CHIMERICAL

The heat’s been brutal this summer but we still gotta eat! If you’re like me, heat might suppress your appetite, and the last thing any of us want is to sweat over a hot stove and oven when it’s already boiling outside. Here are some of my favorite hot-weather recipes to keep hydrated and fed with when the weather is unbearable! (All recipes should be un-paywalled).

NYT’s best gazpacho (lives up to its name!!)

Persian cold cucumber soup (if you like tzatziki you will like this!)

Eric Kim’s cold noodles with tomato (infinitely riffable Korean flavor profile — for a creamier and less brothy take, try these cold sesame noodles too)

Vietnamese chicken and herb salad (this is an excellent time to get a rotisserie chicken so you don’t have to turn the oven on)

Radish sandwiches with butter and salt (and in a similar vein, if you dig this flavor combo you should try this Polish cottage cheese dip on some good rye bread or even crackers)

It’s still a little early in the season, but you can never go wrong with a BLT (or, if you don’t eat bacon, try this tomato furikake sandwich in its place)

Infinite iterations of pasta salad! You can use anything you got but here is a template I like.

Assorted dense bean salads. This back pocket canned salad is a weird combo of jarred ingredients but it slaps, this hoagie-inspired one is super satisfying, and cowboy caviar is a classic for a reason.

Poke bowls! Canned tuna mixed with some kewpie mayo and sriracha is a budget-friendly riff on the usual ahi and makes everything taste like a spicy tuna roll, but use whatever proteins you like, this is more of a loose template.

But it’s a parody of Master and Commander’s opening title

PNG'D! (i didn't know the font so this is taken directly from the image)

Fabian is working at a drug store until he makes his big break. There is, presumably, no such thing as a moderately successful musician in this world or any mid-level careers for people with musical training. (He plays violin - you're telling me he can't get studio work? Or work weddings?) Kip sells smoothies and works catering jobs. Kyle is a bartender.

Harris, Thee social media manager of a pro sports team who travels with that team twice a year, claims he makes less per year than some of the players make in a day. The absolute maximum salary for an NHL player in 2020 was $16.3M, but I haven't seen anyone suggest Ilya would be making that much with Ottawa - that would be a terrible deal for the team, since that's 20% of their salary cap for the whole team. Certainly they don't have more than one player making that. Ilya is probably making 10, maybe 12M, which would put Harris's salary below $32k. In 2020. That's crazyinsane. That should be a good paying job!!

And then everyone else? Everyone else in this series is a millionaire. But!! The millionaires do not live or act like millionaires in any meaningful way. Ilya has a car collection, sure, but he has to sell it?? To move to Ottawa?? No he fucking doesn't, he just signed a $10M contract that probably had a signing bonus. Are you stoned? Are we all very stoned? Do we not have basic math skills.

shane hollander is the most famous person in montreal, the province of quebec and the citizens of brossard — farther away from ottawa and less anonymous than a downtown condo — don’t notice another car showing up? i think no.

scott hunter has his face all over new york, he gets recognized in the street but also: his boyfriend, the one he kissed on live television, can work at a bar afterward? i think no. i also think no, not at all.

to the point of the revolts, their army of cleaners, couriers, at home medical and physical care never see their secret boyfriends?

Tom Paris: organized it. roped people into it. claims the first slot. spends his five minutes telling jokes like “I just flew in from the New Zealand penal colony and boy are my arms tired!!”. polite chuckles all around because he leans into telling awful jokes.

Harry Kim: technically perfect jokes delivered with too much nervous laughter until tom starts heckling and suddenly his five minutes is all crowd work

Tuvok: Tom did not expect him to agree, but Tuvok delivers a series of deadpan riddles and knock knock jokes to devastating effect. runaway success of the evening.

Chakotay: was NOT going to participate until the captain teased him about stage fright. observational humor, the type of person to pick someone out of the crowd and deliver his material directly to them.

Neelix: a TIGHT five entirely on leola root. stuns the crew with his self-awareness, makes them all wonder if he’s been inflicting Leola root on them for the Laughs this whole time

B’elanna Torres: does alright until tom also decides to heckle her. she throws the mic at him, chaos ensues, she does not complete her five minutes.

Seven: her jokes themselves are not funny. What gets people is when she informs them they may proceed to laughter. Similar to Harry in that they are technically perfect jokes. Some nervous chuckles, most people are relieved when she leaves the stage.

Kathryn Janeway: has been having a Good Time watching her staff do this, very alarmed when Chakotay says turnabout is fair play and she ought to get up on stage. no structured jokes, tells anecdotes from childhood/the academy that get laughs because for some reason people on her ship think she is straight laced and she’s always been That Reckless. Probably leaned up against a lectern or piano or something with a glass in her hand like Frank Sinatra the whole time.