PicoBlog

Happy Thursday, W4D friends! This week we are featuring a tried and true staple of Fall/Winter cooking: Chili & Cornbread. And we promise, once you make these, you’ll never make another version again. Elizabeth’s Bowl O’ Red is a Texas-style chili (without beans—but add ‘em if you want ‘em!) that doesn’t skimp on beefy flavor, and Anthony is making her famous Creamed Corn Cornbread with a jalapeño and cheddar cheese twist.

Hello to all my new subscribers! Mess Hall was a “Substack Recommended” newsletter for roughly four days this week, which was very exciting and which I will absolutely be adding to my CV. If you are new here, be sure to check out the archive for more recipes, cookbook reviews, essays, and more. And please consider supporting my work by upgrading to a paid subscription. I’ve enjoyed tinned fish ever since I rode the slick back of an anchovy down the slippery slope of “not really a vegetarian anymore,” but it took me a while to really warm to sardines.

Last night on TV, I watched a series about chimps called Chimp Empire. As a chimp aficionado, I couldn’t wait to watch this program as the description promised up close and personal footage of chimps getting up to all their usual chimpriffic activities in the wild. Naturally, I assumed the show would mostly feature chimps doing detective work, attending rollerskating parties, or directing traffic that exists entirely in their mind, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

China FAW Group (FAW, often cited as First Auto Group in Chinese) released its first model of liquid hydrogen heavy-duty truck on Nov 8th at China Commercial Vehicle Show (CCVS) in Wuhan, China. According to FAW, this liquid hydrogen HDT has an operation range of up to 1,200 kilometers. It is equipped with a 300kW hydrogen fuel cell and energy efficiency of the vehicle is 7kg/100km. Photo: China FAW’s liquid hydrogen HDT

Partially state-owned Kweichow Moutai (SHA: 600519) is the world's largest distiller and most valuable alcohol brand thanks to its popularity among the Communist Party elite and its use as a lubricant for business deals and favors. With an alcohol content of as high as 60% by volume, baijiu (distilled from fermented sorghum) is China’s most popular liquor and accounts for third of global alcohol sales while Moutai is a style of baijiu made in the town of Maotai in China's Guizhou province.

The Russia-Ukraine War will, like the Soviet-Afghanistan War, result in the disintegration of the Russian Federation because Moscow will be unable to support or control its Eurasian land mass with 11 time zones. Already Russia has lost allies, its European customers, foreign investors, trillions in assets hidden offshore by Putin and his oligarchs, and $300 billion in foreign exchange assets frozen in central banks. Russia will be financially crippled and some regions will opt to leave its sinking ship of state.

I’m writing this on a Sunday morning and I am slightly hungover. Kind of a Sunday rite of passage, isn’t it? One day I’m going to be the type of person who wakes up and goes on a Sunday morning run/coffee date at 7am (I think? Maybe?) but right now is not that time. Luckily for me, I live in a hangover food mecca. There is nothing, and I mean nothing better than dim sum for breakfast when you’re in those initial morning hours of hangover haze - not so hungover you can’t function but hungover enough that you popped some Advil and as soon as the feeble tide of relief begins to wash over your pounding headache, you know it’s time to eat some carbs and take a nap.

What was it about Jack Nicholson that made so many guys want to be him back in the day? Quite possibly it was his performance in “Chinatown” (1974) which would go on to earn him a Golden Globe, BAFTA and mainstream industry respect. And candidly, who else looked so whippet-slim, attired in a tan suit and a perfectly creased Fedora, and wearing a mischievous grin that could get women like Faye Dunaway to give him anything he wanted.

Do not try to be a Christian and a Vitalist. You can be a Christian that draws inspiration and energy from Vitalist authors in the pursuit of your own faith. You can be a Vitalist that respects the devotion and rigor of the Christian men who built the West. But to equivocate, to pursue a contrived attempt at intellectual synthesis between two competing models of reality, will destroy your absolute belief - your true, transcendent faith - in both.