Smalltalk is how you get to know a little about someone so you can move on to deeper things you both want to talk about. It's really unusual to just launch into deep conversation with someone you barely know.

Without it, the atmosphere gets really intense really quickly, which can be weird unless you're among old friends or people who have high emotional intelligence to start with (can't always count on that).

Then I ask questions about that story.

What excellent advice! My go-to line has been "what's been keeping you busy lately" which is a polite form of asking what someone "does" without making them them I only care what job they have.

Also: https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/18/88-dinner-partie...

It's not that unusual for me. This might be part of why people seem to have strong reactions to me, whether positive or negative. I am pretty terrible at small talk.

I usually am only trying to make conversation. I am slow to judge and I tend to assume people do things for a reason. So I don't dump a bunch of shame and guilt on people.

I also default to talking about me rather than about other people. It gets me accused of being self centered and crap like that, but I find it to be the least worst option, vastly less problematic than talking about other people.

I've done the other kind too with more planning and a day or 2 of cooking too. Just suggesting that you can also do it without the planning and hours of cooking.

Or, in the words of Auguste Gusteau: "Anyone can cook."

Cooking a meal is more about tasting, technique than the exact amount of ingredients. Pastry is a different beast, it you don't use the exact amounts or time chances are your dish will fail.

Baking soda is a base, and reacts with buttermilk which is acidic.

It's not clear to me why some recipes contain both acid+baking soda and baking powder. Maybe they're worried that the first combination isn't sufficient?

My breakfast this morning used yoghurt + baking soda ;) (бухти)

There have been untold number of cooks who know nothing about actual chemistry beyond "water = H2O", including tons of professional chefs all over the world. In fact any chef before like early 20th century or so wouldn't know the first thing about chemistry proper unless they've studied chemistry -- heck chemistry became a real discipline after the 18th century, but exquisite cooking has been with us for millennia.

Parent said "understand food chemistry", which I understand not to be the chemistry of food as it relates to molecules and chemical reaction chains, but rather something more basic: this thing can soak too much oil, this burns quickly even in moderate fire, this food gets soggy if you put in this before that, and such things.

My mother studied food chemistry at college, so childhood baking generally included 20 seconds of explanation on why something I was about to do would make a mess. ("If you don't do X, the protein in won't coagulate and it will all fall apart.")

This mostly applied to baking, cooking eggs, or making a roux. The rest doesn't really matter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_chemistry

not to mention the cleaning up is a good 3-4h after (or the next morning)

respect for those who can fit it in their schedule. i know i have no excuse because the author of the article is a restaurateur in NY which surely means a 365-day-a-year commitment to her business. where she finds time, i don't know. i sometimes feel like i can't do it and i definitely don't work every day.

Then I put away the liqueur bottles, wipe down the table, and replace the chairs. What other mess is there, beyond routine cleaning?