Joined, thanks!

What? Where? Nice!

I do too, but it’s because I can’t hear that well and I subconsciously supplement hearing with some lip-reading.

And fermenting is the safest preserving method I know! Clean jar, water+salt (look up how much), you’re good.
As for the difference it made… Hard to explain. I feel fuller after eating fermented veggies instead of raw or cooked. More energetic.
When I don’t for a while (vacation…), my poop is less regular and more crappy-looking. I never feel like I’ve pooped it all.
As for fermented drinks (home-made kombucha), they hit the spot the way soda or store-bought drinks never do.
I’d say there’s the same difference between a regular diet and a fermentation-heavy diet than between a Happy Meal and a hamburger from a nice restaurant. At least for me.
Of course, it might all be in my head just because I enjoy the process and the taste so much, and because all those jars of goodness add so much depth to any meal I cook. But hey.

Yup. Cleaning and prepping a bunch of leek and two dozens carrots, then making apple pie from scratch, for a nice dinner every night? No way. Spending two weekends canning each season, then eating lovely food all year round? Bliss.

Basic cheese melt when I don’t feel like cooking? Depressing. Cheese melt with fermented squash, pickled red onions, and my neighbor’s cured wild boar ham? Luxury.

Two years ago I started fermenting vegetables from my garden and eating them several times a week. The difference has been striking.

France: never seen a bottle IRL. Used to be blister packs, and if you needed 21 pills but they came in packs of 20, you got 19 too many and they lived forever in your medicine cabinet.

Now pharmacists are allowed to open packs of antibiotic pills and only dispense the exact number you need, and pics like the OP can happen. Most pharmacies don’t do it though.

I use molds to ferment vegetables (think sauerkraut, but with squash, or cauliflower, or fennel, or leek…), to make soda (kombucha, often with apples or blackberry), to bake bread.
Coffee beans are fermented, too. And many other foodstuff.
Bacterias are our best friends. So tasty.

What pleasure do you get from being a jerk, exactly?

Not sure it fits the community, but I’ll start making sausages from my neighbor’s wild boars. I want to weave better (prettier) rugs from the hills of scrap fabric I stored in the barn. My friend should teach me wool felting (she’s a professional who makes great jumpers and shoes).

yes.

France: St. Nicolas is not a thing. (Maybe in Alsace, which is basically Germany?)

Per person: I cook a head of cabbage, carrots, onions in butter+stock, and one sliced sausage. Several meals worth of tasty vegetables + a small, but sufficient, amount of protein.

Slice zucchini, sauté in butter til tender, then grate Swiss cheese in cream, mix everything in casserole dish. Bake til golden.

Halve a spaghetti squash, remove seeds, fill with small goat cheese mixed with plenty of precooked leafy greens. Top with nuts (I like sunflower, but anything goes) for a bit of crunch. Bake til tender.

But I think I’m missing something here. Just eat vegetables, you’ll get plenty of fiber.

In French, caca d’oie - “goose poo”.

Thank. You.

Right now my husband of 15 years is 500km away with his girlfriend of 25 years. And I’m pissed because they’re having sushi and there’s no sushi restaurant around us. I want sushi.
That’s my latest poly story. I don’t mind that he’s having a romantic weekend with another woman (well, I’m happy for them), but I’m jealous of their dinner.

And if you don’t watch Stranger Things, you die.

Nah, that was funny.

I never listen to music. When I’m running errands, I listen to the birds and the wind. I watch the leaves change colors. I chat with people I know by sight. I stop by stores I don’t need anything from just to chat with the owners. I meet friends doing their shopping and we decide to go to see a play next weekend. I sit down at a terrasse to have coffee with my kid’s former piano teacher. Think the movie Amelie, but in small-town France instead of Paris. I love my life.

Churches? For real? Never occurred to me that was a possibility. Where are you from?

In my neck of the woods it’s city hall and schools. Public, secular buildings.