It’s also about a cult mentality about controlling risk and “proper mothering.” There’s a one in 8,000 chance of getting lysteria while pregnant, but they way you’re told to avoid deli meat, you’d think there was a much higher risk. And if you get it, it means you just “didn’t do everything you could to take care of…

There isn’t even any decent evidence that a single drink consumed slowly is dangerous at any point during pregnancy. Most of the actual studies suggest that it’s blood alcohol content that determines the danger, not total amount of alcohol consumed, so as long as you drink slowly and lightly, there’s at worst a very…

Also enough chili/ginger/garlic in the sauce to punch through a stuffed nose if your stomach’s okay.

That’s fair! I have a smaller three cup model and keep it in a cabinet most of the time, which works for me but does presuppose a certain amount of storage space. It’s just been absolutely worth it despite that (except for Thai sticky rice, since that has to be steamed and so needs a jerry rig with the wok, a splatter…

I was going to say. I guess I’m in the weirdo minority, because I’ll eat the trimmings from a pie crust, too, even. I think the only one of the things he mentions that I haven’t tasted is raw doughnut dough, but only because I never make them.

There’s a Khao man Gai shop my husband stops by occasionally on his way home from work and that stuff is the shit. It’s also the single best sick food I’ve ever encountered.

You need a rice cooker. They’re ubiquitous in East and Southeast Asia for a reason. I got one as a present about five years ago and now both my mother and my mother-in-law own the same model because they’re just that big an improvement. You have to be rigorous about measuring the rice and water accurately and making…

What would you say the minimum age to enjoy Labo is? My kid is also one and of course I don’t expect him to be ready any time soon, but I’m wondering if it’s more like three years old(with lots of parental help in construction)/Duplo age, or six or seven years, which is when Lego proper tends to start getting…

No, there’s been a steady increase in expectations of parental involvement over the last century. The big shift in the 50s was in household cleanliness standards instead of parenting expectations, since you could still let all but the youngest kids run riot through the neighborhood, it’s true, but that shift in…

Don’t bother. She’s been doing this for years and never stops. I recommend googling her username for some greatest hits, because she uses the same one everywhere.

That’s actually not what happened as a result of automation, though. What happened — what has always happened with new “conveniences” — was that standards for proper house and child care got higher and so new tasks evolved to fill the available space. It’s basically a system structured to keep housework and childcare…

I thought that color scheme had been in place since release, so 2004. I know it was already well ingrained when I picked up the game in October 2006 and no one has ever mentioned an earlier color coding system.

I spent the tail end of last winter desperately trying to beat Yakuza 0 before my due date because I knew I’d have to put it down while family was here helping look after the new baby. It’s a huge game and that took a lot of concentrated work, but I just barely managed it — I was due beginning of March, so I had just…

It’s an ongoing problem with kinky Japanese media that it never seems to be able to go for just a little. It always starts throwing in all the fetishes, and that’s more true the more out-there your tastes are. You get adept at reading around the stuff that isn’t your kink if you’re into BDSM, especially on the more…

Sounds legit. Gotta say, as the parent of a one-year-old, this whole part of the game sounds distressingly like my every-day life. I’m kind of dreading the first time I have to pause in soothing the virtual baby to comfort the real one.

In the comics, Bruce Wayne canonically gives millions and millions to charity, hires parolees he helped put away so they get a second chance, and fights through proxies for improvements that require the Gotham government to step in. He absolutely is working through those sorts of channels. He’s just also fighting…