u/JeanLucPicardAND

Hello again. Taking a break from the amaranth this week and doing a whole bunch of chilled salads and quinoa bowls instead. Lunches will rotate on an A/B schedule.

Breakfast: I'm repeating my breakfast from last week: A bowl of Greek yogurt tossed with pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, flaxseeds, peanut butter, honey, and soy rice crisps, with a banana to the side.

Lunch (A): Chilled spicy buffalo chickpea and celery salad. Drain a can of chickpeas and toss them in a bowl with diced celery, red onion, and carrot. Mix the dressing to the side by whisking together hot sauce, tahini, garlic powder, and a tiny splash of water until smooth, then pour over the vegetables and combine. I also sprinkle hemp hearts over the top.

Lunch (B): A simpler chilled salad of white beans with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, and dill. Dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Served with an orange on the side.

Snacks: Walnuts and/or hard-boiled egg.

Dinners:

1. Mon - Buddha bowl / grain bowl / I don't know what to call it. I'm throwing steamed asparagus, raw shredded golden beets, kale, and edamame over a bed of quinoa and dressing it with a green goddess blend which includes tahini (yes, more tahini), lemon juice, garlic, nutritional yeast, parsley, cilantro, chives, and salt and pepper to taste.
2. Tues - Eggplant parmesan served with a cold pasta salad of chickpeas, red onion, cherry tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and white wine vinegar.
3. Wed - Mediterranean quinoa bowls with chickpeas, grilled veggies, feta, tzatziki sauce, harissa, and parsley.
4. Thurs - Black bean & cheddar quesadillas served with salsa.
5. Fri - Same as Tuesday.
6. Sat - Another quinoa bowl, but with an Asian spin this time. Edamame, bok choy, carrots, and bell peppers dressed with a simple sauce of sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and tahini. (I'm really working through the tahini this week.)
7. Sun - I'm doing something very unusual this week: I've planned an entire meal without an actual recipe. I wanna do a copycat of the spicy potato soft taco from Taco Bell, but maybe a little bit healthier (hopefully less sodium!), and serve it as part of a Tex-Mex breakfast-for-dinner spread with scrambled eggs, refried beans, and fresh fruit. I'm thinking pineapple and mango. I haven't really figured this one out yet, so all suggestions are welcome!

This is not a complaint exactly. I just feel like it's a missed opportunity. Thomas seems to want to "manage" his image by going through high-profile outlets known for rigorous editorial control and isn't engaging directly with the community, outside of paid appearances at Rough Trade.

Breakfast: This week, I'm doing a banana with a bowl of Greek yogurt tossed with pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, flaxseeds, peanut butter, honey, and some soy rice crisps I picked up out of curiosity.

Lunch: Tempeh stir-fry bowls. They're pretty basic this week. Just sautéing some cubed tempeh, broccoli, and red bell peppers in tamari, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil, then tossing all that into some buckwheat noodles and ground flaxseed.

Snacks: Walnuts and/or hard-boiled egg.

Dinners:

1. Mon - Three-bean spinach soup. Kidney, cannellini, and black beans combined with red onion, carrots, celery, garlic, crushed tomatoes, and spinach... lots of spinach. Cooked in vegetable broth with thyme, bay leaf, oregano, and nutritional yeast... and salt and pepper to taste, of course. Served with buttered cornbread. (A word to the wise: If you're making this with the intention of spreading it across multiple nights as I am, do not add the spinach when you make the soup initially. Reserve it in your fridge and throw a bunch into the portion of soup you're reheating each night. Trust me on this one.)
2. Tues - Pasta con crema di ricotta e pistacchi. Basically, you cook up some pasta, throw a bunch of ricotta in a bowl and temper it with some of the pasta water to create a silky smooth sauce base. Then you process some raw pistachios with parmesan cheese and olive oil to create a coarse paste, kind of like a pistachio pesto, which you add to the ricotta. Then just throw in your pasta and stir until combined with salt and pepper to taste. I think you're supposed to use a tubular pasta, but I'm using spaghetti because it's what I have (and I also just love my SPAGHET). Served with a cold salad of chickpeas, red onion, cherry tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and white wine vinegar.
3. Wed - Same as Monday, but served with a crusty Italian loaf and some olive oil.
4. Thurs - Cold lentil & apricot salad inspired by bobotie, which is usually a meat casserole dish with fruit and an egg custard, almost like a quiche or a frittata. I'm doing a vegetarian salad version of that flavor profile, but centering it around tempeh and lentils. Mix a tablespoon of apricot chutney, a handful of raisins, a pinch of turmeric, mild curry powder, and nutritional yeast with a pinch of kala namak for a sulfuric eggy aroma, then combine the mixture with the proteins. Dump slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds on top for crunch. Serve with steamed broccoli.
5. Fri - Shakshuka! One of my favorite weeknight dishes and a very easy one to throw together. You make a spicy tomato sauce in a big skillet with onion, red bell pepper, garlic, paprika, cumin, harissa paste, and of course a big can of crushed tomatoes, then make little wells and crack eggs into the sauce where they can poach. Sprinkle with feta cheese and serve with the rest of the bread from Wednesday.
6. Sat - Same as Monday. (I made a lot of soup.) I'll probably make cornbread to go with it again, but maybe something else.
7. Sun - My traditional Sunday dinner, the ever-popular signature Big Ass Omelettes containing 3 eggs, cheddar, and a filling of tomato, potato, onion, bell pepper, and eggplant all sauteed together and finished in tomato paste. Served with buttered corn grits.

Hello friends.

It's been a couple weeks since I've posted one of these threads. Currently, I am completely avoiding all raw leafy greens out of an abundance of caution, which has impacted my meal plans.

Breakfast: Banana and blueberries tossed in a bowl with nuts, seeds, and Greek yogurt.

Lunch: I'm doing an A/B lunch rotation this week. Lunch A is a cold salad of amaranth cooked in vegetable broth, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes tossed in a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, oregano, a splash of soy sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. I'm having a hard-boiled egg to go with that. Lunch B is a bean burrito with pintos, rice, cheddar cheese, a basic red sauce, onions, and bell peppers. I'm having a warm pepita salad to go with that, just a half-cup of pumpkin seeds tossed in chili oil and thrown over some shredded cabbage.

Snack: Walnuts.

Dinners:

1. Mon - Tuscan white bean & kale skillet, simmered with crushed tomatoes, garlic, and fresh rosemary. Crusty Italian bread rubbed with raw garlic, sprinkled with parm, and drizzled with olive oil.
2. Tues - Bowl of split pea soup served with cheddar cheese, tortilla chips, and a basic salad of bell pepper and cucumber tossed lightly in a vinaigrette.
3. Wed - Same as Monday.
4. Thurs - Same as Tuesday.
5. Fri - Shakshuka Greek-style with feta and olives, served with a really good crusty bread loaf and pomegranates.
6. Sat - Tuscan farrotto with roasted figs, kale, and walnuts. I made this a few weeks ago and it's really good, so I'm doing it again. It's basically a risotto using farro instead of rice, toasted in a garlic-rosemary oil and then cooked in vegetable broth. I'll throw in some nutritional yeast at the end.
7. Sun - My signature Big Ass Omelettes with 3 eggs, cheddar, and a filling of tomato, potato, onion, bell pepper, and eggplant all sauteed together and finished in tomato paste. Served with buttered corn grits. This is kind of a traditional Sunday dinner for me now.

Oh, I also drink a glass of milk (1%) before bed some nights for the protein boost.

... I also just now registered that shredded cabbage is a leafy green. I haven't actually made the pepita salad yet, but I did already buy the cabbage. Maybe it's not too late to flip it into some other side dish...

These threads are fun and several of you have given me ideas for meals that I've actually attempted to make, so Imma keep posting them for the foreseeable future.

Breakfast: My amaranth porridge thing, which is just amaranth in soy milk with blueberries, strawberries, nuts and seeds (cashew, sunflower, pumpkin, chia, flax), and cashew butter. IDK, this meal really works for me. I've been doing it for maybe a month now and it's just the perfect breakfast. I make the amaranth ahead of time and just eat it cold in the mornings.

Lunch: I'm mixing up black beans, guacamole, and a shredded Mexican cheese blend and eating it over tortilla chips, along with fresh mango and tomato on the side. Guacamole is unusual for me... I avoid avocados for the most past because of their horrible environmental footprint, but I just got a hankering for it this week.

Snack: Walnuts and/or a boiled egg.

Dinners:

1. M - I made stuffed peppers last week and had some leftover filling (just a tomato-rich rice and pinto thing), so I needed to do something with it. I ended up serving it as a side dish to go with... corn and zucchini fritters! Made with chickpea flour for extra protein. Also served with some sauteed spinach and a squeeze of lime, because why not?
2. Tu - Sheet-pan Mediterranean balsamic tofu with olive oil, oregano, honey, red pepper flakes, and salt tossed with a bunch of veggies (roasted red pepper, zucchini, red onion, and broccoli) and roasted until crispy. Served with a raw salad of bell pepper, cucumbers, pickled onion, and a light lemon vinaigrette.
3. W - Falafel salad with mixed greens, red beet hummus, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and various seeds.
4. Th - Same as Tuesday.
5. F - Same as Wednesday.
6. Sa - I'm trying a new recipe this weekend: A high-protein creamy tomato & lentil moussaka. Basically, the top layer of the moussaka is made with Greek yogurt and feta instead of the heavy béchamel sauce you'd normally see.
7. Su - My girlfriend really wants to make fresh-baked croissants over the weekend, so I've decided we're doing to do a breakfast-for-dinner Sunday. I have a really good blackberry jam for the croissants and we'll serve with scrambled eggs, sliced tomato, and home fries tossed with red and yellow bell peppers, onion, and broccoli florets.

Breakfast: I'm still doing my amaranth porridge thing, which is just amaranth in soy milk with blueberries, strawberries, nuts and seeds (cashew, sunflower, pumpkin, chia, flax), and cashew butter. Occasionally, if I'm feeling lazy, I'll do Greek yogurt and a banana instead. I am not a morning person.

Lunch: I'm following an A/B meal plan this week, going back and forth between two different salads. The A plan is crispy roasted chickpeas over spinach, topped with roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, and a tahini-lemon dressing. The B plan is arugula and mixed baby greens with golden beets, feta, chopped walnuts, white wine vinegar, and olive and flaxseed oils.

Dinners:

1. M - Tuscan farrotto with roasted figs, kale, and walnuts. It's basically a risotto using farro instead of rice, toasted in a garlic-rosemary oil and then cooked in vegetable broth. I'll throw in some nutritional yeast at the end. Yes, I'm really into the whole ancient grains thing...
2. Tu - Vegetarian jambalaya using hearts of palm as the "meat" (texturally). This is actually a leftover from last week & I'll be polishing it off today.
3. W - Peanut tofu over soba noodles. Spiced up with chili flakes and a squeeze of fresh lime juice for the Vitt-ah-min C. Bell pepper, carrots, and cabbage for le crunch and a drizzle of scrambled egg for a creamy finish. I had this last week with glass noodles and thought it came out great, so I'm doing it again this week, but with soba.
4. Th - Egg salad on whole-grain toast served with a savory cabbage slaw and steamed broccoli.
5. F - Same as Wednesday.
6. Sa - Greek-style garlic herb baked potato. Topped with a roasted garlic clove, crumbled feta, chickpeas, diced cucumber, cherry tomatoes (cut up), some Kalamata olives, Greek yogurt, olive oil, oregano, and salt and pepper.
7. Su - Smoky New Orleans red beans and rice with diced tempeh and nutritional yeast for the iron / B12 component. White rice is traditional, but I'm using brown rice. Served with satueed collard greens tossed with walnuts and lemon juice.

Just what the title says. I always think it's interesting to see how other people's tastes shake out. I have seven to share with you, and they're a really weird mixed bag, but here goes:

1. The Beatles - [ALBUM HIGHLIGHT: Rubber Soul] - Of course. I think this is a very common shared fandom, so we're starting this list out normally enough. There's not much to say here; they're The Beatles.
2. Daft Punk - [ALBUM HIGHLIGHT: Random Access Memories] - I've always been really into electronic music. I fell in love with the sound of the synthesizer at a very young age, and then I fell very deep into certain genre rabbit holes ('90s house, French touch, synthwave, etc.), but no other artist in the space has quite touched my soul the way Daft Punk has. It's their sense of musicality that sets them apart, which transcends genres or instruments; Thomas has proven this beyond any shadow of a doubt in recent years with his orchestral material.
3. The Cranberries - [ALBUM HIGHLIGHT: No Need To Argue] - Dolores O'Riordan's voice is the signature sound, of course, but the entire band is always tight, the songwriting is on-point, and there's just something about the atmospheric hazy guitar sound that pulls me in. I prefer the albums produced by Stephen Street. The Cranberries had an awkward middle period, but the start and the end were both majestic.
4. Bloc Party - [ALBUM HIGHLIGHT: Silent Alarm] - Okay, now this comes with the significant asterisk that I'm talking about the original line-up, which means the first four albums (and associated singles and EPs) from ~2004-2013. Silent Alarm is the crown jewel, but really, almost all of the stuff they did within that frame of time was glorious. The alchemic interplay between Kele's instinct for melody, Russell's guitar effects, and the lightning rhythm section was what made them so memorable. (I'm not as into the new line-up or the material they've been putting out these days, but it must be said that they do still kill it live. If you've never seen them before, I highly recommend it.)
5. Shadowfax - [ALBUM HIGHLIGHT: Watercourse Way] - Now we're getting somewhere. "Shadowfax? Who the hell are Shadowfax?!" Well, they were an instrumental jazz-prog fusion group that got signed to Windham Hill in the early '80s. Although they did change their sound to accomodate the label's more acoustic New Age-y focus, they were always the outlier among the Windham Hill stable of artists, and they always found a way to sneak some of their "riskier" material into the records. The angelic Lyricon was their signature sound, both played and co-invented by Chuck Greenberg (woodwind master extraordinaire), but man... the whole band was tight as a glove. Their first, pre-Windham Hill album is their best, but I love most of the stuff they did until G.E. Stinson left the group in 1990. Their last two albums without him were a step down, but even on those, some highlights sprang forth. Sadly, none of the records quiiiiite capture the raw energy they had as a live band, which is where they were really able to shine. Shadowfax is an oddball pick and no one really knows who they were, sadly, but I genuinely do feel as passionate about them as I do about Radiohead. I have even exchanged correspondence with Greenberg's widow.
6. George Winston - [ALBUM HIGHLIGHT: Winter into Spring] - Another Windham Hill artist. I had early childhood exposure to this label. (My dad was a big Windham Hill fan.) Where Shadowfax was always the outlier among the Windham Hill stable of artists, George Winston is emblematic of everything that people love (and hate) about them. He has a deeply melodic, introspective, and atmospheric style that I've simply never heard from any other pianist. I don't even really listen to solo piano, but there's just something about George... He uses space masterfully and creates such colorful compositions. His "seasons" albums are his best (Autumn, Winter into Spring, December, and Summer), but honestly I have yet to listen to a George Winston album that doesn't nail it.
7. Linkin Park - [ALBUM HIGHLIGHT: A Thousand Suns] - Yes, Linkin Park. This will probably be the most controversial pick on the list, but I love what I love. Mike Shinoda's songwriting is simple but very catchy, and sometimes you're just in the mood for something that's direct. I don't think they ever "sold out", in fact, I think they made a series of unpopular moves out of a desire to not be pigeon-holed as a rap nu-metal group forever. A Thousands Suns is their best album by far and it sounds nothing like Hybrid Theory. Honorable mention goes to the pre-HT days; their first EP goes hard and the demo versions of some of the tracks from their first album are superior to the final versions. I will say that I'm not as into their new sound, but it's less to do with Emily Armstrong's voice and more to do with the fact that they've been working with co-writers from outside the band, which they'd already started doing with Chester on One More Light. (Hesitations about Emily's personal life aside, I have nothing against what she brings to the band.) These guys are so unfairly maligned for producing soulless radio fodder as if they're Nickelback or Imagine Dragons and I just cannot understand how people don't hear the difference. Love them or hate them, it's never been cookie-cutter pop music.

There is also a very important honorable mention here for The Stills, a Montreal indie band from the 2000's that only produced three albums before breaking up, but man... what a trio of albums. The first album is the best, going for more of a moody '80s post-punk style, and then the second album took a hard left turn into '70s heartland rock, which was... uh, pretty unexpected, and not as successful, but when it worked, it worked. And then their third album tried to combine the two styles to varying degrees of success. It's definitely their weakest effort and I can see why they called it quits after that one. Those first two albums, though... Yes, The Stills are an oddball pick too, and they weren't as consistent as the other artists I named above, but I stand by this choice.

1. Creep is a top 10 Radiohead song. It really is that good. I know, I know... It's so mainstream... The band grew to hate it over the years, it's not very representative of their overall sound, and it's been overplayed and overemphasized to hell and back... but so what? It's still an incredible achievement. Any other band would kill to have a song like Creep. It's not #1, but it's up there for sure.

2. The vocal take they used for The Bends (the song, not the album) is not great.

3. AMSP is a perfect way to end their discography. It's become trendy to disagree with this opinion vocally as if it's the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said, but I don't really know why that is the case. Just to be clear, I'd still be happy to get an LP10 anyway, but AMSP is permeated with a beautiful sense of finality and I think it works amazingly as the last Radiohead album.

4. People love to debate whether or not True Love Waits was done justice in the studio. I thought it was beautiful, but I respect and understand most of the dissenting opinions. No one ever talks about the fact that The Present Tense was murdered by those fucking dogshit vocal echo effects in the verses. That was a back-alley execution.

5. HTTT is their worst album in terms of how the songs flow and work together as a cohesive whole. (Or rather, don't.) It's also bloated and undercooked. Now don't get me wrong, HTTT has a lot of truly great songs, but it does not work as an album at all. I genuinely prefer Pablo Honey as an album.

6. I'll admit to hearing "penetration" instead of "paying attention" for far too many years.

7. The fan base is pretentious and can be very toxic.

I have plenty of bog-standard mainstream takes on Radiohead too. The thread is about hot takes. So that's what I've included here.

I get that people want Alive 2027 to happen.

I too would love it if they decided to do Alive 2027, even if it was only a temporary reunion.

But... Why hype yourselves up like this all the time? Thomas has been very clear that Daft Punk is a thing of the past. There have been no hints or innuendos from anybody that Daft Punk is ever coming back. Every re-release, every WDPK stream, every "Daft Punk Day", are all solely focused on the past with absolutely no indication whatsoever that anything is planned for the future.

Why keep doing this to yourselves? I really don't get it.

What's the funniest ball knowledge Beatles trivia you got up your sleeve? NO CONTEXT, just blurt it out and make everyone else try to figure out what you're saying.