No worries - cooking is super fun I hope you make something delicious.

Be a rebel - learn Catalan and just try and speak it to French and Spanish speakers. The world needs more fluent Catalan speakers!

Cast iron is excellent for delivering a lot of consistent heat - I use it for searing steaks and greatly prefer it to a grill.

If you want to make it extremely crispy you’ll want to make sure the precooked rice is relatively dry (instead of 1 cup to 1.75 or 1.5 cups of water use 1.25 or 1 - make sure the rice is still edibly hydrated as some rice variants take different water ratios).

It’s possible incorporating sugar into the rice (i.e. coconut milk instead of water) will help it crisp faster but with the approach I’ll suggest below there’s a danger of burning the sugar which will end up tasting like shit - you may want to reserve coconut milk to partway through the process.

With your rice and stuff for the middle prepared (the middle can be whatever you want like (maybe start with a recipe for a Thai/Indian curry? Or some mix of poblanos, cheese, and meat/beans for more Mexican flavors?)) Mix some rice into the middle for consistency and set both aside and prepare your pan. Everything in this middle mixture should be pre-cooked and food safe, if you have meat make sure it has been cooked to a safe temperature.

You should set your stove to high and place your cast iron pan on it to warm for a few minutes, how long will depend on your cook surface but put some oil into the pan and wait until it’s shimmering/wicked fucking hot - consider using an oil with a high smoke point. Keep an oven mit in reach to manipulate the pan.

Once it’s piping fucking hot pour in the rice that’s still separate and use cookware (metal or wooden- not plastic - maybe silicon if you really trust it’s an actual heat resistant silicon) and press it into the pan including up the edges - once that’s done drizzle oil around the edge of the pan so that those edges have extra help crisping up. Do not touch, do not stir, do not disturb but do watch it like a hawk.

Once it starts to fry a bit short of your desired firmity pour in the middle and let the mixture cook through. If it’s too moist you can always transfer it to the oven to dry out but you’re essentially just warming the central mixture and trying to get that yummy flavor to soak into the crispy layer.

It’s always fun to improvise in the kitchen!

1. Switch date tracking over to trimesters
2. America suspends the advancement of time because they assume it has something to do with abortions

I applaud whoever scheduled that for Mar 15th

I’m not certain - the genre would probably focus around the hero’s journey to get there. It could be a modern/sci-fi adventure novel?

I wouldn’t consider it particularly dystopian with a condition - the modern world is a dystopian corporate hellscape so nearly all modern setting tales are dystopian… your description of the setting and plot are certainly a society under pressure but assuming the new country isn’t also a dystopian corporate hellscape it’d break with the tradition of dystopian literature where the actions of the characters leave the world no different than the initial state (sometimes names will change, or governments be overthrown only to be replaced with nearly identical ones) or, potentially, worse.

I think the “everything is awful and can only ever get worse” is pretty integral to dystopias.

As someone who recently had their building flooded and lost power for an extended time an electric kettle can be an extremely useful tool that can be run off a more modest power source or be easily carried to a charging room where power is available. I do think it’s important for every household to have one especially if you suffer frequent brownouts or boil water orders.

Because we’re better than that and electric kettles exist.

Teabag, pour water over the bag and if there’s a significant amount of detritus coming out of the bag discard that water and repour until the water is clear.

Caring about your employees as if they were humans.

Everytime I walk into the room she grabs the nearest stranger and starts making out with them. My buddy said it’s because she can’t even bear to have a conversation with me but I’m pretty sure it’s just because the sight of me turns her on that much.