/will it be hot enough to burn?” we are baking cookies.

“will there be [insert ingredient used in cookies]?” we are baking cookies.

“are you using fahrenheit or celsius?” ??????? d-does it matter?? it’s going to get Hot. (also celsius; this is ontario)

“are the ovens childproof?” no?? i’m assuming you’re asking if i’m going to let your kids reach into the ovens while i’m staring out a window in another room. i will not be allowing your children to use the ovens. they will not be left unattended. 

“why is the library baking class taking place at the high school?” the library does not have 10 ovens. the library does not even have 1 oven. the high school has many ovens.

“what if i don’t want my child to have cookies? can you let her make muffins instead?” this is a baking class for cookies. we are baking cookies.

“cookies aren’t healthy. why don’t you make [insert whatever]” do you know how many cookies i can make with a $40 budget and a trip to the bulk store? we are making cookies.

“who needs a class to bake a cookie, why not teach something more valuable?” IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE COOKIES, KAREN, IT’S ABOUT FAMILIARIZING CHILDREN WITH THE ART AND SCIENCE OF BAKING/COOKING/FOOD, ABOUT TRYING NEW THINGS, MAKING MISTAKES AND REALIZING THAT THE MISTAKES ARE NOT ONLY OKAY TO MAKE BUT VALUABLE IN AND OF THEMSELVES, FAMILIARIZING THEM WITH INDEPENDENCE, THE UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THINGS CAN COME TOGETHER TO FORM A NEW AND BETTER WHOLE, ALL WHILE HAVING TRYING TO INJECT A MODICUM OF JOY INTO THEIR LITTLE LIVES. SORRY THAT THERE ARE CONCEPTS AT PLAY YOU CAN’T SEEN TO UNDERSTAND HERE. MAYBE YOU SHOULD COME JOIN AND I’LL LET YOU MAKE A FUCKING COOKIE.

love to purchase items but at what cost

Do not obey in advance.

No nuance. If you don't go thrift shopping, just answer whatever you think you would do, whichever option feels more logical to you. If you are incapable of contemplating what you would do in hypothetical situations, please turn off your device and go sit on the floor. If you have some third, alternative foraging method, please share in the tags.

stuff here is separated by size, so if you're looking at both sides, you're shopping for more than one person.it's only the middle sizes that have any chance of overlapping.

Huh. Where I'm from, secondhand stuff is separated by who's selling it. One person's stuff is on one shelf/table/rack, another person's stuff is in the next one, etc.

I've not heard of either of those, all the charity shops/thrift stores here seem to be seperated by category (clothes types, books, furniture, ornaments)

Okay, english is not my first language so I don't think I'm using the right term. What would one call one of those second hand stores where anyone can rent a table, put their stuff there with price tags on them, and then the store sells them for you?

I think most people refer to that as a flea market?

Thrift shops and flea markets are a different thing???

Yeah a thrift shop is essentially a less fancy antiikkikauppa often for charity and a flea market is a kirppis but usually one of the ones where you have to stand at the table yourself. I've never seen a hallikirppis outside finland

I just wanted to make a quick poll to determine which one of us (me or my boyfriend) is weird in their browsing style. And here I am learning that nobody else has that kind of stores in the first place.

I don't know. I just don't know

It took me a solid thirty seconds to realize that Phragmites was probably the genus name of the plants in the picture and not, like, an ancient Greek warrior waiting in the marshes to attack.

playing with snoopy like a dress up doll…

now selling as stickers (minus cowboy snoopy since i didnt have the money)

Housing Emergency

Please help two disabled trans women and @rickybabyboy stay housed

My bank has seemingly fucked us over. I paid off our credit so we would be able to cover rent with the credit we would have from paying it off completely and save everyone some money. They have taken the money out of our account but still havent applied it to our credit days later. Now the apartment complex has turned off our water and I don't think we have time to wait anymore.

I am begging for the money to cover rent now. Please please help us. I can't be on the streets I have multiple disorders that require I mostly be homebound especially in high heat.

I am a programmer and an artist, I will do most any work in these fields for money. If you want work done you can email me at me@agie.gay or message me @utopicwork

$120/$1500 raised

Venmo: AGIEF

Paypal: agieocean@gmail.com

Ko-fi:

The Israeli occupation has stopped the entry of flour and food aid and imposed a starvation policy on the entire Gaza Strip. We now do not have any flour or food supplies. Since yesterday, I have not been able to buy bread because the bakeries have stopped operating. We are now in dire need of your donations and your help so that we can buy flour and food supplies!!!😭.

Please donate so we can buy food so we don't die of hunger!😭

hey, don't cry. 40,000 in small bills in the bag, alright? quickly

Work vacuum died. This is the fifth one since I started working here five years ago.

The first one died because my coworker vacuumed up rocks.

The second one died because my coworker vacuumed up rocks.

The third one died because my coworker vacuumed up rocks.

The fourth one died for unknown reasons that involved my coworker vacuuming up rocks.

The fifth one died a few minutes ago and it was a big mystery and my coworker was like “oh I don’t know what happened it just overtaxed for some reason” so I looked inside the hose and—get this—it was jammed with rocks.

He keeps buying bigger and more expensive vacuums and complaining about how shitty and faulty the last ones were and every time I suggest something like “what if you didn’t vacuum up rocks” he’s like oh no it is the vacuums who are wrong.

hey guys guess what happened again just now

"happy april fools day!" wouldnt even notice with the type of shit i got goin on

they should invent a cigarette that gives you vitamins and hrt and shit

TESTOSTEROEN CIGARETTE BEING SMOKED BY A BUTCH DYKE OUTSIDE THE BAR SHE SHOTGUN THR SMOKE INTO MYMOUTH I GET SO HARD I PASS OUT SMASH MY HEAD AND DIE

sorry that was meant for the tags

it’s okay. You’ve painted a beautiful and true picture

I’m not joking when I say that I’m always thinking about this legend. Hope he’s doing well

it really is crazy how quickly people were willing to just let chatgpt do everything for them. i have never even tried it. brother i don't even know if it's just a website you go to or what. i do not know where chatgpt actually lives, because i can decide my own grocery list.