site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7hr ago (text post)   191 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 3, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So in the spirit of small scale, what's for dinner tonight?

My wife was up tonight and made the following:

Regular onigiri with white rice

Pork-wrapped julienned carrots and green peppers with some sort of sour plum paste seasoned with salt and pepper. Sautéed so it was like a little roll of meat with vegetables inside

Some sort of kimchee vegetables that included celery sections. Was surprisingly good

miso soup (tofu, green onions, spinach)

tofu (kinugoshi or soft) in squares topped with thin sliced onions, sesame oil, and her family's soy sauce, which I'm told is noticeably different than that you can buy in stores

cucumber medallions and daikon radish and carrots pickled in some way

udon noodles topped with some meat and baby leaf lettuce seasoned in some way (I think the noodles were the main?)

I had all this with two very cold beers.

I imagine @Tretiak eating pizza topped in butter, how about the rest of you?

I'm gonna say Ramen noodles, some spring rolls and a peanut butter sandwich.

I know I'm meant to pretend to have a 3 course meal here, but sometimes you're spending the evening alone and go for convenience.

Damn right. Let us gentlemen of culture partake of our repast.

Probably making either a curry or a dal. Easy to heat up during the week when I don't feel like cooking. Also got a leek & potato pie on tap to make at some point, although I will freely admit I just use storebought puff pastry for the topping. I do need to learn how to make a proper shortcrust at some point, since I love meat pies & pasties, but that's sure as hell not a today thing.

My MIL is cooking mashed potato patties stuffed with chopped wild mushrooms, which I consider a waste of effort. Frying some potatoes with the same mushrooms would be like eight times quicker and would taste better IMO. But she really loves the dish along with the rest of the terrible Soviet canteen-style cooking, so she gets to make it once in a while.

My wife is cooking us two a steak as well, so the dinner won't be so depressing.

We don't usually cook anything special on Sundays but I'm planning to try to make a version of this green pea pasta.

My eldest loves green peas and I've been on the lookout for a decent recipe that uses them that I could cook on a week night (I don't make new recipes I haven't tried before on weekdays). I was thinking about adding some stock and garlic but otherwise keep it pretty much the same.

A simple stew made with a ham that was on sale for $1.50/lb, cabbage, onions, the last of the garlic from last year's harvest, and some paprika and black pepper.

For me this week was lazy. So, chicken enchiladas with ranchero sauce/Oaxaca cheese, made from a broken down rotisserie, and some steaks that were actually top blade short ribs just grilled to rare with potatos and creamed spinach. Both really easy when you purchase the rice/beans/potatoes premade.

Got more energy this week, so gonna try a panang curry for the first time, and then just do homemade buffalo mac n cheese and grilled chicken for the second meal. I usually just cook twice a week and get 8-10 servings out of each one. My wife gets fed catered meals at work, so her interest in cooking is pretty low atm. I tend to do all of it since I'm technically unemployed and I have the time.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats