Buc ee's jalapeno cream cheese dip
London lunches or dinner options under £10?
2023.06.03 17:16 Le_Fancy_Me London lunches or dinner options under £10?
In honour of the rising costs everywhere I thought it might be a good time to recommend some places that still do a filling meal under a tenner.
For me I'd say Bunsik is a pretty good shout. They do korean-style corndogs that are really great and very affordable. You can get them from as little as £4! I love the ones with added potato though. Their mozzarella and potato dog is £5.9 and very reasonable for how filling they are imo. If that's not enough they even do a special where you can get 2 for a tenner. Healhy? No! Delicious? Yes! I'm normally a meat person but I think the cheese ones with potato are actually better here, the texture is SO good! Top it with some ketchup or spicy sauce and it's my favourite naughty treat lunch in London.
A lot more obvious is McD. But it's gotta be mentioned. A chicken mayo and cheeseburger are about 1.20 each. So for me that's a 'warm' lunch sorted under 2.5 if I'm on the go. They also do pretty fair meal combos. Like a wrap of the day meal which is a wrap with drink and sidesalad, fruit or veg for under 4£ I think. Or full salad + drink for about the same.
As far as wraps go you can some that are more pricy than mcD but also big/filling enough to be a meal on their own. Which personally often make them my go to 'on the go' lunch of choice.
Chipotle/Tortilla each have affordable and decent sized options. You can get a wrap with protein, rice, beans, veggies, cheese, sour cream + salsa for £8 something depending on the protein at Chipotle. And the size is large enough that I personally struggle to finish it. Tortilla is in the same price range their medium chicken/pork/vegan-chili/grilled veg tortillas are 7.70£ and their large or beef options are 1 pound more. Their free options for fillings actually are a little bit more. They offer pickled red onions and jalapenos for example. But make you choose between cheese and sour cream. On top of that both chains offer additional things for extra pay like guacamole, extra protein, cheese sauce, chorizo etc
Personally prefer chipotle but Tortilla probably has the more extensive options when it comes to fillings, they also do bowls from what I recall which are about the same price as their wraps. Though I haven't tried them and can't speak for how reasonable their portions are.
I also remember Chipotle, Tortilla and McD each have apps or membership kind of things that offer additional free/discounted stuff. So if you are someone who eats lunch out on a semi-regular basis and are looking for cheap-ish options it might be worth downloading their apps and seeing if you can get additional perks.
submitted by Le_Fancy_Me to london [link] [comments]
For me I'd say Bunsik is a pretty good shout. They do korean-style corndogs that are really great and very affordable. You can get them from as little as £4! I love the ones with added potato though. Their mozzarella and potato dog is £5.9 and very reasonable for how filling they are imo. If that's not enough they even do a special where you can get 2 for a tenner. Healhy? No! Delicious? Yes! I'm normally a meat person but I think the cheese ones with potato are actually better here, the texture is SO good! Top it with some ketchup or spicy sauce and it's my favourite naughty treat lunch in London.
A lot more obvious is McD. But it's gotta be mentioned. A chicken mayo and cheeseburger are about 1.20 each. So for me that's a 'warm' lunch sorted under 2.5 if I'm on the go. They also do pretty fair meal combos. Like a wrap of the day meal which is a wrap with drink and sidesalad, fruit or veg for under 4£ I think. Or full salad + drink for about the same.
As far as wraps go you can some that are more pricy than mcD but also big/filling enough to be a meal on their own. Which personally often make them my go to 'on the go' lunch of choice.
Chipotle/Tortilla each have affordable and decent sized options. You can get a wrap with protein, rice, beans, veggies, cheese, sour cream + salsa for £8 something depending on the protein at Chipotle. And the size is large enough that I personally struggle to finish it. Tortilla is in the same price range their medium chicken/pork/vegan-chili/grilled veg tortillas are 7.70£ and their large or beef options are 1 pound more. Their free options for fillings actually are a little bit more. They offer pickled red onions and jalapenos for example. But make you choose between cheese and sour cream. On top of that both chains offer additional things for extra pay like guacamole, extra protein, cheese sauce, chorizo etc
Personally prefer chipotle but Tortilla probably has the more extensive options when it comes to fillings, they also do bowls from what I recall which are about the same price as their wraps. Though I haven't tried them and can't speak for how reasonable their portions are.
I also remember Chipotle, Tortilla and McD each have apps or membership kind of things that offer additional free/discounted stuff. So if you are someone who eats lunch out on a semi-regular basis and are looking for cheap-ish options it might be worth downloading their apps and seeing if you can get additional perks.
2023.06.03 11:27 nderstandablyscared so i made this cream cheese spread (garlic, shallot, cilantro, jalapeno and hot sauce) and it turned out really fucking good. just thought i'd share.
 | submitted by nderstandablyscared to condiments [link] [comments] |
2023.06.03 11:13 nderstandablyscared chicken and chorizo sub w/ melted chihuahua and pepper jack cheese, onion, tomato and cream cheese spread (jalapeno, garlic, shallots, hot sauce, cilantro)
 | submitted by nderstandablyscared to eatsandwiches [link] [comments] |
2023.06.03 10:59 nderstandablyscared [homemade] chicken and chorizo sub w/ melted chihuahua and pepper jack cheese, onion, tomato and cream cheese spread (jalapeno, garlic, shallots, hot sauce)
![[homemade] chicken and chorizo sub w/ melted chihuahua and pepper jack cheese, onion, tomato and cream cheese spread (jalapeno, garlic, shallots, hot sauce)](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/ABlVl7rZKchSeDd0sVV5046jXAv4iEBoyCS-hmzNXgE.jpg "[homemade] chicken and chorizo sub w/ melted chihuahua and pepper jack cheese, onion, tomato and cream cheese spread (jalapeno, garlic, shallots, hot sauce)") | submitted by nderstandablyscared to food [link] [comments] |
2023.06.03 06:02 mattchewy43 Deconstruct Nachos
 | I've got my tortilla chips, ground beef, sour cream, guacamole, onion tomatoe and my secret Ingredient: Hot jalapeno and habanero cheese. submitted by mattchewy43 to castiron [link] [comments] |
2023.06.03 01:01 BigYellowPraxis Smoked short ribs with smoked leek and blue cheese dip, then cherry pie (served with home made almond ice cream)
 | Ribs were in for around 6 hrs at 100c. If I were to try again, I'd go hotter, as the texture was a little tough - hadn't fully broken down the collagen as far as I could tell. Flavour was great though! submitted by BigYellowPraxis to UKBBQ [link] [comments] |
2023.06.02 23:12 EatinSLOCal SloDoCo - Foothill Location - Review
 | Background: submitted by EatinSLOCal to EatinSLOCal [link] [comments] Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, my teen years were spent around these fancy modern doughnut shops (we spelled it with the traditional “doughnut,” not “donut,” to distinguish it from a Krispy Kreme or a Dunkin’, so hip) like Voodoo Doughtnut with their fun designs and innovative flavors. It took a decade, but it finally spread beyond our hipster borders and things like a bacon maple bar finally spread across the country. I was elated in October of 2010 to learn that there was a new doughtnut spot selling bacon maple bars in town. So in honor of #NationalDonutDay, we dropped by SloDoCo’s original Foothill location to celebrate. Dozen Box Setting: 📍Foothill Plaza, 793F Foothill Blvd, San Luis Obispo, CA 93405 SloDoCo is located in Foothill Plaza with additional locations in Sunshine Donuts’ former location at the corner of Higuera and South street as well as one in Atascadero. The Foothill location has become a popular place to study with a good amount of tables and space to sit at. The doughtnuts are on display as you walk in with a secondary case to the side with the vegan and gluten free options. They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (at both SLO Locations, 5AM-9PM in Atascadero). Assorted Dozen Doughnuts Menu/Selection: SloDoCo makes over 100 types of doughtnuts a day! That’s amazing! I’ll do my best to write out the menu, but I may miss some. The buttermilk bars and old fashioneds come in plain, glazed, chocolate, and maple. Cake doughtnut options include plain, cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, crumb, snickerdoodle, and then the following four flavors chocolate, maple, strawberry, and vanilla either by itself, with sprinkles, chocolate chips, peanuts, or coconut shreds. Devil’s Food Cake doughtnuts come topped in chocolate, chocolate with sprinkles, chocolate with peanuts, chocolate with shredded coconut, mint frosting, and mint chocolate chip. Raised doughnuts come in chocolate, glazed, maple, sugar, crumb, coconut, lavender, chocolate sprinkle, strawberry sprinkle, vanilla sprinkle, and circus animal cookies. Filled doughtnuts are filled with either Vienna cream, lemon jelly, chocolate dobash, raspberry jelly, crème brulee, and espresso. Bars are the classics – chocolate, maple, and maple bacon. Twists come in glazed, chocolate, cinnamon, and sugar. Pillows options are chocolate chocolate chip, maple chocolate chip, Nutella, peanut butter & jelly, strawberry cream cheese, boysenberry cream cheese, pumpkin pie, cream cheese, chai cream cheese, peanut butter, and milk & cookies. There are two types of bear claws, regular glazed and crumb, a blueberry cake, cereal topped raised with Fruity Pebbles, Captain Crunch, and other options, their Galaxy marshmallow, “Do Cros” and an apple fritter. They do croissants as well – plain, ham & cheese, jalapeno ham & cheese, chocolate, and strawberry cream cheese. Finally for out Gluten Free friends there is chocolate, lavender, vanilla, and maple, and for the Vegans there is vanilla, cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, maple, and chocolate. On top of all those, they have monthly specials, for June there is a Gluten Free or Vegan Strawberry Donut Sando, an Apricot Mousse Filled Glazed Raised, Pride Rings, Matcha Old Fashioned, Hedgehog Donut Holes, Spring Flower Raised, Slice O’ Melon Raised, and 3 Monsters, Inc. inspired doughtnuts, a Monster Mike cake, Silly Sully raised, and Boo’s Door bar. There’s also a Drink Menu with the usual hot drinks coffee, tea, cocoa, cider, espresso, lattes, etc, as well as cold drinks from the cases. Orange Pride Ring Raised Doughnut What I Had: I grabbed an assorted dozen of my choosing – Fruity Pebbles Raised, Glazed Blueberry Cake, Strawberry Sprinkles Cake, Monster Mike Vanilla Frosting Cake, Bacon Maple Bar, Orange Pride Ring Vanilla Frosting Raised topped with whipped cream and sprinkles, Glazed Buttermilk Bar, Chocolate Old Fashioned, Galaxy Marshmallow Frosting Raised, Cinnabomb, Slice O’ Melon Watermelon Frosting Raised, and a Nutella Filled Pillow. I got a mix of my favorites and the June specials. Focusing on the June Specials I got, let’s start with the Pride Ring, which was a raised ring doughtnut with vanilla frosting that came in all the colors of the classic Pride Flag, and topped with whipped cream and sprinkles, which was really fun! I noticed the Galaxy Doughnut, which is a raised with marshmallow frosting in a swirled rainbow, also has the sprinkles on it. The Slice O’ Melon is a triangle shaped raised doughnut dipped in watermelon frosting decorated like a slice of watermelon, which was weird. Watermelon is a weird frosting flavor, it tasted correct, but it was a strange combo with the rest of the sugar. The Monster Mike was fun, I like cake doughnuts, and the vanilla frosting was a pretty good Mike. Marshmallow Galaxy Doughnut As for some of my favorites, the Bacon Maple Bar is a classic, if you haven’t had one, you need to. My only note about the SloDoCo one is that it they super crumble the bacon, which is great for not having to bite through a bacon strip like on Voodoo’s but the crumble doesn’t totally stick to the maple frosting and falls off everywhere. Blueberry cake glazed is another one of my favorites, having first had it through Top Pot Doughnuts in Seattle, SloDoCo does an amazing job with theirs, I get one every time. Their Cereal Raised are always fun, I often switch between the Fruity Pebbles and the Captain Crunch, the contrast of textures is key. The Cinnabomb started out as a special and I think is a staple at this point, it’s like having a cinnamon roll stuffed in a raised glazed. Finally, the glazed buttermilk bar and old fashioned are always on point, can’t go wrong with them. SloDoCo might make some crazy fun doughnuts, but they also make the classics well. Would I Have It Again: Yes, of course. Doughtnuts are always fresh. They’re always open. I occasionally will drop in here late at night since they’re one of the only places left open. SloDoCo is a staple in this town, and their monthly specials keep things fresh and innovative. So with all of this in mind, SloDoCo – Foothill Location gets an Eatin’ SLOCal rating of – Take-Out Now! |
2023.06.02 20:04 Olivesplace Bill clinton
 | submitted by Olivesplace to Olivesplace [link] [comments] |
2023.06.02 19:32 Orchid-Keeper Bitter Pops in West Lakeview/Roscoe Village - $4.99
 | 1 sprinkles donut, 1 glazed donut, 1 everything bagel type roll with a surprise cream cheese filling, which I did not realize until the next day after it sat overnight on my counter, and 1 biscuit, seemingly jalapeno cheddar, but I'm not sure. The two donuts were end-of-life, but the savories were still solid. Really nice staff. submitted by Orchid-Keeper to toogoodtogo [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/9768xmyd4n3b1.jpg?width=2225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cebbfee41bd940999fff51df76ca4961104e843e |
2023.06.02 10:15 Poldaran Congratulations. You've played yourself.
It's Thursday. I got wrapped up in playing Diablo and forgot to take a nap before work. I'm on an egg fast(6 eggs with 6 tbsp of butter and an ounce of cheese twice a day) so I can't buy a bit of ice cream to power through the night. And the hotel is filled with a bunch of kids who were apparently given coffee or something, because they won't go the hell to sleep.
So my night hasn't been great. How about you?
But this tale isn't about tonight. Not my part in it, anyway. The fallout happened today though. But for now, a musical interlude.
Last night was fairly slow. I'm working on figuring out what my PC in our tabletop campaign is gonna do next session(she failed really hard in some combats due to bad dice after a kid she's kinda looking out for asked for her to teach him to fight better, so that's gonna be a morose conversation later). And then I get a call and give my Standard Hotel Greeting.
K: "Hi, yeah. So I have a reservation under Karen McCustomer for arriving tonight, but due to some issues, I won't be making it in tonight. I still need the room for Thursday night though. Any way I can cancel the first night but keep the second?"
Me: "Let me take a look at that for you."
I load up her reservation and... uh oh. I have to give her some bad news.
Me: "Unfortunately, it looks like you checked in via the mobile app. Due to that, I can no longer remove the first night of the stay for you. However, your second night is definitely held for you."
K: "There's nothing you can do? I'm a tier 1 shiny(lowest level above basic member)."
Me: "Unfortunately not, sorry."
K: "Well, that sucks. Okay then. Thanks for trying."
If it had ended there, I wouldn't be telling this tale. And she definitely wouldn't have been given the moniker of "Karen". So anyone reading this probably isn't terribly surprised with what comes next. About twenty minutes later, the phone rings again. I give the Standard Hotel Greeting.
BA: "Hello, yes, I'm calling from about a reservation for Ms. Karen McCustomer."
Me, internally: "Of course you are."
Me: "Okay, what can I do for you regarding that reservation?"
BA: "So, Karen has had an issue and is unable to make her first night. Is there any way to cancel the first night but keep the second one?"
Me: "As I told her when she called me a bit ago, since she checked in online through the mobile app, I can't cancel her first night."
I mean, I could have. But it would have both required me to violate hotel policy and engage in extra work. I might do one or the other when I truly feel it warranted, but not at the same time.
BA: "Oh. That makes sense. I'll let her know. Just to confirm, she will have her reservation for the second night, right? We can't risk her having her reservation no showed and her losing the second night."
Me: "That's not an issue at all. She's good to go for her second night."
BA: "That's the important part. Thanks for your help."
Me: "Thank you for calling. Have a good night."
BA: "You as well."
Again, if it had ended there, this wouldn't have been a story worth posting. Guest is told no, tries to get travel agent to talk me into saying yes. Very common tale. However, this is where my involvement in the story ends. The following interactions have been dramatized based on being recounted to me by CW2.
Just remember kids: When has a giant ball of fire ever been good? I rest my case.
Anyway, the phone rings. It's busy, so our FOM, CW, gives the Standard Hotel Greeting as he's helping out with the desk
K: "Hi, so I had an issue with my flight, and I only needed one night of my stay."
CW: "Oh, I can fix that for you. What's the name on the reservation?"
K: "Finally, someone who can help. Karen McCustomer."
CW: "Okay, I've fixed that reservation for you."
K: "That sounded really easy. I wonder why the guy last night wouldn't fix it."
CW: "Don't know. But you're good now."
K: "Thank you."
If you've been paying attention, I'm sure you see what has happened. But CW was unwitting. And Karen thought she'd gotten what she wanted. Meanwhile CW sends up someone to make sure the room is cleaned since he just processed a really late checkout.
Karen arrives, expecting to check into her room. Which has been sold. In fact, it was snapped up within moments, as CW checked the reservations screen after he hung up and we were booked solid again.
K: "What do you mean I don't have a reservation?!"
CW2: "It looks like you were checked out a couple hours ago."
K: "No! I called to cancel the first night, not tonight!"
CW2: "That wouldn't have been possible, as it was already checked in, looks like through the mobile app."
K: "That's what the guy said last night. But the guy I spoke to a couple hours ago said he could."
CW2: "He said he could cancel the first night but keep the second night?"
K, realization dawning: "...he should have known that's what I wanted!"
It devolved from there. Karens gonna Karen. But this Karen got to go Karen somewhere else. All because she chose a path that was clear. She chose free will. Next time, maybe she'll listen to the ready guide in the celestial voice of the auditor.
Who am I kidding? We all know she didn't learn a damn thing here.
I just hope you all have learned to distrust the giant ball of fire.
submitted by Poldaran to TalesFromTheFrontDesk [link] [comments]
So my night hasn't been great. How about you?
But this tale isn't about tonight. Not my part in it, anyway. The fallout happened today though. But for now, a musical interlude.
There are those who think that lifeOur cast includes Me, Booking Agent(BA), Coworkers(CW1/2) and the star of our little tale, Karen, Mistress of the Self Frag(K).
Has nothing left to chance
With a host of holy horrors
To direct our aimless dance
Last night was fairly slow. I'm working on figuring out what my PC in our tabletop campaign is gonna do next session(she failed really hard in some combats due to bad dice after a kid she's kinda looking out for asked for her to teach him to fight better, so that's gonna be a morose conversation later). And then I get a call and give my Standard Hotel Greeting.
K: "Hi, yeah. So I have a reservation under Karen McCustomer for arriving tonight, but due to some issues, I won't be making it in tonight. I still need the room for Thursday night though. Any way I can cancel the first night but keep the second?"
Me: "Let me take a look at that for you."
I load up her reservation and... uh oh. I have to give her some bad news.
Me: "Unfortunately, it looks like you checked in via the mobile app. Due to that, I can no longer remove the first night of the stay for you. However, your second night is definitely held for you."
K: "There's nothing you can do? I'm a tier 1 shiny(lowest level above basic member)."
Me: "Unfortunately not, sorry."
K: "Well, that sucks. Okay then. Thanks for trying."
If it had ended there, I wouldn't be telling this tale. And she definitely wouldn't have been given the moniker of "Karen". So anyone reading this probably isn't terribly surprised with what comes next. About twenty minutes later, the phone rings again. I give the Standard Hotel Greeting.
BA: "Hello, yes, I'm calling from
Me, internally: "Of course you are."
Me: "Okay, what can I do for you regarding that reservation?"
BA: "So, Karen has had an issue and is unable to make her first night. Is there any way to cancel the first night but keep the second one?"
Me: "As I told her when she called me a bit ago, since she checked in online through the mobile app, I can't cancel her first night."
I mean, I could have. But it would have both required me to violate hotel policy and engage in extra work. I might do one or the other when I truly feel it warranted, but not at the same time.
BA: "Oh. That makes sense. I'll let her know. Just to confirm, she will have her reservation for the second night, right? We can't risk her having her reservation no showed and her losing the second night."
Me: "That's not an issue at all. She's good to go for her second night."
BA: "That's the important part. Thanks for your help."
Me: "Thank you for calling. Have a good night."
BA: "You as well."
Again, if it had ended there, this wouldn't have been a story worth posting. Guest is told no, tries to get travel agent to talk me into saying yes. Very common tale. However, this is where my involvement in the story ends. The following interactions have been dramatized based on being recounted to me by CW2.
A planet of playthingsIt is daytime. Late afternoon. The birds are singing. The machinery of a road crew working just down the street is singing the song of its people. The giant ball of fire is up in the sky doing...things.
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
“The stars aren’t aligned –
Or the gods are malign”
Blame is better to give than receive
Just remember kids: When has a giant ball of fire ever been good? I rest my case.
Anyway, the phone rings. It's busy, so our FOM, CW, gives the Standard Hotel Greeting as he's helping out with the desk
K: "Hi, so I had an issue with my flight, and I only needed one night of my stay."
CW: "Oh, I can fix that for you. What's the name on the reservation?"
K: "Finally, someone who can help. Karen McCustomer."
CW: "Okay, I've fixed that reservation for you."
K: "That sounded really easy. I wonder why the guy last night wouldn't fix it."
CW: "Don't know. But you're good now."
K: "Thank you."
If you've been paying attention, I'm sure you see what has happened. But CW was unwitting. And Karen thought she'd gotten what she wanted. Meanwhile CW sends up someone to make sure the room is cleaned since he just processed a really late checkout.
There are those who think thatA couple hours later. The giant ball of fire is dipping down along the horizon. I'm at home, wondering to myself why the hell I'm playing the second lowest DPS spec in the game. And why some people keep dying to avoidable mechanics. Oh well, I'm not leading this circus. I just get to be one of the clowns.
They were dealt a losing hand
The cards were stacked against them
They weren’t born in Lotus-Land.
Karen arrives, expecting to check into her room. Which has been sold. In fact, it was snapped up within moments, as CW checked the reservations screen after he hung up and we were booked solid again.
K: "What do you mean I don't have a reservation?!"
CW2: "It looks like you were checked out a couple hours ago."
K: "No! I called to cancel the first night, not tonight!"
CW2: "That wouldn't have been possible, as it was already checked in, looks like through the mobile app."
K: "That's what the guy said last night. But the guy I spoke to a couple hours ago said he could."
CW2: "He said he could cancel the first night but keep the second night?"
K, realization dawning: "...he should have known that's what I wanted!"
It devolved from there. Karens gonna Karen. But this Karen got to go Karen somewhere else. All because she chose a path that was clear. She chose free will. Next time, maybe she'll listen to the ready guide in the celestial voice of the auditor.
Who am I kidding? We all know she didn't learn a damn thing here.
I just hope you all have learned to distrust the giant ball of fire.
2023.06.02 05:10 evan_49 [Homemade] chili, one of my favs! Carrots, celery, jalapeños, onion, tomato sauce, diced tomato’s, beef broth, garlic, red kidney beans, pinto beans, lean beef, and lots of spices (especially chili powder and pepper). I top off with mozzarella cheese, tobasco, sour cream, and frito scoops to dip!
![[Homemade] chili, one of my favs! Carrots, celery, jalapeños, onion, tomato sauce, diced tomato’s, beef broth, garlic, red kidney beans, pinto beans, lean beef, and lots of spices (especially chili powder and pepper). I top off with mozzarella cheese, tobasco, sour cream, and frito scoops to dip!](https://preview.redd.it/jaol5cwiui3b1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a44fe29036f5c04f828cb0cb0e1c77b245a6a6af "[Homemade] chili, one of my favs! Carrots, celery, jalapeños, onion, tomato sauce, diced tomato’s, beef broth, garlic, red kidney beans, pinto beans, lean beef, and lots of spices (especially chili powder and pepper). I top off with mozzarella cheese, tobasco, sour cream, and frito scoops to dip!") | submitted by evan_49 to food [link] [comments] |
2023.06.02 01:25 SLO_Citizen Food Review - "Fire!" Burger at Todo Bueno in the SLO Public Market - 2023.06.01
 | Where: submitted by SLO_Citizen to SLO [link] [comments] Todo Bueno - SLO Public Market - Upstairs in the main market building https://slopublicmarket.com/merchants/todo-bueno What: $11.80 - “FIRE!” burger - Jalapeno cream slaw, cheese, salsa, fried jalapenos and spicy mayo $3.50 - Fries A quick late lunch with my boss-a-rama, we went to this newly opened spot on the second floor of the main building at the Market. At 2 PM, a couple people were in the place and a party of undecided peeps in front of us at the counter, we checked out the menu for a good five minutes and everything looked great but I finally picked the “FIRE!” Burger and fries because I missed out on the Priedite burgers last night at the There Does Not Exist popup. There’s a cool second floor patio looking down on the whole complex and that is the best thing about the place. Took about 10 minutes for the food to come up and the burger was about the size of what you would have gotten in a Happy Meal 25 years ago. https://preview.redd.it/gmeg9bybqh3b1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6f70b1679dfe36aa4c25ce9d2231b5fbe184bff7 The burger was so boring, the patties were lame frozen patties of poor quality, the “fire” was not fire. The fries were fine. Crispy, seasoned well and the best thing on the plate. Not sure why a “Cal/Mex” would open in the same complex with a good burger joint (Brook’s) and a decent taco joint (Cali Tacos - yes, I have had them, but I need to go back and try some other things to write up something with significance). Anyway, if airline or hospital burgers are your thing then this place is for you. Would not go again. Side note: I had a taster of of the lemon mascarpone ice cream from the shop on the bottom floor, Perfect Scoop, and it was stunningly awesome. |
2023.06.01 23:49 AnotherCrazyChick Appreciation post: Tex Mex and Tex Food
Let’s get this sub going. I grew up in Texas and moved away over a decade ago. I still visit and what I miss most is the food. I moved to Oregon and lived there for 10 years. I asked the locals where I could find good Tex Mex. I was referred to a restaurant that only had mango salsa and mango or pineapple in the majority of dishes. You know, because the west coast is the closest to Hawaii, so they integrated that into their cuisine. It’s not Tex Mex in any form or fashion. There was no queso dip outside of Chipotle once they started advertising it and it was not sufficient and it’s not the same. The Mexican restaurants that offered queso were more Mexican focused and the “queso” was mostly cheese and not dip. A solid piece of melted cheese that was fried. Growing up in DFW, Taco Casa was the best. In my hometown, the high school was next door to a Taco Casa, so I ate there for lunch regularly. Back when we had off campus eating. And also Whataburger. Did you know Whataburger has chicken fajita wraps? They aren’t always on the menu, but they still have them and I love them. Also Braum’s ice cream. There was no drive thru ice cream in Oregon. There are multiples here in NY, but it’s not Braum’s. All places have limited options of flavors and it’s mostly soft serve yogurt. While I do recommend Texan’s try Oregon Tillamook cheese and ice cream, I still miss Braum’s.
Thank you for reading my rant and reminiscence.
submitted by AnotherCrazyChick to Texas_nopolitics [link] [comments]
Thank you for reading my rant and reminiscence.
2023.06.01 00:03 fernwehdreamz What is the typical menu like for a German dinner party?
I've badgered the shit out of my coworkers and gotten them to agree to come over for dinner; I'm loosing my fucking mind with excitement because I fucking love dinner parties! I'm from Fredericksburg, TX so I thought I'd make stuff from home because it'll adapt well to Germany!
My menu:
My main concern is that 4 of my coworkers are as big as the goddamn Kölner cathedral so I want to make sure I'm not a bad host, and they have enough to eat.
What do you normally make/eat when you go to dinner parties?
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Cornbread recipe (base):
- Preheat your oven to 350F
- Add just enough oil to the bottom of your pan to have 1/8th inch (Google says 1/3 cm), but basically just enough to coat the entire bottom of your pan, and stick it in the oven while you make your mix.
- [ALTERNATIVE - don't preheat the pan on this version!!] Use 4 tablespoons of butter, and pour the mix in, then pop it in the oven. Don't put the pan in the oven during preheating or you'll burn the butter!
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup corn meal
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- Mix dry ingredients really well, then make a little hole
- Add 2 eggs, and 1/2 cup of buttermilk or heavy cream (heavy cream'll make it a little sweeter)
- Mix and it'll start to lump up
- SLOWLY add in another 1/2 of your buttermilk/heavy cream until you get a nice pancake batter consistency. DON'T OVER MIX!!!! or you'll have tough cornbread. You want to whisk just enough so that it's all blended.
- Pour the mix into the pan, and stick it in the oven.
I don't know exact times, because I just know when my cornbread is done, but if you preheat it's about 15 minutes, and if you don't preheat it's about 30. Now, I've only ever used a cast iron skillet to make cornbread, and I've only ever used my family skillet to make cornbread, so times will change dependin on what you use to bake it in. You know it's done when you stick a knife in the center and it comes out clean.
The first few times you make it, you'll wanna watch so that it don't burn, but even if it burns a little you can make cornbread stuffin for a chicken. For the stuffin you want to use a sausage that crumbles (kinda like ground beef), and make sure to add sage to your stuffin.
Variations:
- Honey butter: 2 tablespoons honey + 1/2 stick butter melted together and pour on top IMMEDIETLY after you take it out of the oven! Let it sit for a few minutes to soak in
- Sweet & Spicy: same sauce as above, but you add 1/2 to 1 whole finely diced jalapeno to the cornbread batter before baking
- Bacon & cheddar: 1/2 pack of bacon + 1 cup of cheese go into the batter before baking
submitted by fernwehdreamz to AskAGerman [link] [comments]
My menu:
- Apps: basic charcuterie board
- Main: I'll bake a simple beer brown bread, make some pickles, a mustard, and pork schnitzel for open-faced "pork chop" sandwiches
- Side: a red cabbage slaw, and roasted corn
- Dessert: a spiced rum cake
- Drinks: BYOB because I don't drink alcohol
My main concern is that 4 of my coworkers are as big as the goddamn Kölner cathedral so I want to make sure I'm not a bad host, and they have enough to eat.
What do you normally make/eat when you go to dinner parties?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cornbread recipe (base):
- Preheat your oven to 350F
- Add just enough oil to the bottom of your pan to have 1/8th inch (Google says 1/3 cm), but basically just enough to coat the entire bottom of your pan, and stick it in the oven while you make your mix.
- [ALTERNATIVE - don't preheat the pan on this version!!] Use 4 tablespoons of butter, and pour the mix in, then pop it in the oven. Don't put the pan in the oven during preheating or you'll burn the butter!
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup corn meal
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- Mix dry ingredients really well, then make a little hole
- Add 2 eggs, and 1/2 cup of buttermilk or heavy cream (heavy cream'll make it a little sweeter)
- Mix and it'll start to lump up
- SLOWLY add in another 1/2 of your buttermilk/heavy cream until you get a nice pancake batter consistency. DON'T OVER MIX!!!! or you'll have tough cornbread. You want to whisk just enough so that it's all blended.
- Pour the mix into the pan, and stick it in the oven.
I don't know exact times, because I just know when my cornbread is done, but if you preheat it's about 15 minutes, and if you don't preheat it's about 30. Now, I've only ever used a cast iron skillet to make cornbread, and I've only ever used my family skillet to make cornbread, so times will change dependin on what you use to bake it in. You know it's done when you stick a knife in the center and it comes out clean.
The first few times you make it, you'll wanna watch so that it don't burn, but even if it burns a little you can make cornbread stuffin for a chicken. For the stuffin you want to use a sausage that crumbles (kinda like ground beef), and make sure to add sage to your stuffin.
Variations:
- Honey butter: 2 tablespoons honey + 1/2 stick butter melted together and pour on top IMMEDIETLY after you take it out of the oven! Let it sit for a few minutes to soak in
- Sweet & Spicy: same sauce as above, but you add 1/2 to 1 whole finely diced jalapeno to the cornbread batter before baking
- Bacon & cheddar: 1/2 pack of bacon + 1 cup of cheese go into the batter before baking
2023.05.31 19:24 Olivesplace deviled eggs
 | submitted by Olivesplace to Olivesplace [link] [comments] |
2023.05.31 19:23 Olivesplace CHEESE STUFFED SLOW COOKER JALAPEÑO MEATBALLS
CHEESE STUFFED SLOW COOKER JALAPEÑO MEATBALLS
makes
12 meatballs.
5 ounce Crispy Jalapenos
1 pound ground beef
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
teaspoon salt and pepper to taste
1 egg
3 ounce Jack cheese
2 1/2 cups salsa
vegetable oil
INSTRUCTIONS
1 COMBINE all ingredients except the cheese, salsa, and vegetable oil. Stir until fully incorporated.
2 GRAB about a golf ball-sized amount of the ground beef mixture and slightly flatten it in your palm. Take 1 cube of cheese, place it in the the middle, and press the beef around it so the cheese is fully covered and in the center of the meatball.
3 HEAT a thin layer of vegetable oil in a pan over medium to medium-high heat. Brown the meatballs. Rotate them a few times to brown several sides.
4 POUR 1 cup of salsa in the bottom of the slow cooker and place the meatballs on top. Cover meatballs with the remaining salsa and cook on high for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
5 TOP with a dollop of sour cream and cilantro if desired. Enjoy.
submitted by Olivesplace to Olivesplace [link] [comments]
makes
12 meatballs.
5 ounce Crispy Jalapenos
1 pound ground beef
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
teaspoon salt and pepper to taste
1 egg
3 ounce Jack cheese
2 1/2 cups salsa
vegetable oil
INSTRUCTIONS
1 COMBINE all ingredients except the cheese, salsa, and vegetable oil. Stir until fully incorporated.
2 GRAB about a golf ball-sized amount of the ground beef mixture and slightly flatten it in your palm. Take 1 cube of cheese, place it in the the middle, and press the beef around it so the cheese is fully covered and in the center of the meatball.
3 HEAT a thin layer of vegetable oil in a pan over medium to medium-high heat. Brown the meatballs. Rotate them a few times to brown several sides.
4 POUR 1 cup of salsa in the bottom of the slow cooker and place the meatballs on top. Cover meatballs with the remaining salsa and cook on high for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
5 TOP with a dollop of sour cream and cilantro if desired. Enjoy.
2023.05.31 19:22 M_Tootles "Cargos, Slatterns & Butchery" with Helya & Grisel (Spoilers Extended)
This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 8 left off. You can read Part 8 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:
Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":
She tells Theon…
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:
Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.
submitted by M_Tootles to asoiaf [link] [comments]
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
The Myraham's Prophetic Cargo
After Theon makes port, the captain of the Myraham announces his cargo to the people on the docks of Lordport and we read about the offloading of the Myraham:"We're out of Oldtown," the captain called down, "bearing apples and oranges, wines from the Arbor, feathers from the Summer Isles. I have pepper, woven leathers, a bolt of Myrish lace, mirrors for milady, a pair of Oldtown woodharps sweet as any you ever heard." The gangplank descended with a creak and a thud. "And I've brought your heir back to you."Most of what we read there seems to be reworked in and around Littlefinger's homecoming in ASOS Sansa VI, when the Merling King brings the Dreadfort its heir, Littlefinger, as well as the seeming heir to Winterfell, Sansa. This begins with the Arbor wine and fruit we see off-loaded from the Merling King:
Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions. Among the loads he brought ashore were several casks of wine. Petyr poured Sansa a cup, as promised. …Besides the straight repetition of Arbor wine, oranges, apples, and heirs, the repeated Oldtown motif is baldly reworked by Sansa's description of the wine, which is patently Oldtown-summer-esque, per the only substantive pre-AFFC description of Oldtown, which associates it with hot, fruity summer nights:
… The wine was very fine; an Arbor vintage, she thought. It tasted of oak and fruit and hot summer nights, the flavors blossoming in her mouth like flowers opening to the sun. She only prayed that she could keep it down. Lord Petyr was being so kind, she did not want to spoil it all by retching on him.
… "Grisel," he called to the old woman, "bring some food up. … Oswell's brought some oranges and pomegranates from the King." …
Grisel reappeared…, balancing a large platter. … There were apples and pears and pomegranates, some sad-looking grapes, a huge blood orange.
"King Maekar's summer was hotter than this one, and near as long. … [T]he heat was fierce while it lasted. Oldtown… came alive only by night. … I remember the smells of those nights, my lord—perfume and sweat, melons ripe to bursting, peaches and pomegranates, nightshade and moonbloom." (AGOT Eddard V)The Myraham's "mirrors for milady" prefigure Sansa being figuratively groomed by Petyr and literally grooming herself in Petyr's Eyrie after he takes over:
When Gretchel fetched her Lysa's silvered looking glass, the color seemed just perfect with Alayne's mass of dark brown hair. (AFFC Alayne I)The Myraham's "woodharps sweet as any you ever heard" presage Sansa being attacked by Marillion, whose "voice was strong and sweet", (AFFC Sansa I) after he sings a song (about blowjobs?) called "Milady's Supper" (supper a la the Myraham-ish fruit Sansa eats for supper when she lands) during Petyr's wedding bedding:
Lady Lysa's singer launched into a bawdy version of "Milady's Supper"….The Myraham's "woven leathers" and "Myrish lace" are reworked into the "laces unlaced" i.e. unwoven during said wedding:
By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.That it's a "bolt of Myrish lace" is interesting: After Sansa boards the Merling King, she sees a singular "bolt" from a crossbow strike Dontos, and then two more:
Lothor Brune dipped his torch. Three men stepped to the gunwale, raised crossbows, fired. One bolt took Dontos in the chest as he looked up…. The others ripped into throat and belly. (ASOS Sansa V)Three crossbow bolts? What does that remind us if not… a Myrish crossbow:
"The king is playing with his new crossbow," Tyrion said. Ridding himself of Joffrey had required only an ungainly Myrish crossbow that threw three quarrels at a time…. (ACOK Tyrion VI)What about the Myraham's "pepper"? I suspect this gets box-checked first by Sansa trying not to "retch" as she is off-loaded along with the wine with which Littlefinger tries to settle her tummy, as just two chapters later peppers are tightly linked to "retching" of the sort Sansa feels like doing:
[Tyrion] found himself on his knees retching… that double helping of fried eggs cooked up with onions and fiery Dornish peppers. (ASOS Tyrion X)GRRM seems to play off the "pepper" motif in other ways, as well. Consider that the gathering to meet the Myraham and the shouted questions that prompt her captain to announce her cargo—
A handful of Lordsport merchants had gathered to meet the ship. They shouted questions as the Myraham was tying up.—get reworked by Petyr's household all gathering "to meet" the Merling King and by their peppering one another with questions:
Servants emerged from the tower to meet them; a thin old woman and a fat middle-aged one, two ancient white-haired men, and a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye. When they recognized Lord Petyr they knelt on the rocks. "My household," he said. "I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."She's a "popper", then, in case we didn't catch that retching → peppers. (This also reworks Theon "popping one off" with the captain's daughter, who is in many ways reworked by Kella, as will be discussed below.)
… [Petyr]… gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one. "Who fathered this one, Kella?"A gathering, and questions, questions, questions, as when Theon docks.
The fat woman laughed. "I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. … "How long will you be in residence?"
"As short a time as possible, Bryen, have no fear. Is the place habitable just now, would you say?"
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung." Petyr turned to Sansa. "Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now. Umfred's my steward, and Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord.…"
… Petyr gestured toward the fat woman. "Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:
The two old men waded out up to their thighs to lift Sansa from the boat so she would not get her skirts wet.This reworks the "shorehands… off-loading… casks of wine" from a Tyroshi trader docked with the Myraham—
[Theon] spied a Tyroshi trading galley off-loading…—which itself prefigures the above-quoted off-loading of the Merling King (when "Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions" including "several casks of wine", from which Petyr immediately "poured Sansa a cup, as promised").
Shorehands rolled casks of wine off the Tyroshi trader, fisherfolk cried the day's catch, children ran and played. A priest in the seawater robes of the Drowned God was leading a pair of horses along the pebbled shore, while above him a slattern leaned out a window in the inn, calling out to some passing Ibbenese sailors.
Kella & The Slattern
What about that "slattern lean[ing] out a window" to greet "some passing… sailors" while "children ran and played"? I submit that she is one of several motifs from Theon's homecoming prefiguring Petyr's servant Kella. I'll explain.Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:
"I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."We only see one; presumably the others are off somewhere, running and playing, perhaps.
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:
"From here the King turns east for Braavos. Without us."Consider most of all that Kella's something of a slattern herself: She's "not one for telling them no".
"I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."Indeed, something Lysa says pretty clearly codes Kella as a verbatim "slattern", underlining the recursion:
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"How would you like to spend your life on that bleak shore, surrounded by slatterns and sheep pellets?" (ASOS Sansa VII)So I think the vignette with the slattern and the children in Lordsport pretty plainly prefigures Kella. But I think she's prefigured by two more pieces of Theon's homecoming.
Kella & The Captain's Daughter
Keeping in mind that Kella has a bunch of bastards ("she pops one out every few years) and that she's "not one for telling them no", consider also that she is (a) literally 'with child' — or rather, with a child—a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye—that she's (b) "fat"—
"Who fathered this one, Kella?"—and that she's (c) coded as a bit stupid:
The fat woman laughed.
"Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"All like Theon's "captain's daughter".
She had to think a moment. "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":
The girl was a shade plump for his taste…She is likely pregnant with Theon's bastard, a la Kella the bastard-popper.
She tells Theon…
"You can put it in me again, if it please you…"…and accedes to his request for a blowjob, so she's "not one for telling them no."
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:
She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.And finally, she offers to work in Theon's castle—
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.
She… learned quickly for such a stupid girl….
She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.
I'd work in your castle, milord.—just as Kella works for Petyr.
Kella: The Spreading Patch of the Smallest Finger?
Besides the "slattern" and the captain's daughter, I suspect Kella may also riff on — of all things — the "spreading patches" of "lichen" on "wet" Pyke as Theon sails by:[Pyke was] wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds.Get it? A spreading 'patch'? In combination with "lichen" a la "licking" and Pyke being "wet"? And not just wet, but "wet by… salt waves", when as we know from the captain's daughter, semen tastes "salty", "like the sea". It's like Pyke is being described as a turned-on "slattern" with her legs spread.
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:
"And what of Maester Qalen, where is he?"Qalen would be pronounced Kalen. Qalen → Kalen → Kale → Kela → Kella. Anyway…
Grisel & The Captain's Daughter
Something similar is going on with Petyr's servant Grisel, the "thin old woman" who was his wet nurse but who "keeps [his] castle now":"Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now.Grisel is similarly prefigured by two people from Theon's homecoming, including first the captain's daughter who wants to work in Theon's castle as Grisel works in Petyr's "castle".
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home. When I break my fast on gulls' eggs and seaweed soup, I'll be certain of it."Then there is the captain daughter's resume:
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face.
"I'd work in your castle, milord. I can clean fish and bake bread and churn butter. Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he's ever tasted. You could find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab stew."This surely prefigures what we're told about Grisel making a sea-based soup of her own (i.e. the just mentioned "seaweed soup"), baking bread, and churning butter for Petyr:
Grisel reappeared before he could say more, balancing a large platter. She set it down between them. … The old woman had brought a round of bread as well, and a crock of butter.Where Grisel used to be Petyr's wet nurse, Theon suckles the captain daughter's nipple as if she's a wet nurse:
Grisel climbed up to the bedchamber to serve the lord and lady a tray of morning bread, with butter, honey, fruit, and cream.
Theon's finger circled one heavy teat, spiraling in toward the fat brown nipple. … He took her nipple in his mouth….And finally, where Theon kisses the captain's daughter on the ear—
"You can put it in me again, if it please you," she whispered in his ear as he sucked.
[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear.—Littlefinger kisses Grisel on the cheek:
Oswell and Lothor splashed their way ashore, as did Littlefinger himself. He gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one.
Helya & Grisel (& Gretchel)
Grisel also rhymes with and reworks Helya, who keeps Balon's castle:A bentback old crone in a shapeless grey dress approached him warily. "M'lord, I am sent to show you to chambers."Get it? "Helya and Grisel", a la "Hansel and Gretel".
"And who are you?"
"Helya, who keeps this castle for your lord father."
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."That's a recursive reversal of Helya's (lack of) preparation for Theon's visit: Where Grisel has a fire going even though she didn't know Petyr was coming, and where she proactively apologizes for not changing the rushes, telling him "we would have laid down fresh rushes… if we knew you were coming", Helya neither lit a fire nor changed the heavily foregrounded "old and brittle" rushes in the rooms Theon is given—
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung."
"I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. "See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."—despite having ample forewarning of his coming:
It was not as though they had no word of his arrival. Robb had sent ravens from Riverrun, and… Jason Mallister had sent his own birds to Pyke….The joke is underlined by the introduction of "Gretchel" — Gretel with a borrowed H from Helya/Hansel — who fetches washbasins of water (which, see below), "la[ys] a fire in the hearth" and "tend[s] to the fire", brings food and discusses food storage in Petyr's Eyrie in AFFC Sansa I & Alayne I. (In other words, she 'keeps his castle.')
'Rhyming' Interiors
That's just the beginning of the reversals in the many recursions between Theon's lodgings at Pyke and Sansa's in the Drearfort.Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—
"Show me to my chambers, woman," he commanded. Bowing stiffly, [Helya] led him across the headland to the bridge. …—it's Petyr who leads the way into his tower, casually inviting Grisel (and everyone else) to follow him:
Whenever he'd imagined his homecoming, he had always pictured himself returning to the snug bedchamber in the Sea Tower, where he'd slept as a child. Instead the old woman led him to the Bloody Keep.
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.Petyr jokes about his hall being "dreary", and perhaps it is, but while it's "small" and "even smaller" within, his tower is also home to his servants, and hence very well lived-in.
Lord Petyr made a face. "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." He led them up the strand…
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs. Above that was a modest hall, and higher still the bedchamber.(Note that the "mastiff", which we see as Petyr leads Grisel in, recalls Helya bowing "stiffly" before leading Theon to his rooms.)
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":
The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp. Theon was given a suite of chilly rooms with ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom. [Omitted but see below.]A ton of the motifs here (including the omitted stuff, which I'll return to) get recycled and reworked in Petyr's tower.
[Omitted but see below.] It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste. The wall hangings were green with mildew, the mattress musty-smelling and sagging, the rushes old and brittle. Years had come and gone since these chambers had last been opened. The damp went bone deep. "I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:
"Might I have a hot bath as well?" asked Sansa.Note that Kella fulfills the request, not Grisel. This 'fits', as it's not Helya who brings Theon's water, but "two thralls".
"I'll have Kella draw some water, m'lady."
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…
She desperately needed a bath and a change of clothes.…whereas Theon changes his clothes immediately after the quoted passages.
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.
Brittle Bryen's Brigantine, Brindled Mastiff, & Old Blind Dog
As mentioned, the motif of unchanged rushes from Theon's homecoming recurs when Petyr comes home. But Petyr's homecoming also lexically riffs on Theon's rushes being quote-unquote "old and brittle" by giving us Bryen in "brigantine" who is very "old" but not, seemingly, brittle, as he still walks watches, not with his "old blind dog", but with a "brindled mastiff":"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. He looked to be at least eighty, but he wore a studded brigantine and a longsword at his side. …Is the brindled dog a "mastiff" 'only' a wink at Theon going mast-stiff for Asha? (See Part 4.) Maybe. But it's worth mentioning that when Theon is first being stirred by Pyke's banner and it's being battered about like the shield we see in the Drearfort three sentences after the mastiff, it's also (a) flying from a very stiff "mast" and (b) juxtaposed with a very large 'dog' of sorts:
"Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord. You said you'd be getting some more men too, but you never did. Me and the dogs stand all the watches."
Sansa found Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps…
The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.
The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as the wind gusted like a bird struggling to take flight. And here at least the direwolf of Stark did not fly above, casting its shadow down upon the Greyjoy kraken.
Musty Old Mattresses
The old, "musty-smelling and sagging" mattress (in the chamber that has just been re-opened after long periods of being closed and uninhabited) from Theon's homecoming is answered in Petyr's homecomiong by Lysa, who arrives a few pages later in the chapter, eager to finally have sex again with Petyr. "Mattress" is slang for a sexually available woman (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mattress) and Lysa sags—Lady Lysa was two years younger than Mother, but this woman looked ten years older. Thick auburn tresses fell down past her waist, but beneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged.—and smells stale. (Note that Lysa is on a mattress here.)
Her aunt was drenched in sweet scent, though under that was a sour milky smell. Her cheek tasted of paint and powder.Lysa's "cheek tast[ing] of paint and powder" riffs on the line about Theon's "distaste" and "fear of ghosts":
It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste.The distaste wordplay is obvious: Lysa tastes bad. As for the "fear of ghosts", Lysa (whom Sansa fears) being covered in "powder" reminds us of Sansa being afraid of a "spirit" covered in powdery flour:
When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs…. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. (AGOT Arya IV)This line—
The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp.—is reworked by Lysa as well, who is big and well-dressed ("better furnished", so to speak)—
[B]eneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.—but cold to Sansa and horny/wet/"damp" for Petyr.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):
It had been years since Sansa last saw her mother's sister…"I wonder whether Lysa crying and speaking to Sansa of being "bound by blood" to her—
Tears welled suddenly in Lady Lysa's eyes. "We are women alone now, you and I. Are you afraid, child? Be brave. I would never turn away Cat's daughter. We are bound by blood."—might not be in part a play on the fact that "the damp went bone deep" in the Bloody Keep. By saying that, Sansa's damp (i.e. crying) aunt "went bone deep", so to speak. (If you're "bound by blood" to someone, you have a "bone deep" bond with them. Also, bone → bound wordplay?)
Braziers → Bracing?
Did Theon's attempt to drive away "the chill" and damp of the salty sea air of Pyke using "braziers"—See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill.—inform (via wordplay: braziers → bracing) Petyr's line when the Merling King pulls up to the Drearfort?
Lord Petyr came up beside her, cheerful as ever. "Good morrow. The salt air is bracing, don't you think? It always sharpens my appetite."And/or is that "sharpening" motif a recursion of Theon sharpening his dirk immediately after said braziers are lit?
After some time, they brought the hot water he had asked for. … While two thralls lit his braziers, Theon stripped off his travel-stained clothing and dressed to meet his father. … He hung a dirk at one hip and a longsword at the other…. Drawing the dirk, he … pulled a whetstone from his belt pouch, and gave it a few licks. He prided himself on keeping his weapons sharp.
Gods Be Good!
The motifs of Theon yelling "gods be good" at his servant and of "ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom" are recursively reworked when Lysa summons Sansa (like a servant) to speak with her the morning after she weds Petyr. Sansa responds to the summons by thinking, verbatim, "gods be good", and is then told they'll be heading to the Eyrie, which we know is "so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds", i.e. it has parapets 'so high that they were lost in the clouds':Lady Lysa was still abed [like a good mattress!], but Lord Petyr was up and dressed. "Your aunt wishes to speak with you," he told Sansa, as he pulled on a boot. "I've told her who you are."The notion of a "ceiling" so high it is lost in gloom is perhaps also reworked by the story Lysa tells Sansa about Petyr's "rise" to power: She says she "always knew how high [Petyr would] rise", and it's my belief that said rise has likely seen him 'lost', spiritually, in 'darkness'. (Note that ceilings are a frequently invoked metaphor when talking about climbing the corporate ladder.)
Gods be good. "I . . . I thank you, my lord."
Petyr yanked on the other boot. "I've had about as much home as I can stomach. We'll leave for the Eyrie this afternoon."
Seven towers, Ned had told her, like white daggers thrust into the belly of the sky, so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds. (AGOT Catelyn VI)
"Half his teeth were gone, and his breath smelled like bad cheese. I cannot abide a man with foul breath. Petyr's breath is always fresh . . . he was the first man I ever kissed, you know. My father said he was too lowborn, but I knew how high he'd rise. Jon gave him the customs for Gulltown to please me, but when he increased the incomes tenfold my lord husband saw how clever he was and gave him other appointments, even brought him to King's Landing to be master of coin. That was hard, to see him every day and still be wed to that old cold man.(Recall that the motif of bad/fresh breath there reworks the "winey stench of the old man's [Sylas Sourmouth's] breath", which Theon thinks about roughly ¼ page prior to being shown his suite in the Bloody Keep.)
Butchered Sons & Brothers
Lysa continues to rant:"Jon did his duty in the bedchamber, but he could no more give me pleasure than he could give me children. His seed was old and weak. All my babies died but Robert, three girls and two boys. All my sweet little babies dead, and that old man just went on and on with his stinking breath. So you see, I have suffered too." Lady Lysa sniffed. "You do know that your poor mother is dead?"Those references to (a) a bunch of dead "babies", including two brothers, one of which was "murdered" when Lysa's father, Hoster Tully, who ruled the Riverlands, betrayed Lysa's trust; and to (b) foul smelling breath, a la Sylas, and finally to (c) the Red Wedding — a bloody betrayal of Sansa's brother, who was King of the Riverlands — particularly (per Sansa saying "Tyrion told me") as it's described by Tyrion—
"Tyrion told me," said Sansa. "He said the Freys murdered her at The Twins, with Robb."
Sansa did not need to hear how her brother's body had been hacked and mutilated, he decided; nor how her mother's corpse had been dumped naked into the Green Fork in a savage mockery of House Tully's funeral customs. (ASOS Tyrion VII)—are one of the ways ASOS Sansa VI rejiggers the part of Theon's description of his Bloody Keep suite I "[omitted]" earlier, which entails betrayals, murdered brothers, a River King, slaughter, and bodies "hacked to bits".
[Theon] might have been more impressed if he had not known that these were the very chambers that had given the Bloody Keep its name. A thousand years before, the sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.Lysa's speech with its reference to her abortion and to the Red Wedding (and to stink-breath like Sylas's) isn't the only (or even the main) way Petyr's homecoming chapter refracts those images from Theon's homecoming, though.
But Greyjoys were not murdered in Pyke except once in a great while by their brothers, and his brothers were both dead.
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:
"How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"Note the kitchen, recalling that the Bloody Keep is paired with the Kitchen Keep as Theon first gazes on Pyke:
… "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home.…" … "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." … A handful of sheep were wandering about the base of the flint tower…. …
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.
Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its own island.Note, too, that the sheep are coded as Petyr's "sons", in a way (a la the "slaughtered… sons of the River King" Theon remembers in his Bloody Tower rooms), and not just because he owns them. He says that Kella has lots of bastards and that she minds his sheep, right? And what else does he say of Kella, in jest? That she 'is' the "mother" of his "daughter," "Alayne Stone":
"Alayne . . . Stone, would it be?" When he nodded, she said, "But who is my mother?"The joke foregrounds the notion of Petyr as the father of Kella's children. And while she supposedly has a bunch of bastards, we don't see them. We just see the one girl with the livestock-evoking eye with a sty. It's almost like the sheep she looks after are her children. And thus like Petyr is their father.
"Kella?"
"Please no," she said, mortified.
"I was teasing.
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:
[T]he sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.(They were slaughtered and hacked to bits only so as to properly preserve them against spoilage during their upcoming journey "back to their father on the mainland", you see!)
Theon's Honor Guard
The conditions in Theon's rooms are consistent with the cold welcome he receives, both from Aeron—The priest's manner was chilly, most unlike the man Theon remembered.—and Balon—
Theon pulled off his gloves. "… Why is my father not here to greet me?"—and they're thus part of a broad yin/yang 'rhyme' with Petyr's initial homecoming, which is warm and welcoming and full of familiar faces, whereas Theon knows no one, such that he thinks:
"He awaits you in the Sea Tower, m'lord. When you are rested from your trip."
And I thought Ned Stark cold.
It is as if I were a stranger here….The reversal is wryly underlined when Petyr is greeted at the shore by his "captain of the guards", Bryen:
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man.Thus Petyr ironically gets the "honor guard" welcome Theon hoped he'd get on his arrival 'home':
[Theon] saw… no honor guard waiting to escort him from Lordsport to Pyke, only smallfolk going about their small business.Notice that where no one stops what they're doing for Theon, everyone stops when Petyr arrives. And of course, everyone in his household recognizes him, whereas no one recognizes Theon. Which is telling, because in a deep sense, that's all Theon really wants, deep down: a little recognition.
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.
(SUB)SERIES CONCLUDES IN PART 10: Oswell & Aeron; Lothar & Dagmer; The Closing Twist
2023.05.31 19:20 M_Tootles "Cargos, Slatterns & Butchery" with Helya & Grisel. (Spoilers TWOW)
This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 8 left off. You can read Part 8 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:
Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":
She tells Theon…
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:
Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.
submitted by M_Tootles to pureasoiaf [link] [comments]
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
The Myraham's Prophetic Cargo
After Theon makes port, the captain of the Myraham announces his cargo to the people on the docks of Lordport and we read about the offloading of the Myraham:"We're out of Oldtown," the captain called down, "bearing apples and oranges, wines from the Arbor, feathers from the Summer Isles. I have pepper, woven leathers, a bolt of Myrish lace, mirrors for milady, a pair of Oldtown woodharps sweet as any you ever heard." The gangplank descended with a creak and a thud. "And I've brought your heir back to you."Most of what we read there seems to be reworked in and around Littlefinger's homecoming in ASOS Sansa VI, when the Merling King brings the Dreadfort its heir, Littlefinger, as well as the seeming heir to Winterfell, Sansa. This begins with the Arbor wine and fruit we see off-loaded from the Merling King:
Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions. Among the loads he brought ashore were several casks of wine. Petyr poured Sansa a cup, as promised. …Besides the straight repetition of Arbor wine, oranges, apples, and heirs, the repeated Oldtown motif is baldly reworked by Sansa's description of the wine, which is patently Oldtown-summer-esque, per the only substantive pre-AFFC description of Oldtown, which associates it with hot, fruity summer nights:
… The wine was very fine; an Arbor vintage, she thought. It tasted of oak and fruit and hot summer nights, the flavors blossoming in her mouth like flowers opening to the sun. She only prayed that she could keep it down. Lord Petyr was being so kind, she did not want to spoil it all by retching on him.
… "Grisel," he called to the old woman, "bring some food up. … Oswell's brought some oranges and pomegranates from the King." …
Grisel reappeared…, balancing a large platter. … There were apples and pears and pomegranates, some sad-looking grapes, a huge blood orange.
"King Maekar's summer was hotter than this one, and near as long. … [T]he heat was fierce while it lasted. Oldtown… came alive only by night. … I remember the smells of those nights, my lord—perfume and sweat, melons ripe to bursting, peaches and pomegranates, nightshade and moonbloom." (AGOT Eddard V)The Myraham's "mirrors for milady" prefigure Sansa being figuratively groomed by Petyr and literally grooming herself in Petyr's Eyrie after he takes over:
When Gretchel fetched her Lysa's silvered looking glass, the color seemed just perfect with Alayne's mass of dark brown hair. (AFFC Alayne I)The Myraham's "woodharps sweet as any you ever heard" presage Sansa being attacked by Marillion, whose "voice was strong and sweet", (AFFC Sansa I) after he sings a song (about blowjobs?) called "Milady's Supper" (supper a la the Myraham-ish fruit Sansa eats for supper when she lands) during Petyr's wedding bedding:
Lady Lysa's singer launched into a bawdy version of "Milady's Supper"….The Myraham's "woven leathers" and "Myrish lace" are reworked into the "laces unlaced" i.e. unwoven during said wedding:
By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.That it's a "bolt of Myrish lace" is interesting: After Sansa boards the Merling King, she sees a singular "bolt" from a crossbow strike Dontos, and then two more:
Lothor Brune dipped his torch. Three men stepped to the gunwale, raised crossbows, fired. One bolt took Dontos in the chest as he looked up…. The others ripped into throat and belly. (ASOS Sansa V)Three crossbow bolts? What does that remind us if not… a Myrish crossbow:
"The king is playing with his new crossbow," Tyrion said. Ridding himself of Joffrey had required only an ungainly Myrish crossbow that threw three quarrels at a time…. (ACOK Tyrion VI)What about the Myraham's "pepper"? I suspect this gets box-checked first by Sansa trying not to "retch" as she is off-loaded along with the wine with which Littlefinger tries to settle her tummy, as just two chapters later peppers are tightly linked to "retching" of the sort Sansa feels like doing:
[Tyrion] found himself on his knees retching… that double helping of fried eggs cooked up with onions and fiery Dornish peppers. (ASOS Tyrion X)GRRM seems to play off the "pepper" motif in other ways, as well. Consider that the gathering to meet the Myraham and the shouted questions that prompt her captain to announce her cargo—
A handful of Lordsport merchants had gathered to meet the ship. They shouted questions as the Myraham was tying up.—get reworked by Petyr's household all gathering "to meet" the Merling King and by their peppering one another with questions:
Servants emerged from the tower to meet them; a thin old woman and a fat middle-aged one, two ancient white-haired men, and a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye. When they recognized Lord Petyr they knelt on the rocks. "My household," he said. "I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."She's a "popper", then, in case we didn't catch that retching → peppers. (This also reworks Theon "popping one off" with the captain's daughter, who is in many ways reworked by Kella, as will be discussed below.)
… [Petyr]… gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one. "Who fathered this one, Kella?"A gathering, and questions, questions, questions, as when Theon docks.
The fat woman laughed. "I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. … "How long will you be in residence?"
"As short a time as possible, Bryen, have no fear. Is the place habitable just now, would you say?"
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung." Petyr turned to Sansa. "Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now. Umfred's my steward, and Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord.…"
… Petyr gestured toward the fat woman. "Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:
The two old men waded out up to their thighs to lift Sansa from the boat so she would not get her skirts wet.This reworks the "shorehands… off-loading… casks of wine" from a Tyroshi trader docked with the Myraham—
[Theon] spied a Tyroshi trading galley off-loading…—which itself prefigures the above-quoted off-loading of the Merling King (when "Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions" including "several casks of wine", from which Petyr immediately "poured Sansa a cup, as promised").
Shorehands rolled casks of wine off the Tyroshi trader, fisherfolk cried the day's catch, children ran and played. A priest in the seawater robes of the Drowned God was leading a pair of horses along the pebbled shore, while above him a slattern leaned out a window in the inn, calling out to some passing Ibbenese sailors.
Kella & The Slattern
What about that "slattern lean[ing] out a window" to greet "some passing… sailors" while "children ran and played"? I submit that she is one of several motifs from Theon's homecoming prefiguring Petyr's servant Kella. I'll explain.Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:
"I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."We only see one; presumably the others are off somewhere, running and playing, perhaps.
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:
"From here the King turns east for Braavos. Without us."Consider most of all that Kella's something of a slattern herself: She's "not one for telling them no".
"I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."Indeed, something Lysa says pretty clearly codes Kella as a verbatim "slattern", underlining the recursion:
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"How would you like to spend your life on that bleak shore, surrounded by slatterns and sheep pellets?" (ASOS Sansa VII)So I think the vignette with the slattern and the children in Lordsport pretty plainly prefigures Kella. But I think she's prefigured by two more pieces of Theon's homecoming.
Kella & The Captain's Daughter
Keeping in mind that Kella has a bunch of bastards ("she pops one out every few years) and that she's "not one for telling them no", consider also that she is (a) literally 'with child' — or rather, with a child—a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye—that she's (b) "fat"—
"Who fathered this one, Kella?"—and that she's (c) coded as a bit stupid:
The fat woman laughed.
"Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"All like Theon's "captain's daughter".
She had to think a moment. "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":
The girl was a shade plump for his taste…She is likely pregnant with Theon's bastard, a la Kella the bastard-popper.
She tells Theon…
"You can put it in me again, if it please you…"…and accedes to his request for a blowjob, so she's "not one for telling them no."
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:
She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.And finally, she offers to work in Theon's castle—
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.
She… learned quickly for such a stupid girl….
She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.
I'd work in your castle, milord.—just as Kella works for Petyr.
Kella: The Spreading Patch of the Smallest Finger?
Besides the "slattern" and the captain's daughter, I suspect Kella may also riff on — of all things — the "spreading patches" of "lichen" on "wet" Pyke as Theon sails by:[Pyke was] wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds.Get it? A spreading 'patch'? In combination with "lichen" a la "licking" and Pyke being "wet"? And not just wet, but "wet by… salt waves", when as we know from the captain's daughter, semen tastes "salty", "like the sea". It's like Pyke is being described as a turned-on "slattern" with her legs spread.
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:
"And what of Maester Qalen, where is he?"Qalen would be pronounced Kalen. Qalen → Kalen → Kale → Kela → Kella. Anyway…
Grisel & The Captain's Daughter
Something similar is going on with Petyr's servant Grisel, the "thin old woman" who was his wet nurse but who "keeps [his] castle now":"Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now.Grisel is similarly prefigured by two people from Theon's homecoming, including first the captain's daughter who wants to work in Theon's castle as Grisel works in Petyr's "castle".
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home. When I break my fast on gulls' eggs and seaweed soup, I'll be certain of it."Then there is the captain daughter's resume:
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face.
"I'd work in your castle, milord. I can clean fish and bake bread and churn butter. Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he's ever tasted. You could find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab stew."This surely prefigures what we're told about Grisel making a sea-based soup of her own (i.e. the just mentioned "seaweed soup"), baking bread, and churning butter for Petyr:
Grisel reappeared before he could say more, balancing a large platter. She set it down between them. … The old woman had brought a round of bread as well, and a crock of butter.Where Grisel used to be Petyr's wet nurse, Theon suckles the captain daughter's nipple as if she's a wet nurse:
Grisel climbed up to the bedchamber to serve the lord and lady a tray of morning bread, with butter, honey, fruit, and cream.
Theon's finger circled one heavy teat, spiraling in toward the fat brown nipple. … He took her nipple in his mouth….And finally, where Theon kisses the captain's daughter on the ear—
"You can put it in me again, if it please you," she whispered in his ear as he sucked.
[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear.—Littlefinger kisses Grisel on the cheek:
Oswell and Lothor splashed their way ashore, as did Littlefinger himself. He gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one.
Helya & Grisel (& Gretchel)
Grisel also rhymes with and reworks Helya, who keeps Balon's castle:A bentback old crone in a shapeless grey dress approached him warily. "M'lord, I am sent to show you to chambers."Get it? "Helya and Grisel", a la "Hansel and Gretel".
"And who are you?"
"Helya, who keeps this castle for your lord father."
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."That's a recursive reversal of Helya's (lack of) preparation for Theon's visit: Where Grisel has a fire going even though she didn't know Petyr was coming, and where she proactively apologizes for not changing the rushes, telling him "we would have laid down fresh rushes… if we knew you were coming", Helya neither lit a fire nor changed the heavily foregrounded "old and brittle" rushes in the rooms Theon is given—
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung."
"I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. "See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."—despite having ample forewarning of his coming:
It was not as though they had no word of his arrival. Robb had sent ravens from Riverrun, and… Jason Mallister had sent his own birds to Pyke….The joke is underlined by the introduction of "Gretchel" — Gretel with a borrowed H from Helya/Hansel — who fetches washbasins of water (which, see below), "la[ys] a fire in the hearth" and "tend[s] to the fire", brings food and discusses food storage in Petyr's Eyrie in AFFC Sansa I & Alayne I. (In other words, she 'keeps his castle.')
'Rhyming' Interiors
That's just the beginning of the reversals in the many recursions between Theon's lodgings at Pyke and Sansa's in the Drearfort.Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—
"Show me to my chambers, woman," he commanded. Bowing stiffly, [Helya] led him across the headland to the bridge. …—it's Petyr who leads the way into his tower, casually inviting Grisel (and everyone else) to follow him:
Whenever he'd imagined his homecoming, he had always pictured himself returning to the snug bedchamber in the Sea Tower, where he'd slept as a child. Instead the old woman led him to the Bloody Keep.
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.Petyr jokes about his hall being "dreary", and perhaps it is, but while it's "small" and "even smaller" within, his tower is also home to his servants, and hence very well lived-in.
Lord Petyr made a face. "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." He led them up the strand…
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs. Above that was a modest hall, and higher still the bedchamber.(Note that the "mastiff", which we see as Petyr leads Grisel in, recalls Helya bowing "stiffly" before leading Theon to his rooms.)
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":
The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp. Theon was given a suite of chilly rooms with ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom. [Omitted but see below.]A ton of the motifs here (including the omitted stuff, which I'll return to) get recycled and reworked in Petyr's tower.
[Omitted but see below.] It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste. The wall hangings were green with mildew, the mattress musty-smelling and sagging, the rushes old and brittle. Years had come and gone since these chambers had last been opened. The damp went bone deep. "I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:
"Might I have a hot bath as well?" asked Sansa.Note that Kella fulfills the request, not Grisel. This 'fits', as it's not Helya who brings Theon's water, but "two thralls".
"I'll have Kella draw some water, m'lady."
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…
She desperately needed a bath and a change of clothes.…whereas Theon changes his clothes immediately after the quoted passages.
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.
Brittle Bryen's Brigantine, Brindled Mastiff, & Old Blind Dog
As mentioned, the motif of unchanged rushes from Theon's homecoming recurs when Petyr comes home. But Petyr's homecoming also lexically riffs on Theon's rushes being quote-unquote "old and brittle" by giving us Bryen in "brigantine" who is very "old" but not, seemingly, brittle, as he still walks watches, not with his "old blind dog", but with a "brindled mastiff":"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. He looked to be at least eighty, but he wore a studded brigantine and a longsword at his side. …Is the brindled dog a "mastiff" 'only' a wink at Theon going mast-stiff for Asha? (See Part 4.) Maybe. But it's worth mentioning that when Theon is first being stirred by Pyke's banner and it's being battered about like the shield we see in the Drearfort three sentences after the mastiff, it's also (a) flying from a very stiff "mast" and (b) juxtaposed with a very large 'dog' of sorts:
"Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord. You said you'd be getting some more men too, but you never did. Me and the dogs stand all the watches."
Sansa found Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps…
The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.
The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as the wind gusted like a bird struggling to take flight. And here at least the direwolf of Stark did not fly above, casting its shadow down upon the Greyjoy kraken.
Musty Old Mattresses
The old, "musty-smelling and sagging" mattress (in the chamber that has just been re-opened after long periods of being closed and uninhabited) from Theon's homecoming is answered in Petyr's homecomiong by Lysa, who arrives a few pages later in the chapter, eager to finally have sex again with Petyr. "Mattress" is slang for a sexually available woman (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mattress) and Lysa sags—Lady Lysa was two years younger than Mother, but this woman looked ten years older. Thick auburn tresses fell down past her waist, but beneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged.—and smells stale. (Note that Lysa is on a mattress here.)
Her aunt was drenched in sweet scent, though under that was a sour milky smell. Her cheek tasted of paint and powder.Lysa's "cheek tast[ing] of paint and powder" riffs on the line about Theon's "distaste" and "fear of ghosts":
It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste.The distaste wordplay is obvious: Lysa tastes bad. As for the "fear of ghosts", Lysa (whom Sansa fears) being covered in "powder" reminds us of Sansa being afraid of a "spirit" covered in powdery flour:
When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs…. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. (AGOT Arya IV)This line—
The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp.—is reworked by Lysa as well, who is big and well-dressed ("better furnished", so to speak)—
[B]eneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.—but cold to Sansa and horny/wet/"damp" for Petyr.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):
It had been years since Sansa last saw her mother's sister…"I wonder whether Lysa crying and speaking to Sansa of being "bound by blood" to her—
Tears welled suddenly in Lady Lysa's eyes. "We are women alone now, you and I. Are you afraid, child? Be brave. I would never turn away Cat's daughter. We are bound by blood."—might not be in part a play on the fact that "the damp went bone deep" in the Bloody Keep. By saying that, Sansa's damp (i.e. crying) aunt "went bone deep", so to speak. (If you're "bound by blood" to someone, you have a "bone deep" bond with them. Also, bone → bound wordplay?)
Braziers → Bracing?
Did Theon's attempt to drive away "the chill" and damp of the salty sea air of Pyke using "braziers"—See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill.—inform (via wordplay: braziers → bracing) Petyr's line when the Merling King pulls up to the Drearfort?
Lord Petyr came up beside her, cheerful as ever. "Good morrow. The salt air is bracing, don't you think? It always sharpens my appetite."And/or is that "sharpening" motif a recursion of Theon sharpening his dirk immediately after said braziers are lit?
After some time, they brought the hot water he had asked for. … While two thralls lit his braziers, Theon stripped off his travel-stained clothing and dressed to meet his father. … He hung a dirk at one hip and a longsword at the other…. Drawing the dirk, he … pulled a whetstone from his belt pouch, and gave it a few licks. He prided himself on keeping his weapons sharp.
Gods Be Good!
The motifs of Theon yelling "gods be good" at his servant and of "ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom" are recursively reworked when Lysa summons Sansa (like a servant) to speak with her the morning after she weds Petyr. Sansa responds to the summons by thinking, verbatim, "gods be good", and is then told they'll be heading to the Eyrie, which we know is "so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds", i.e. it has parapets 'so high that they were lost in the clouds':Lady Lysa was still abed [like a good mattress!], but Lord Petyr was up and dressed. "Your aunt wishes to speak with you," he told Sansa, as he pulled on a boot. "I've told her who you are."The notion of a "ceiling" so high it is lost in gloom is perhaps also reworked by the story Lysa tells Sansa about Petyr's "rise" to power: She says she "always knew how high [Petyr would] rise", and it's my belief that said rise has likely seen him 'lost', spiritually, in 'darkness'. (Note that ceilings are a frequently invoked metaphor when talking about climbing the corporate ladder.)
Gods be good. "I . . . I thank you, my lord."
Petyr yanked on the other boot. "I've had about as much home as I can stomach. We'll leave for the Eyrie this afternoon."
Seven towers, Ned had told her, like white daggers thrust into the belly of the sky, so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds. (AGOT Catelyn VI)
"Half his teeth were gone, and his breath smelled like bad cheese. I cannot abide a man with foul breath. Petyr's breath is always fresh . . . he was the first man I ever kissed, you know. My father said he was too lowborn, but I knew how high he'd rise. Jon gave him the customs for Gulltown to please me, but when he increased the incomes tenfold my lord husband saw how clever he was and gave him other appointments, even brought him to King's Landing to be master of coin. That was hard, to see him every day and still be wed to that old cold man.(Recall that the motif of bad/fresh breath there reworks the "winey stench of the old man's [Sylas Sourmouth's] breath", which Theon thinks about roughly ¼ page prior to being shown his suite in the Bloody Keep.)
Butchered Sons & Brothers
Lysa continues to rant:"Jon did his duty in the bedchamber, but he could no more give me pleasure than he could give me children. His seed was old and weak. All my babies died but Robert, three girls and two boys. All my sweet little babies dead, and that old man just went on and on with his stinking breath. So you see, I have suffered too." Lady Lysa sniffed. "You do know that your poor mother is dead?"Those references to (a) a bunch of dead "babies", including two brothers, one of which was "murdered" when Lysa's father, Hoster Tully, who ruled the Riverlands, betrayed Lysa's trust; and to (b) foul smelling breath, a la Sylas, and finally to (c) the Red Wedding — a bloody betrayal of Sansa's brother, who was King of the Riverlands — particularly (per Sansa saying "Tyrion told me") as it's described by Tyrion—
"Tyrion told me," said Sansa. "He said the Freys murdered her at The Twins, with Robb."
Sansa did not need to hear how her brother's body had been hacked and mutilated, he decided; nor how her mother's corpse had been dumped naked into the Green Fork in a savage mockery of House Tully's funeral customs. (ASOS Tyrion VII)—are one of the ways ASOS Sansa VI rejiggers the part of Theon's description of his Bloody Keep suite I "[omitted]" earlier, which entails betrayals, murdered brothers, a River King, slaughter, and bodies "hacked to bits".
[Theon] might have been more impressed if he had not known that these were the very chambers that had given the Bloody Keep its name. A thousand years before, the sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.Lysa's speech with its reference to her abortion and to the Red Wedding (and to stink-breath like Sylas's) isn't the only (or even the main) way Petyr's homecoming chapter refracts those images from Theon's homecoming, though.
But Greyjoys were not murdered in Pyke except once in a great while by their brothers, and his brothers were both dead.
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:
"How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"Note the kitchen, recalling that the Bloody Keep is paired with the Kitchen Keep as Theon first gazes on Pyke:
… "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home.…" … "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." … A handful of sheep were wandering about the base of the flint tower…. …
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.
Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its own island.Note, too, that the sheep are coded as Petyr's "sons", in a way (a la the "slaughtered… sons of the River King" Theon remembers in his Bloody Tower rooms), and not just because he owns them. He says that Kella has lots of bastards and that she minds his sheep, right? And what else does he say of Kella, in jest? That she 'is' the "mother" of his "daughter," "Alayne Stone":
"Alayne . . . Stone, would it be?" When he nodded, she said, "But who is my mother?"The joke foregrounds the notion of Petyr as the father of Kella's children. And while she supposedly has a bunch of bastards, we don't see them. We just see the one girl with the livestock-evoking eye with a sty. It's almost like the sheep she looks after are her children. And thus like Petyr is their father.
"Kella?"
"Please no," she said, mortified.
"I was teasing.
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:
[T]he sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.(They were slaughtered and hacked to bits only so as to properly preserve them against spoilage during their upcoming journey "back to their father on the mainland", you see!)
Theon's Honor Guard
The conditions in Theon's rooms are consistent with the cold welcome he receives, both from Aeron—The priest's manner was chilly, most unlike the man Theon remembered.—and Balon—
Theon pulled off his gloves. "… Why is my father not here to greet me?"—and they're thus part of a broad yin/yang 'rhyme' with Petyr's initial homecoming, which is warm and welcoming and full of familiar faces, whereas Theon knows no one, such that he thinks:
"He awaits you in the Sea Tower, m'lord. When you are rested from your trip."
And I thought Ned Stark cold.
It is as if I were a stranger here….The reversal is wryly underlined when Petyr is greeted at the shore by his "captain of the guards", Bryen:
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man.Thus Petyr ironically gets the "honor guard" welcome Theon hoped he'd get on his arrival 'home':
[Theon] saw… no honor guard waiting to escort him from Lordsport to Pyke, only smallfolk going about their small business.Notice that where no one stops what they're doing for Theon, everyone stops when Petyr arrives. And of course, everyone in his household recognizes him, whereas no one recognizes Theon. Which is telling, because in a deep sense, that's all Theon really wants, deep down: a little recognition.
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.
(SUB)SERIES CONCLUDES IN PART 10: Oswell & Aeron; Lothar & Dagmer; The Closing Twist
2023.05.31 17:04 autobuzzfeedbot I'm a 25-year-old single woman who always shops at Trader Joe's for groceries. Here are 15 products I could never live without.
- For breakfast, I find that I can't go wrong with the chain's everything bagels.
- I pair the bagels with the onion-and-chive cream cheese from Trader Joe's.
- Trader Joe's has a variety of bread options, but my favorite is the San Francisco-style sourdough bread.
- The wine-country chicken salad is my go-to product for quick and easy lunches.
- I also love the "unexpected" broccoli-cheddar soup for quick meals.
- One of my recent go-to dinners has been the chain's shawarma chicken thighs.
- I love to dollop a little tzatziki on the chicken thighs or add it to salads.
- I also find you can't go wrong with grabbing a bag of baby potatoes.
- Another versatile Trader Joe's product is the rigatoni, a pantry staple in my house.
- For an easy weeknight meal, I always pick up Trader Joe's Italian-style turkey meatloaf.
- I also love the chain's lobster ravioli. It feels like a fancy dinner at a more affordable price.
- For a late-night snack or lunch, I love popping a few of Trader Joe's mini chicken tacos in my air fryer.
- The Buffalo-style chicken dip can be served hot, but I eat it with tortilla chips right out of the container.
- I've turned my entire family on to buying the organic Elote corn-chip dippers.
- For a sweet treat, Trader Joe's sea salt and turbinado dark chocolate almonds are my go-to dessert.
2023.05.31 08:40 crystaltay13 Sour Cream Spinach Dip: can it be frozen? Didn't realize the annoying "best consumed within 3 days" label until after opening it. Absolutely no chance I can eat even half in 3 days. Doesn't expire until July. Will it hold up in the freezer or no?
 | submitted by crystaltay13 to traderjoes [link] [comments] |
2023.05.31 03:49 Appropriate-Sea-5250 What should we do to celebrate 100 foods?
We're so so so close to 100 foods and I wanted to do something special for his 100th food but I can't think of anything 😅 any and all ideas welcome 😁 (I haven't counted oils or salt, but I'm counting spices and herbs)
Here's our list: --Vegetables-- 1. Asparagus 2. Bell pepper 3. Broccoli 4. Cabbage 5. Carrot 6. Cauliflower 7. Corn 8. Cucumber 9. Garlic 10. Ginger 11. Kale 12. Jalapeno 13. Mushroom 14. Onion (white) 15. Onion (red) 16. Onion (green) 17. Pickle 18. Potato 19. Radish 20. Spinach 21. Sweet potato 22. Zucchini
--Fruit-- 23. Apple 24. Avocado 25. Banana 26. Blackberry 27. Blueberry 28. Cantaloupe 29. Coconut 30. Goji berry 31. Grape 32. Honeydew 33. Kiwi 34. Lemon 35. Lime 36. Mango 37. Orange 38. Papaya 39. Pear 40. Pineapple 41. Raspberry 42. Strawberry 43. Tomato 44. Watermelon
--Meat-- 45. Ground beef 46. Chicken 47. Egg 48. Ham 49. Pork 50. Steak 51. Turkey
--Seafood-- 52. Haddock 53. Salmon 54. Shrimp 55. Sole 56. Tilapia 57. Trout
--Beans & Legumes-- 58. Black beans 59. Chickpeas 60. Peas 61. Peanut 62. Kidney beans 63. Tofu
--Nuts & Seeds-- 64. Almond 65. Chia seed 66. Hazelnut 67. Sunflower seed 68. Tahini
--Dairy-- 69. Cheddar 70. Monterey Jack cheese 71. Mozzarella 72. Sour cream 73. Yogurt
--Grains-- 74. Basmati rice 75. Brown rice 76. Pasta 77. Pumpernickel bread 78. Sourdough 79. Quinoa 80. White bread
--Spices & Herbs-- 81. Basil 82. Brown sugar 83. Cayenne 84. Chili powder 85. Cilantro 86. Coriander 87. Cumin 88. Curry powder 89. Dill 90. Garam masala (store bought) 91. Oregano 92. Paprika 93. Parsley 94. Peppercorn 95. Red pepper flakes 96. Rosemary 97. Thyme 98. Turmeric
submitted by Appropriate-Sea-5250 to BabyLedWeaning [link] [comments]
Here's our list: --Vegetables-- 1. Asparagus 2. Bell pepper 3. Broccoli 4. Cabbage 5. Carrot 6. Cauliflower 7. Corn 8. Cucumber 9. Garlic 10. Ginger 11. Kale 12. Jalapeno 13. Mushroom 14. Onion (white) 15. Onion (red) 16. Onion (green) 17. Pickle 18. Potato 19. Radish 20. Spinach 21. Sweet potato 22. Zucchini
--Fruit-- 23. Apple 24. Avocado 25. Banana 26. Blackberry 27. Blueberry 28. Cantaloupe 29. Coconut 30. Goji berry 31. Grape 32. Honeydew 33. Kiwi 34. Lemon 35. Lime 36. Mango 37. Orange 38. Papaya 39. Pear 40. Pineapple 41. Raspberry 42. Strawberry 43. Tomato 44. Watermelon
--Meat-- 45. Ground beef 46. Chicken 47. Egg 48. Ham 49. Pork 50. Steak 51. Turkey
--Seafood-- 52. Haddock 53. Salmon 54. Shrimp 55. Sole 56. Tilapia 57. Trout
--Beans & Legumes-- 58. Black beans 59. Chickpeas 60. Peas 61. Peanut 62. Kidney beans 63. Tofu
--Nuts & Seeds-- 64. Almond 65. Chia seed 66. Hazelnut 67. Sunflower seed 68. Tahini
--Dairy-- 69. Cheddar 70. Monterey Jack cheese 71. Mozzarella 72. Sour cream 73. Yogurt
--Grains-- 74. Basmati rice 75. Brown rice 76. Pasta 77. Pumpernickel bread 78. Sourdough 79. Quinoa 80. White bread
--Spices & Herbs-- 81. Basil 82. Brown sugar 83. Cayenne 84. Chili powder 85. Cilantro 86. Coriander 87. Cumin 88. Curry powder 89. Dill 90. Garam masala (store bought) 91. Oregano 92. Paprika 93. Parsley 94. Peppercorn 95. Red pepper flakes 96. Rosemary 97. Thyme 98. Turmeric
2023.05.31 00:20 wenbalanced One Pot recipes with dried beans and lentils
Hi all, I only have an oven where I can put one pot or pan at a time on it and no option to bake things. I also don't have a fridge, so all ingredients should be storeable without cooling.
Other things I have: water boiler, microwave, toaster, a small oven thingy where I can melt some cheese on toast or stuff like that, but it's really small (like two pieces of toast small) and doesn't function that well.
I recently got some dried lentils, chickpeas and kidney beans, I used to buy them canned, but this way is much cheaper and lighter (I get my groceries driving a bike and it's a kinda long way). And I'm searching for recipes to use them.
With the canned kidney beans, i liked to cook them with rice and red onion, with s&p, paprika powder, cumin, cayenne and top it with guacamole dip for nachos, salsa, cheese sauce or sour cream (German schmand because it doesn't need refrigeration) or whatever is avaible to me.
I also eat a lot of pasta with pesto, because it is so cheap, but I just can't eat this anymore.
I would love some advice on how to use the dried beans and lentils (soaking and cooking, because I'm new to that) and some recipes for them! Thanks in advance
submitted by wenbalanced to EatCheapAndHealthy [link] [comments]
Other things I have: water boiler, microwave, toaster, a small oven thingy where I can melt some cheese on toast or stuff like that, but it's really small (like two pieces of toast small) and doesn't function that well.
I recently got some dried lentils, chickpeas and kidney beans, I used to buy them canned, but this way is much cheaper and lighter (I get my groceries driving a bike and it's a kinda long way). And I'm searching for recipes to use them.
With the canned kidney beans, i liked to cook them with rice and red onion, with s&p, paprika powder, cumin, cayenne and top it with guacamole dip for nachos, salsa, cheese sauce or sour cream (German schmand because it doesn't need refrigeration) or whatever is avaible to me.
I also eat a lot of pasta with pesto, because it is so cheap, but I just can't eat this anymore.
I would love some advice on how to use the dried beans and lentils (soaking and cooking, because I'm new to that) and some recipes for them! Thanks in advance