Nick

Policing the police I suppose. "Effect" can actually be used as a verb, and it means "to bring about a result". So something could effect something else. It's still used incorrectly in the original comment, I just wanted to contribute a nitpick I thought you'd appreciate.

I roast my own coffee these days, so I buy my greens from Sweet Maria's. I'm not going through enough greens that I'm able to buy wholesale, and they usually have so much variety that I don't really see the need to shop for a new supply.

When I was buying coffee, there were a few places I would order from online. During the pandemic, Tectonic Coffee was running a promotion where anyone who made a purchase from them would have access to their wholesale pricing for life, so I took the plunge. To date, their Colombia Decaf is my favorite decaf bar none. Their single-origin offerings are also good, but they're probably more than I'd feel comfortable paying without the wholesale pricing. Not because they aren't worth it, but I don't think most people want to daily drink something quite that expensive. The blends are pretty much as advertised.

The other roaster I'd order from regularly is S&W Roasting. It looks like their website has since changed, and they don't offer sizes larger than 300g bags now. They used to run a permanent discount code (I believe it was REDDITOR15OFF), but I'm not sure if it's active anymore. The quality of the beans and the roasts were great, and I'd usually get a little hand-written thank you note in my orders. I stuck to the lighter roasts, so I can't comment on their blends or medium roast offerings. Their beans were always sweet, bright, and fruity, something that I didn't fully appreciate until I roasted my own coffee and started experiencing firsthand how easy it is to get mouth-puckering acidity in city roasts.

You're probably not going to find a wireless option that's much better. You might want to pick up a cheap pair of wired earbuds that have an in-line microphone that you can use. An example that's probably a little overpriced would be the Apple Earpods. You just want something where you can pull the mic closer to your mouth while also being able to cup it to dampen some of the exterior noise. The wireless options are likely trying too hard to use an algorithm to isolate your voice.

I've had pretty good success with online dating in the past, and my current long-term relationship (3.5 years) is a lovely woman I met on Tinder. When we first matched, neither of us was looking for something long-term. For me, it helped to look at dating apps as just a first impression, which means you don't want to overwhelm someone with your profile. My advice is going to be tailored to Tinder, because it's where I had the most success. That's probably due to sheer volume though. It also worked on Bumble, but I have no experience with FB Dating, so I can't speak to that.

When selecting pictures to use, there's a couple things I would suggest. •Always include multiple pictures with friends or family. People swiping on your profile will want to know that you have a social life, and you'll probably look happier in pictures with others. •Try to also include pictures that reveal a hobby or interest of yours rather than talk about it in your bio. I'll elaborate on this point later. •Be honest and kind to yourself and think about what makes you attractive to others. Personally, I've been told that my laugh is infectious, so I went with a candid picture of myself laughing with my friends. Dates have specifically pointed that picture out as the one that sold them on me. There's something that sets you apart, you just have to identify it. •You don't have to completely avoid pictures of yourself alone or selfies, but you have to be intentioned when including these. Is it a picture where you look really good? Is the composition of the photo interesting or different? Does it show off your flair or sense of style? Is it one of the aforementioned hobby photos? If you can't answer yes to at least one of these questions, it probably shouldn't be included. A picture with just you is going to lead to heightened scrutiny of the only subject that is of any interest to someone looking at your profile: you. Make sure it showcases you well.

I personally like to keep the bio short and sweet. The point of the bio is to give them enough information to want to know more about me. They don't need my life story, and they probably don't want to read a wall of text. If you match, you want to give them space to ask questions about you so that the conversation doesn't go stale. If they can look it all up in your bio, it becomes redundant to ask. To that end, my own bio was only two lines: my height and a statement that was funny and personal. I always included my height because I'm on the shorter side (5'7) and I know it's a dealbreaker for some. I'm fine with that, since I'm not trying to waste their time or my time. The second line was "My mom cuts my hair." It's true, and to me it was funny in an unexpected way. It also revealed that I have a good relationship with my mother. However, I later learned that some people just thought it was a joke, so maybe it didn't come across the way I intended. You could definitely find something that works for you in between the wall of text and my completely barebones bio.

Lastly, and this might not be the easiest because you mentioned having social anxiety, but you should be looking to go on a physical date as soon as possible. It's where I really got to know the people that I matched with, and let me better figure out whether it was someone I could see myself in a relationship with. An in-person date doesn't have to mean something serious. I prefer coffee dates, which I've read that some women see as a sign that you're not serious about them or a cheapskate. I'm here to tell you that those women don't exist, or at least never did for me 3.5+ years ago, so don't worry about it. It's a casual setting where either party can leave if they're not feeling it, and many people appreciate that. If the date goes well enough, it can swing into lunch or dinner pretty easily. Dating is a skill, and it's a pretty different skillset than being in a relationship. The only way to improve at dating is to actually go on dates, so push yourself to ask for them. Chances are, if they're still messaging you back after a day or two, they're interested enough to go on a date.

I tried to be as comprehensive as possible, but please let me know if there's anything you want further clarification on. I'd be happy to help, and I'm rooting for you :)

If you lose motivation because of the amount of time that you'd spend cooking, you should consider using days off to prep building blocks that can be used for different meals. Keeping the initial cook simple can give you a broad canvas to change things up on the spot so that you don't get fatigued over the flavor. You can salt a large chunk of meat like a pork shoulder or chuck roast and use a long cooking method like a braise or a roast. The longer cook times will make these cuts extremely tender, and you'll only have to do it once. Use them throughout the week in whatever application you feel like on the day, even if that means just adding it to your ramen. Since it's just salted, it's versatile enough to adapt to whatever seasonings or sauces you add to it. If you're using store bought ingredients, you can put together pasta, bbq sandwiches, or quesadillas pretty quickly.

As far as vegetables go, you can also prep individual portions of things like a mirepoix a week ahead of time, to cut down on the work you have to do every day. You could even freeze it in ice cube trays to make them last longer if you have the space. You can mince garlic ahead of time and store it in a neutral oil. If you don't mind acidity, pickling and lacto fermenting your vegetables is a good way to both preserve them and have something that's ready to go on demand. Some vegetables like broccoli can be parcooked without sacrificing texture to reduce the amount of time you have to spend cooking on the day of.

Meal kits may not have worked for you because they simplify the shopping, not the actual cooking process. It still takes the same amount of time to cook a meal kit, which doesn't exactly help when you're hungry and exhausted. I think that prepping pieces of a meal in advance will give you the tools to throw something together almost as quickly and easily as ramen, which might lead to you cooking more often. I hope this helps, and I'd be happy to expand on anything that was vague or otherwise lacking!

I think your brain is on to something. It's not enough to just give affirmations; words need to be backed up by actions to have substance. Someone who is dismissive of your wants or interests doesn't sound the slightest bit in love with you. You deserve a definitive answer on what he wants to be, and I think you need to force the issue. It's selfish to put you through this sort of emotional toil if it's genuinely just so he isn't lonely. If he doesn't want you to feel bad, he shouldn't be putting you through this just to fill some attentional void.

If your coffee is tasting watery, you probably need to increase your brew ratio. For a drip coffee, you want to be in the range of 1:15-1:18 depending on the bean and personal preference.

If your issue is the body/texture of the coffees here, you might prefer a brew method that doesn't involve paper filters. Something like a moka pot or a french press would be a cheap way to dip your toes into this, and a moka pot brew with water added is probably the cheapest way to get something close to an Americano, which is what I assume you mean by black coffee.

Also, you're going to see people recommending that you buy specialty coffee from a local roaster, but I don't think that should be the first move you make if your goal is recreating your experience in Italy. American third wave coffee has a tendency towards highlighting origin characteristic and bright tones, which don't lend themselves toward getting the result I think you're looking for. If you want a roast-forward flavor profile, try using a mass-produced Italian supermarket brand like Illy or Lavazza.

Personally, I'm usually making a cortado with a bit of a longer ratio (1:2.5) to get more punchy fruit flavors out of my roasts. But if I'm evaluating a new bean/tweaking my roast, I'll also brew on a V60/Orea V4 so that I can get a bit more flavor separation and nuance. Also since it's summer, I'll sometimes do a Japanese iced coffee in the afternoons.

It seems like you're making the assumption that in saying it's disingenuous to make the claim, I'm casting some final moral judgment about the OP or their overall trustworthiness. Correct me if I'm wrong about that, you just seem to have taken issue with me potentially accidentally having called OP dishonest. To be clear, I was calling them dishonest (with regards to only the claim they made about their stainless steel pan being more nonstick than a nonstick pan, at least for the scope of my comment). It's just patently untrue that a stainless steel pan is more nonstick than a Teflon nonstick pan, no matter what you do to the stainless steel pan (except applying a nonstick coating). I don't have to make any unfounded assumptions about any mental state here. To make the claim requires that you are either innocently misinformed/uninformed or purposely making a misrepresentation about this particular issue.

And, for the record, I'm not assuming that the OP is malicious or intentionally set out to mislead people. It's exciting to achieve little to no sticking in a stainless steel pan and you want to share that achievement with others, hopefully to encourage them to achieve the same thing. All I did was correct some innocent exaggeration. And if it was malicious, well, at least I still used disingenuous correctly.

Usually, it's a robusta from Vietnam that's been brewed using a phin, the dripper featured in the original picture. It's often sweetened with a healthy dose of condensed milk to take some of the edge off of mass-produced and heavily roasted robusta.

Good luck finding an article on point for this sort of thing. I looked for a bit to try to find something to link here, but couldn't find anything that directly addressed cooking oil polymers. I just wanted to say that you won't necessarily be eating burnt fat. Seasoning cast iron/carbon steel isn't necessarily about burning fat onto the surface of the pan, since what you're trying to do is create a polymerized layer of cooking oil on the surface of the pan. Polymerization can occur well below the smoke point of an oil, you just apply heat to speed up the process. Applying too much heat can actually be counterproductive, since the polymer will carbonize, but you'll probably never reach this point unintentionally without leaving a pan on the burner unattended. Under normal cooking conditions, any heat degradation of the polymer layer will be made up for with the fresh cooking oil that you've used, refreshing the seasoning. If you're going to use cast iron or carbon steel, you should thoroughly clean any burnt on bits after cooking with dish soap. Modern dish soaps don't have lye, so you won't be doing any damage to the seasoning and you'll only be left with polymerized oil, not burnt fat.

If you do decide to do more research and find something on point, please do share! I wasn't able to find anything that explicitly pointed towards it being unhealthy, and I'm alright with making a somewhat informed assumption of the risk.

Apologies to all the small omelette enjoyers out there! Depending on the texture you like on your omelettes/scrambled eggs, you may want to consider a small carbon steel pan as well. If you like your eggs softer or with small curds, it's going to be a much less finicky experience.

Honestly, I'd recommend against buying a cookware set unless you think you'll really use every piece in the set or it's too good a price, because manufacturers tend to bundle in something that you probably won't get too much use out of or is a bit redundant (like an 8 inch fry pan).

As far as brands go, most of them are going to be pretty similar at the entry level price points, so I'd pick based on how comfortable/attractive the handles are and whether the rivers are flush or not. I wouldn't pay much attention to 3 vs. 5 ply when it comes to different brands, but instead to focus on the weight and thickness of the pan itself. Generally, a thicker pan will sear better than a thinner pan, but will also be less responsive to changes in temperature (these will probably be minor differences except with something extreme like a Demeyere Atlantis, so don't get too caught up on this).

If you're looking to put the pans in the dishwasher, you might want to splurge for a brand with sealed rims. This helps to prevent delamination of the layers, which can happen in the dishwasher (see All-Clad lawsuit). However, this process does add quite a bit to the cost, so if you don't plan on throwing them in the dishwasher regularly feel free to save money by getting unsealed rims. The cheapest brand that I'm aware of with sealed rims is Misen, but someone please chime in if you've seen a cheaper one.