Untamed Scholar

07/29/2026

If you're making ribs and need a low effort, quick side, might I suggest: Creamy Cole Slaw?

Done in under 10 minutes (under 5 if you get the bagged cabbage). And *chock full* of fiber for picky eaters.

07/29/2026

Last week was Eat the Rich BBQ Sauce. This week is the slow cooked ribs to use it on.

The sauce itself might not be the most economical answer, but these ribs? Cheap as fuuuuuuuuck.

HEB (a Texan grocery chain for anyone here not familiar with living in Satan's sc***um) regularly runs sales on these specific types of ribs, often making the price of whole racks right around $9.

For those keeping track, a *half rack* at Outback is $23.29.

Make a better than eating out meal for 1/4 of the price by putting this in the oven and walking away for 3ish hours. Not a terrible way to weekend.

07/27/2026

A Boomer favorite. Hint: it's not the avocado toast, it's the economy rigged for the welfare queens at the top 10% not us povos and the 100%+ inflation in household goods/groceries since 2020.

Other examples of this include:
"All that kid needs is a smack." - Reduces parenting options to violence = obedience and non-violence = wreckless, uncontrollable hedonism. People who espouse this view are also usually *very* pro-cop, pro-military.

"Family is family." - Two options for family is to suffer silently or have none and be completely abandoned by everyone. Again, obviously and demonstrably false. Family can *absolutely* be held accountable. Family can change. Family can stop harming. And if they refuse? Family isn't blood. "Blood is thicker than water-" isn't the whole phrase. "Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." is the entire phrase, and it means *the exact opposite* of its shortening. Chosen family is stronger than assigned. Miss me with excusing toxic behavior because of shared chromosomes.

"My way or the highway." Another boomer classic. Because they've *never heard* of negotiation, compromise, or learning from others.

As you can see, another classic marker of "False Dilemma" is it's attempt to blame and/or shame the recipient. "You're a bad parent with a bad kid." "Everyone else can tolerate the abuse, what's wrong with you?" "I am better than you in everyway and always will be." And it starts sounding *really* fu**ed up when you boil it down.

Hopefully this guide will help you see it and shut it down, protecting your boundaries, your peace, your kids, and your future.

07/24/2026

The Unbinding of Isaac or - my view on the estrangement "epidemic". I could have also called it, "Why I went no contact" or "a strangely universal feeling amongst exvangelicals about our parents".

This is more or less an experiment, so if you like this kind of content and want more, let me know in the comments.

07/22/2026

Most of my recipes are based around affordability. Not this one. It's not cheaper to make your own bbq sauce. Even if you keep most of this stuff on hand. That's just the math of it. I am never going to make a decent BBQ Sauce for less than Sweet Baby Ray's.

That doesn't mean its not worth it.

This recipe was created for 2 reasons. 1) Refusal to go to the store for *one thing* and 2) I struggle to find decent bottled BBQ sauces. Sweet Baby Ray's is affordable, but also sweet af and about as nuanced as hot cross buns played on a recorder by a middle schooler. And I don't want to spend $7-14 on the guessing game of
"Is this good or is this a decent marketing team dressing up slop?".

So I made this. Because a 45 min trip to a crowded store for subpar bbq sauce was just *too damn much* that night.

Because *this* is how I like *my* bbq sauce. Not too sweet, not too spicy, not too tangy, not too salty. Just right.

Because I *can* dammit. And so can you.

A deep sweet from the molasses and brown sugar. A kick from the ketchup and spices that starts at the back of your tongue and spreads like sweet embers. Enough mustard and apple cider vinegar to make your mouth water, and an umami base that cannot be ignored.

I *dare you* to slather this on some slow cooked ribs and not be *deeply* contented. I dare you to whip this out at gatherings and not impress people. Be the person who makes their own bbq sauce. It sounds badass and only we need to know it takes 30 minutes and 20 of that is simmering with a lid.

Enjoy. And while you are, imagine a world without wealth inequality.

07/20/2026

Untamed Classroom Monday! Here is a graphic to use to help identify "Appeal to Irrelevant Authority" in the wild!

Most commonly used these days to a) MAHA or b) justify the dumbest s**t you've ever heard with "God says".

Which god. From where. From when? Era matters a lot (old t vs new t) when it comes to the rules. Can we talk to the god *now*? No? He only talks to bigoted, sexist, often pedophilic, old white men? Interesting, okay.

06/30/2026

06/25/2026

F**k Jimmy Fallon. 👎🏻

06/18/2026

Alei's Kitchen - The Cookies Are Loadbearing

Despite being an English minor and an overachiever in every lit class I've ever had, I have not actually read nearly the amount of treatises on man and his relationship with nature as I have been assigned. Because omg they all say the same damn thing. I got it. Absinthe and dew drops can make for some really moving lyrics.

Yet I was never once assigned a cook book. Not once. Not even home economics.

Classic poets love a good sunset, lake, bolt of lightning. Can’t get enough of the rain, which makes sense, the vast majority of them being British and all. (Perhaps a consequence of the Brits getting to determine who is included under the umbrella “classics” and all, but I digress.)

And don’t get me wrong. Nature can be very… bracing. I have sat in awe of many a thunderstorm and marveled at its vastness. I have plunged into large, frigid bodies of water and felt more alive that I thought possible and left questioning said ability to stay alive by continuing to do s**t like this.

Because nature is also a raging bitch and I didn’t do anything but walk 4 blocks around my neighborhood on a cloudy day in NOVEMBER and got a fu***ng sunburn.

Nature is never going to be what gets me out of bed in the morning on rough days. Nature is never going to solve my budget problem (life costs too much and I don’t make enough being the real gist of it) or hold my hand (sorry dog lovers, the answer is still no) through a crisis. Nature does not heal my wounds.

At least… not like cookies. Not like birria. Not like a Hawaiian Auntie’s Mac Salad with slow cooked pork and good rice.
Nature doesn’t feel like a hug so much as a booming, distracted, and mildly self absorbed Uncle who likes to slap you on the back and say things like, “A ship is safest when it port, but that’s not what ships are made for.”

Cookies don’t say s**t because your mouth is too full of sugar, salt, flour, eggs, and chocolate. Ramen doesn’t moralize as it fills your belly with warmth. Sourdough and a shallow dish of good olive oil and balsamic reduction says not a single word as the stresses of the day slide off.

Pasta doesn’t have opinions, only an endless array of sauces.

But the thing that elevates food from amalgamation of nutrients needed to fuel the body into a kind of recraftable relic is the fact that this s**t doesn’t happen by accident.

You are not going to find a steaming pile of fresh tortillas and a plate of fajitas just waiting in the woods. (If you do, it’s the Fae, and make your choices carefully… but can it really be much worse than here? I’m just saying.) Because nature doesn’t give a damn.

Cookies are not random. They are proof that f***s were given.
Which is why I think there should be an international law. Sure, yes, footballs, codes, etc. Protocols. But also.

Before you flip the switch, you need to eat a cookie. A good one. The kind with gooey chocolate, a bit of crisp on the edges, and a touch of a soft middle. The kind that have a little chunky salt on top. The kind someone gave a damn about.

And if you do not possess the tastebuds necessary to appreciate butter, sugar, salt, and chocolate, or the optical nerve to observe the glisten of the gooey chunks or the caramelization near the edge, or the olfactory sense of “by the time you’re done eating it, you’ll feel right as rain.” then you should not have the power over life and death.

Because the cookies are loadbearing to the human experience. And these are my favorite ones.