This takes me back to my student days. Meals were irregular, so they had to be quick and ready to go when you were. It has to sit in the fridge and wait patiently for you, not demand to be cooked in the next two days or else. Being inexpensive helped too.

I can’t imagine what it must have taken for you to come out of those circumstances and still end up obviously educated and normal.

Pea Soup Andersen’s turkey sandwich is the first food I remember loving. Up to that point I just had foods that I ate and foods that I didn’t like to eat.

Dracula is where I first learned of chicken paprikash, described so glowingly I had to seek it out. But growing up in a Chinese family in Los Angeles the only way I could try it was to make it myself. Over the years it’s become one of my signature dishes, even though to this day I’ve never tasted it made by anyone…

One of my favorites too. I have a couple of secrets:

Stench of a Woman

The two most important things you can do to save on legal bills:

I have never actually met a lawyer that likes quarrelsome clients “because hey more work.” On the contrary, they’re usually flipping them off behind their backs.

Moral relativism is exactly what this isn’t. Look it up.

I never followed up on all these suggestions, because of the time it takes to learn new software, but CMaps looks intriguing. I should revisit this. Thanks!

Carbonara has pecorino-romano, but yes, the creaminess mostly comes from egg.

You see, there are a lot of crazies here in Taiwan, so we need bars on our windows. Otherwise they might get out.

I know the performance you’re talking about. Truly great. Stylish on par with anything on offer anywhere else in the world.

It’s tonight somewhere.

I used to call it “white people Mexican food,” but you’re right - it’s “white girls’ Mexican food.”

I learned very early on thanks to a Reader’s Digest article that the most powerful sentences use simple, one- or two-syllable words that you learned in childhood. Those words tend to be big, emotional ideas like mom and apple pie, or honor and shame, courage and fear, love and hate. “If it is to be, it is up to me.”…

Thanks for that. I’d forgotten this and had been thinking there’s something wrong with me, because it takes me forever to write a “simple” e-mail.

These must’ve come from the same batch as my vegans. Every meal was tomato-juice noodles - “spaghetti.”

Which is worse, getting paid to do it or doing it for free?

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