Vanillin comes from lignin, which is pretty cool and not going to do you any harm but it’s a replacement not for vanilla bean in Mexican vanilla, but for tonka bean. Back in the day, producers would stretch/enhance their vanilla with tonka beans. Tonka beans have a more-vanilla-than-vanilla profile thanks to a high…

I’ve said this before when Chappelle came out with his two new specials: You can’t pull off a Paul Mooney set unless you’re actually Paul Mooney. He makes it look easy so you get all these chuckleheads with varying degrees of talent out here trying to play at his level and showing every inch of their ass.

It’s been a minute since I lived in the US, but there were plenty of Christmas tree farms in Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Georgia. You’re probably right about the South, west of the Mississippi though. I’m on the west coast Mexico and my trees always come from Oregon.

The past few years we’ve enjoyed doing the circle of life thing with our cut tree. This is definitely because I am a very fancy and superior person and not because for one hundred American dollars here in Mexico that damn tree better do everything but thread my brows.

I dead-ass heard someone say “Pelé? He’s not black. He’s Brazilian.”

CCH Pounder needs to be in everything.

Except Lupita. Lupita is a goddess but the way she’s being fetishized by white America, in no small part because she’s a dark-skinned girl, creeps me the fuck out.

Relationships do take work, doubts are normal, and bad stuff often does make you stronger AND.YOU.SHOULD.STILL.TRUST.YOUR.GUT.

AFAIK Virginia abolished parole for felony offenders in the mid 90's, so there’s a better shot of him actually serving the entirety of his sentence there than somewhere else.

It’s been all over the Root’s subsite The Grapevine, so maybe Jez thinks that’s enough?

I don’t know, I think a letter of recommendation from Matt Lauer would’ve definitely been helpful to her, career-wise. And I’m sure he could’ve black balled her if he’d wanted to, which would’ve been in the back of my mind if I’d been in that position. Still, in the end it’s one really crappy person with systemic…

Or at least using the knuckle method. Measuring cups are for the weak.

Mayo. It’s basically an egg and oil emulsion, so for cookies and brownies and things it’ll work fine.

If you have an Instant Pot or other pressure cooker, steaming them is the way to go. I can pull an egg out from under Flora, rinse off the detritus, steam it for three minutes* and it peels like a dream, no nicks.

I’ll see your glove bucket and raise you the word Tijuana. Put Tijuana in front of any noun or phrase and it immediately becomes 86.4% more upsetting. Put your hand in a glove bucket? Eh. Put your hand in a Tijuana glove bucket? You’re gonna need an ointment.

Take your star, cariad.

Would you like me to take your family on a field trip to my town here in a part of Mexico where abortion is illegal unless you’re hemorrhaging? There’s a little mom and pop fabric shop across the street that sells really long upholstery needles and yet, for some reason, no upholstery fabric.

Watch it if only for the scene with Chavela Vargas. Watching 80 year-old Chavela sing to the beautiful young woman portraying her dead lover gave me every feel it was possible to have.

She has hooded eyes, so not much of the mobile lid is visible which gives the effect of a thin liner, when in actuality she’s wearing a fairly substantial medium-dark smokey eye. If you don’t have hooded eyes, you can try to get the same effect by doing a thin line of pencil (not liquid) and smoking it out. Try using…

Sweet potato pie style spices = cloves and nutmeg.