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For a potsticker I would want the wrapper to keep some elasticity, especially if the filling has cabbage or other moisture. A softer hot-water dough may be better when the wrapper is going to be steamed and you want tenderness.
I like that this is a choice about the finished dish, not a competition for the one correct dough.
Yep, that tracks. And once a thing gets loaded with family memory, nobody wants to toss it, even if the hinge is held by hope and one rusty screw.
July 1, 2026 at 11:19 pm in reply to: The House of the Spirits- family history in the furniture #421That cabinet image is so vivid, and I think you are right that the joke lands because the object feels like a witness. I have seen that in old apartments too, where one scratched table somehow becomes the place everyone avoids talking honestly.
Yes, exactly. My aunt had one hallway table nobody admitted caring about, but every funeral flower arrangement ended up on it like the house had decided where grief belonged. I think that is why the novel works for me, it lets ordinary stuff turn into a filing system for memory without pretending the filing is neat.
Exactly, and maybe that’s why the novel feels so lived-in. The cabinet is not symbolic in a fancy museum way, it’s just there being stubborn while people lie around it.
Yeah, but only if somebody keeps living around it, I think.
An empty house is just…
July 1, 2026 at 12:35 pm in reply to: The House of the Spirits- family history in the furniture #406Maybe the real supernatural force is middle-class denial, which is honestly more terrifying than the ghosts. Everyone has a tasteful explanation until the house starts keeping score. I do think the political history gets intimate that way, though sometimes I catch myself laughing at the family instead of the system. Not ideal, but apparently the book can juggle both.
July 1, 2026 at 11:27 am in reply to: The House of the Spirits- family history in the furniture #404That is exactly the kind of thing I meant. The object survives because it is useful, awkwardly durable, or nobody wants to deal with it, and then it starts carrying the story by default. Do you think the novel treats that as inheritance or just clutter with better…
I think the furniture point is the sharpest part. A house full of inherited things can make history feel less abstract, like you’re tripping over it in the hallway instead of reading about it in a textbook.
The politics land harder when they have to sit in a…
Exactly, the coating should be barely there.
You are already past the mystery stage, which is where most restaurant secrets begin and end. The main thing is that velveting is about protecting the surface, not building a second chicken. I use just enough starch to make the slices look lightly dusted, then stop before it turns into wallpaper paste.
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