u/StrongRecipe6408

I want to try my hand at making homemade ikura for sushi.

It seems like I just need a wire mesh screen to separate the roe from the membrane?

I can't seem to find a source for raw salmon skeins that doesn't require buying like 10+ lb all at once, and there are other sources that label the skeins as for use as bait. Anyone have a source?

What's the difference between the bait skein variety and the unprocessed variety for human consumption? Are the bait ones processed with chemicals or something?

I recently took a frozen fillet out of our chest freezer that had a deep red color, little fat, and a wonderful crustacean flavor from the fish's diet of krill. I have no idea where I bought it as it was unlabeled.

Since then I've tried both Costco fresh and frozen wild Sockeye salmon and Walmart frozen wild salmon and neither of them have had that deep red color nor crustacean taste... which is odd because that's normally where we would have gotten the salmon I had just ate.

Judging from the Costco Sockeye not being special, and guessing that what I had previously was Sockeye, I'm guessing that not all Sockeye are created equal.

So is there a trick (like a proper season?) to getting this or an established grocery chain that regularly stocks that deep red wild salmon? Right now it seems like it's kind of a random thing?

I'm not a mechanical engineer, just someone with a 3D printer and some shop tools for other materials who wants to design functional items.

A lot of times when I want to design an assembly that does a certain action or have certain properties I'm just kind of trying to think it up from scratch or looking at existing assemblies from my daily life, but I have a feeling that what I want has already been designed before and I simply don't know about it.

Especially in the industrial space - I'm *sure* there are many clever designs that I simply don't ever see in consumer items.

Do mechanical engineers use any sort of reference book(s) of common mechanical designs for inspiration or ideas?

I've always wondered about this.

My parents are both from China and in their 70s. They will always start the day by making food or reheating leftovers from the fridge, and then they'll just leave the food sitting out all day long until bedtime.

Stir fries, soups, stews, rice, etc. will all just sit out on the table uncovered for the entire day, and throughout the day they will just come and pick at the now-cold food like stir fries and soups that have been sitting out for hours. For dinner they might reheat some of the items on the table in the microwave.

Just now after breakfast, after we all just got done eating, my dad went and reheated all the leftovers and placed them on the table - *right after we just got done eating*.

My parents have done this for forever. I wonder if this is a normal China family thing?

All the mini NATO clamps I see require you to either twist a knob or move a lever manually from lock to unlock.

Are there any that automatically spring-lock into place when the rail is slid into the clamp (like Ulanzi Falcam)?

I shoot with small mobile cameras and Arca plates and their quick release clamps can be too big for them. But I also sometimes shoot with larger equipment.

Is there one system that has small plates and clamps that is somehow also interoperable with standard Arca and NATO?

I've heard that the Ulanzi F22 and F38 actually interoperate, but sometimes fail with certain Arca accessories.

Is there a better system?

I shoot with small mobile cameras and Arca plates and their quick release clamps can be too big for them. But I also sometimes shoot with larger equipment.

Is there one system that has small plates and clamps that is somehow also interoperable with standard Arca and NATO?

I've heard that the Ulanzi F22 and F38 actually interoperate, some sometimes fail with certain Arca accessories.

Is there a better system?

My parents are Chinese and both 75. Despite living in the USA for 40 years they haven't integrated at all and they live in semi-rural America with no friends or family around.

All my life I've felt jealous of my friends with American-born parents or friends with younger immigrant parents that integrated into the US and were fairly open-minded and adaptable to begin with.

Most child-parent relationships have a generational gap which is understandable, but because my parents are old, we have a double-generational gap as well as a huge cultural gap. We don't even share a lot of the same core values (ex. I want my life to be filled with travel and exploration of the world and their sense of a good life is simply to keep breathing for as long as possible and to only stay with what is familiar and local).

We share so little in common. I eat everything but they will only eat home-cooked Chinese food (they don't even like other Asian foods). I'm fairly current with events and culture and they don't watch TV, listen to any music, or watch any films. I like to travel and see other places. They absolutely don't care for it and only see the outside world as a source of danger and discomfort. My mom has left the boundaries of our yard maybe 10 times in 6 months.

When I see my friends with their parents they often can share things like similar tastes in oldies music, watch sports together, go out and eat together, laugh together, cook together, talk about films together, etc. or their parents are hanging out with their own friends or going on their own trips together or inviting their friends over the house for dinner ie. they have their own lives and interests outside of just staying in a safe house all day.

Any other Asian children of immigrants feel the same way... different in core values with a multi-generational cultural gap?

I know the Listerine Blue Ultraclean floss is highly recommended, but I floss with a floss dispenser / handle thing and it's simply too stretchy to use with it.

Is there an alternative floss that is not stretchy, but is still very tough to snap and doesn't shred at all?

I'm 40 and single by choice. My Chinese parents are both around 75 and have spend the last 40 years in semi-rural USA (Ohio).

During this time they have made no friends, have no family in the area, don't often leave the house, and essentially haven't integrated at all with the surrounding society and culture (poor English, don't listen to music, don't watch shows, don't eat non-Chinese food, don't hang out with others, no hobbies that involve leaving the house, etc).

My mom doesn't drive and essentially doesn't contribute anything anymore, not even loading dishes into the dishwasher or meal prep. My dad does all the household errands but there will come a time when he won't be able to handle things. Even now, driving himself and my mom to places like the city for doctor's visits is difficult as he easily gets confused with directions and sometimes even has difficulty navigating parking lots. Calling customer service to deal with different services is confusing and difficult.

Given this situation, I'm not too sure how I should care for them in the future. I have so many plans of traveling the entire world but I increasingly see this as impossible. I'll likely be spending the next 10 years of my life taking care of two aging parents who I don't share much in common with.

They also can't go into a local retirement community because it won't have the food they like and the language barrier will be extreme. Any outside help we find will be expensive, English-speaking, and unable to cook the food they like.

I've thought about going to China and finding an old-age community there, but they don't want to do anything besides keep staying in the house.

Anyone else single and in a similar predicament?

My mom is 76 and she's been a very absent-minded person essentially her entire life, but as she gets older it seems to be getting worse.

She does things like:

- Put a pot of food on the stove, turn it up to max, and just leave. And not come back. Just last night she was making a pot of oatmeal and turned the entire thing into a thick pile of black carbon (not just black at the bottom, but the *entire* contents), so it had been left burning for a very long time.

- Put a plate of food in the microwave, turn it on, and then just forget about it. Sometimes she doesn't even turn on the microwave after leaving food in it and leaving. This happens regularly.

- Take food out of the fridge and do nothing with it. And then leave with the fridge door open.

- Most of the time she's just on her phone listening to Chinese podcasters.

- In 5 months she has left the premises of the house about 8 times. 5 times for doctor's appointments. But even when much younger she was always a home body, made no friends in the 35 years we've lived here, and never went outside on her own for shopping, eating, going to the park, do errands, etc. She's also never had to buy groceries on her own, pay a bill, put gas in a car, drive anywhere besides to and from her office, etc. because my dad did all of that.

I'm wondering if this level of absent-mindedness is some sort of early-onset neurological problem, or just her natural personality just getting worse with age. Talks with neurologists and scans have been inconclusion.

Anyone else gone through this with their parents?

My parents have a 6x8 bed that they put blackberry plants into, without realizing they're rhizomes.

They don't like the blackberries and have cut away the bush, but the soil is absolutely filled with roots now. I suspect they're the roots of the blackberry bushes.

The concern now is that nothing will grow in this extremely fibrous root-filled soil.

Does anyone have any experience with growing things in an area that used to have blackberries?

How did it go? Were you able to get it permanently converted over to another crop?