Q: “What do pregnant asian girls eat?” A: the same things they eat during other times of their life, which are probably the same things that anybody is likely to eat these days.
Q: “My risotto didn’t turn out, what did I do wrong?” A: I have only succeeded at making risotto with actual Italian short grain white arborio rice, so if you used some other type, like jasmine or basmati for example (which I tried and failed with), or brown rice of any type, then that alone could be why. But most likely if you fail at making risotto it’s because of any or all of these reasons 1. you do not have your broth boiling as you add it to the rice (most recipes call for the broth to be simmering, I say have it as hot as you can without boiling the pot dry) 2. you don’t have enough liquid total 3. you added too much liquid too soon 4. you didn’t cook it for long enough 5. you cooked it too long 6. you didn’t stir the risotto almost constantly for the duration of its cooking time 7. you’re jewish 8. you substituted some or all of the ingredients in your recipe. As to the 7th one, just give up, but as for the 8th one if you have a recipe that contains something you do not want to use then you are better off specifically finding a recipe that utilizes the ingredients that you are interested in using. For example if you want to make a vegan risotto, don’t assume that a recipe that calls for chicken broth, cheese, and butter can have the cheese omitted and the butter changed to margarine and the chicken broth to veggie. Just look for a vegan risotto recipe. The most important point is just using the specific type of rice that your recipe calls for. Failing that at least make sure it’s the same size of grain from the same general region as the type specified. A lot of people don’t realize that all types of rice are not equal, they each have their own moisture requirements and cooking lengths.
Let me reiterate that I don’t think that risotto tastes good enough to justify the hassle of making it though. In fact if your risotto doesn’t turn out, just make rice the usual way but substitute the water with the broth (low sodium) of your choice and use a little bit more of it than you would water. After the rice cooks just spread some butter or margarine over it, maybe some parmesan cheese too, and as long as it tastes good people who have never had risotto before will never know that it isn’t real risotto. Anyone who has will be able to tell the difference right away though because what I’ve just described tastes pretty good and risotto does not.
But that aside, recently someone gave me a gift certificate to a place that I didn’t have much interest in buying anything from. Which goes to show how little this person thinks of me, they realize that they have no idea what to buy me outright, yet they don’t want to just give me money even though they know I’m poor, so they give me an impractical gift certificate. Anyway, I was actually tempted to try and sell or possibly trade this certificate for below it’s value. But before I could work that out, I found out that the place was going out of business! So I had to rush and use up the certificate before I got nothing for it. Let me tell you that something is not always better than nothing but it’s a lot harder to choose nothing over something even if you think you’d be better off without.
Let me elaborate just a bit on why selling a gift certificate for below its value in cash is not a bad idea, assuming it is to some place or for some thing that you’re not very interested in of course. Now conversely if you’re on the other side of this as the buyer, and as a general rule of buying really, it’s really stupid to buy something just because you think it’s a good value. Like buying a 50 euro certificate to a bookstore for 40 euros when you don’t like reading or buying books, just because it’s a 10 euro savings. Of course if you do like buying books at that store it’s a good deal for you. As they say the best business deal is one where both sides benefit. But I am really digressing here so let me blurt it out: most goods are sold at a markup of about twice the original price that the retailer bought from the distributor for, for clothes and jewelry it can be as many as 10 times more (which I have never quite understood the logistics of, I guess that’s just what happens when “mark it for sale as high as someone is willing to pay for it” gets blown out of proportion). So, even though the retailer is getting 50 euros, you’re probably only getting about 25 euros worth of product. I actually do think that not getting a good value for your money is a good reason not to buy anything in the first place. But in this case what I’m saying is that you’re better off with 40 euros that you can use on what you wish (like your utilities bill) instead of 50 euros worth of retail product that only has an actual value of about 25 euros that you probably could not resell for even that much.
I realize I didn’t put that very well and my thinking is a bit convoluted for some. So let me end by simply pleading with all those who read this to stop buying gift certificates/vouchers for people no matter what. It is always better to simply give money. These days, it probably isn’t even all that improper anymore. I actually don’t believe in celebrating or giving gifts in the first place but that’s another story. Do note that just because you’re probably only getting half your monetary value when buying goods, that doesn’t mean you should sell a certificate you’ve received for half its face value. In my example I was going to mark the certificate down 20% because I thought that was a steep enough of a mark down to get interest (this again can be applied to sales in general), yet still enough of a theoretical yield (30%) over what I’d have gotten for it had I used it normally, and in any case we’re talking about something you’ve been given so you’re making a nearly 100% profit anyway. For all the children out there, you have to threaten to sell the things you’ll receive that you do not want BEFORE getting them. If your grandmother gives you a gift certificate to a toy store chances are that she isn’t interested in giving you the cash value for it and just using it herself. Similarly if you’re given a pair of pajamas that has the tags removed they can no longer be returned so if you say that you’re going to sell them for well below their value you’re just going to hurt someone’s feelings.
