serge's Posts

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 serge •

Hard Boiled Egg Recipe

I've tried a dozen recipes for hard boiled eggs over the years. I've tried steam baths, roasting, adding things to the water, timers, and even blowing into the eggshell, all in service of two things:

  1. The yolk should come out yellow with no green
  2. The egg should come out of its shell perfectly

After years, I've found the recipe in Kenji Lopez-Alt, and a little of my own approach.

https://www.seriouseats.com/the-secrets-to-peeling-hard-boiled-eggs

The recipe is simple:

Boil a bot of water, have enough water to cover the eggs by about an inch (~2.5cm)

  1. Boil your water
  2. Reduce the water to a simmer/slow boil
  3. Place your cold eggs into the simmering water
  4. Cook for exactly 11 minutes
  5. Place eggs into a cold water bath, ideally with ice
  6. Let your eggs cool - This is very important. They need to stay in the ice bath at least 15 minutes, and overnight in the fridge is best
  7. Crack the eggs by tapping the top and bottom, then gently rolling them to create little fractures, then simply peel

And there you go, perfect hard boiled eggs.

The search is over.

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Rugela Update: April 8, 2025

As you can see, lots of big changes on the site today!

Every user has a small avatar next to their name. Right now it's just a circle with an initial and some color, eventually we hope to make it more interesting, but this makes it easier to track a conversation and adds a splash of color.

The site's top is "cleaner", less cluttered!

You can now edit posts! Or delete them (please don't delete them!)

And we have pagination, which is a small but important bit of functionality.

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Rugela Update: April 7, 2025

We've made a few small updates.

Firstly, we've made some behind the scene changes which should help get updates out faster. This is important because we have some exciting stuff coming down the pike.

Secondly, we've made some improvements to the username validation in the signup process. This isn't something I expect many people will notice, but it will be useful down the road.

More updates (and larger updates) soon!

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MedinatAmerica and LOTR

Don't you you hate it when you're trying to write about the Silvan Elves of Nandorin and it autocorrects it to Silan Elves.

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Raising Kids to have an Analog Childhood in a Digital World

I think for those of us who grew up in the 80s and maybe the early 90s, we thought that the digital world would enhance everything, and now we realize that what our constantly connected lives give us, they also take away.

In this article on parenting, the author also talks about rules for himself to get away from the interrupt and attention stealing online world

https://www.joshuakennon.com/raising-kids-to-have-an-analogue-childhood-in-a-digital-world/

What tips do you have as a parent, or even just for yourself, to connect with the physical and important parts of life?

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Influencer "Non-Jewish Nanny" is becomes the "Now-Jewish Nanny"

Instagram influencer Non-Jewish Nanny is now officially the Now-Jewish Nanny

An article by Rabbi Efrem Goldberg on her talks about lessons we can learn from it, including the question of observance and connection being a thing that brings people closer or pushes them away.

I don't think we can necessarily take all of those lessons from one person, since there are dozens or hundreds of other people in a similar situation, but I do think there are other lessons about embracing others, about not being ashamed of our Judaism, of trusting non-Jews.

Your thoughts?

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Are fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons the cure for America's loneliness epidemic?

While the article is mostly about the popularity of D&D streamers and their audience, I think that the question is more poignant than ever.

https://www.businessinsider.com/dungeons-and-dragons-warhammer-fantasy-role-playing-games-events-friends-2025-3

Twenty years ago I had community in my TTRPG groups, community in my local Linux User Groups. I wasn't involved my local Jewish community then, but that would have been an option as well.

Today it seems there are fewer communal activities and more of us are suffering from loneliness.

What are your sources of in person community? TTRPGS? Jewish groups? Tech groups? Something else?

If you wanted to start a local group like this, how would you begin?

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The Gefilte Manifesto

Gefilteria is a website about modern Ashkenazi food revivalist culture, and they make a point about how Ashenazi food culture in the US is in the decline with not only assimilation, but the death of Jewish food institutions.

Their solution seems to be to bring back Jewish food culture in the home, and to modernize it, which is something Jews have always done, using modern techniques and adapting to available ingredients.

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Online Class: Jewish Bestsellers

"In this distinctive new My Jewish Learning course, we’ll discuss some of the most popular Jewish books written since World War II and ask why they had such an enormous cultural impact on the decades in which they were published.

Your teacher is Andrew Silow-Carroll, a former editor in chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the New York Jewish Week — and an award-winning writer who often focuses on Jewish books and book culture."

https://my-jewish-learning.teachable.com/p/jewish-bestsellers

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Rugela Update: March 26, 2025

Some awesome changes we have that makes the site more usable:

  • We now support a Markdown subset in stories and comments
  • We support links, both in Markdown, and just a raw url
  • We have improved threading

Big changes are coming down the pike soon. Stay tuned!