U.S. Politics January 2023: Kevin McCarthy's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Life

lmao my dad literally just texted me an article about this, I guess this really is the issue of the day

Love to roast peppers on the reassuring glow of an electric range.

Dude... do you think that people with electric appliances just don't know how to do this stuff? The responses on here are super weird and elitist compared to pretty much every other topic that comes up on here.

imma let you answer tabes but here’s a question. you know those old-fashioned wood burning stoves with hot plates on top, that you could remove with an implement (and see down into the fire through the holes left behind)? why were those hot plates removable? why not just have the whole top surface hot and that’s enough??

the u.s. is screwed until it can turn outrage into a renewable energy source

they terk ahr sterves

Dude... do you think that people with electric appliances just don't know how to do this stuff?

I've never seen a recipe that said you can roast peppers/eggplant on an electric range. If that's a thing, then I'm the one that didn't know how to do this stuff.

I've roasted peppers on an electric range.

Put it in the oven! I'm not even trying to say that gas stoves aren't better in absolute terms. But this idea that you just can't cook with electric appliances or that surely you treat food as an afterthought is crazy times.

I've made them more often in the often, though.

xpost lol

Here’s an actual argument: certain types of cuisine are almost impossible to cook properly on an electric range. I will give that most things are adaptable, even if I believe the results will be inferior.

But take a lot of Chinese cooking, which requires a wok. You simply cannot get heat distributed properly on a wok through an electric stove, which is why so many Chinese families who live in places with electric ranges have separate butane stoves or other small gas implements for wok cooking. (My husband is Chinese, and yes, when we rented in places with electric ranges, we had a separate wok stove)

Tracer, my understanding was that many older cooking vessels were not flat-bottomed, so that if one was using such a vessel, one could fit it into the hole on the wood stove top.

Idk, I love cooking Chinese dishes on my electric stove. Am I doing it properly? Maybe, maybe not. But I can make food that is pleasing to me and to the people I cook for. I'm just trying to get you to imagine the fact that it isn't some kind of stunted anti-food existence.

The funniest part of this is that most people just move into a place and if it has electric it has electric and if it has gas it has gas and they just kinda take what they get it's not some big decision

Also most people can’t cook for shit

Exactly! I use an electric range because that's what was in the house when I bought it and there isn't a practical way to change it, and it's fine! I cook on it A LOT! I surely can conceive of better, but I can also imagine having a nicer car or owning limitless amounts of top end music gear or whatever. There's always something nicer that will make life a bit easier or more enjoyable or just make a task better. It's extremely strange to me that stoves are the one dealbreaker on here.

xp

y’all need to learn more about propane and propane accessories. like a nice gas grill

(I’m drowned out by a mob who believes I’ve committed a heresy against charcoal)

But whatever, I’m not going to keep this going because it’s like silby said, “cold dead hands.” Those who get it, get it.

I have never seriously cooked on an electric range -- I can count on one hand the number of times I've used one, and it was mostly just to like heat up a tea kettle in an Airbnb. So I can't personally speak to their effectiveness. But I will be considering electric when it's time to replace the gas stove in my condo, which is frankly not very good.

Also:

as i’ve said on this website before, you don’t have to believe that burning fossil fuel in your home is bad for your health to want to switch to an induction range. the reason to do it is that it is objectively superior to cooking with gas. higher heat with more precise control.

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) January 11, 2023

has anyone asked how we’re lighting our cigarettes without a gas stove yet

Moodles, when we looked for houses, we asked pointedly whether they were hooked up for gas or electric cooking, and didn’t look at any houses that were hooked up for gas. I’m 100 percent serious.

This gas stove thing is politics on twitter in miniature. First the Right makes up a fake war on gas stoves to undermine the climate change portions of the IRA, then folks like AOC take the bait, now people on both sides who don’t realize the entire thing is BS posture madly.

— Isaac Butler (@parabasis) January 12, 2023

reverse that, apologies— we didn’t look at any that were hooked up for electric.

Many xps

People have all sorts of skill sets. There are also some people who absolutely suck at reading social queues or having empathy for people who live fractionally different lives from their own.

has anyone asked how we’re lighting our cigarettes without a gas stove yet

― mh,

Reminds me of that moment when a pickled Kevin Bacon tries lighting a cigarette on an unconnected electric stove in Diner.

xxp

What is your point? You were very clear that you absolutely can't live without a gas stove and can't conceive of how anyone else could.

some serious underestimation of the utility of an electric range (repost, I know)

hell yeah benihana up in this bitch pic.twitter.com/nWwt471dJO

— phil (@warmfourloko) April 27, 2020

Many xps

People have all sorts of skill sets. There are also some people who absolutely suck at reading social queues or having empathy for people who live fractionally different lives from their own.

I just use a magnifying glass and sunshine for everything.

Takes a while, especially on cloudy days, but I retain my moral integrity. Namaste.

social queues? this is the US thread, not the UK one

xxp

and yet I see you insulting and talking down at people on here on a daily basis

cold dead hands lmao

Yeah, my dad was telling me on Christmas about how they were going to do this, and I was like "ugh, just wait until the fucking foodies hear about it." He was like "come on, Republican foodies can't be a very powerful contingent." I had to break it to him that even among our liberal friends, people who love to cook will shit bricks about gas vs electric stoves.

Hate to see what this thread will do when they ban Foreman grills

Moodles, anyone who has met me IRL can tell you that I am sweet as pie, but that my internet persona is one of an unhinged, condescending asshole. It's true, I own up to it, and I am sorry you were the brunt of it in this conversation. With that, I'm going to pull an LJ and not post on ILE for a while.

Full disclosure, I use a propane water heater because that's the hookup my house came with, but our stove is electric. I've only ever had electric appliances before this and there is a constant lurking dread that one day that shit will malfunction and blow me to smithereens.

how's it going lads

Can I just briefly note how lovely it is that the US politics thread is currently wrapped up in an argument about which kind of stove is superior vs. where the US politics thread is at this point in time in the alternate universe where the midterms went very differently? Like this is maybe the first time in six years that I haven't had full-body anxiety while reading through one of these.

I'm sure you are a very nice person, why not attempt to bring your internet persona closer to that? Here's a suggestion: remind yourself that "the good life" can take many different forms and that people who do things marginally different than you may be ok too.

xxp

Maybe we can resolve any lingering tensions by all agreeing that the HGTV guys who are secretly paid propane pimps are choads.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/climate/climate-propane-influence-campaign.html

Can I just briefly note how lovely it is that the US politics thread is currently wrapped up in an argument about which kind of stove is superior vs. where the US politics thread is at this point in time in the alternate universe where the midterms went very differently? Like this is maybe the first time in six years that I haven't had full-body anxiety while reading through one of these.

― Beautiful Bean Footage Fetishist (Old Lunch), T

Seconding -- without the anxiety. Nine out of ten times this thread served as antidote.

fwiw imo tabes shouldn't leave, his aestheticist approach is good, i disagree with him on this issue but recognise that for certain types of cooking that i don't really do he might have a point, everyone basically shd chill

that said i am going to continue staying out of politics threads unless they turn into cookery threads which this one has gratifyingly done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ6QViPfmXA

Xpost cosign. Please stick around tabes

You guys are all talking about stovetops when we should be talking about Biden's cache of purloined classified docs. #impeachBiden #notjustTrump #hunterbiden

apparently there's a 2nd batch of papers!

found in a pumpkin iirc

At the risk of extending this stupid argument even further, the road to decarbonization means that we will have to as individuals make some sacrifices or changes to our lifestyle. I’m sure even table understands that.

in 50 years, the average high temp will be 115 degrees, nobody will be able to leave the house without astronaut suits, the unemployment rate will be 45% because AI will do everything, no UBI, and we'll be suffering under the Morgan Wallen administration.

our sacrifice will be dying earlier than planned