A selection of items “on special” this week in Coles and Woolworths that may be of interest to some keto followers. Most are processed so not really suitable for “clean keto”. Victorian data, some may not be available interstate. Alcohol (except no carb beer) excluded. Drink prices exclude recycling deposits. If you are doing an online order, also look at the stores' ONLINE ONLY specials as I don't always include all of these, many are multibuys.
‘Locked prices’ might now be considered specials as unlocked prices have increased, but same every week til July so not included as ‘specials’.

COLES

Well Naturally chocolate has moved to the Confectionery aisle. Website still stuffed so may have missed items of interest. Please add in comments if you find anything. Does anyone here work for Coles?

• Aeroplane - Jelly Lite $1.95
• Bread/Wraps - Herman Brot 600g $6
• Bread/Wraps - Simson's Pantry Low Carb Keto 5 pack 200g 2 for $10, Low Carb High Protein 5 pack 225g 2 for $9
• Butter - Devondale 250g $4.50, Lurpak 250g $5.30, Coles 500g $6.90
• Butter - Maharaja Choice Ghee 300g $5
• Cheese - Always cheddar cheese block or slices on special
• Cheese - Babybel Mini Cheese 200g $9., Laughing Cow Cheese 128g $4, Bega Cheese Stringers Original 8 Pack 160g $5
• Cheese - Perfect Italiano Melting mozzarella/mexican 450g $7, Perfect Italiano Parmesan 125g $3.50
• Cheese - Tasmanian Heritage Camembert 250g $10
• Chocolate - Lindt 2 for $8.50
• Confectionery - Eclipse Mints 40g $2.80 artificial sweeteners, Double D Smart 50g $2.20, Jols $1.50 maltitol
• Cream - Ayams coconut 270ml $2.30, Valcom 400ml $2
• Cream - Meander Valley 200ml $3.80
• Dips - Always something on special - all brands have high and low carbs
• Dips - Black swan Classic Dip 200g 2 for $6.50,
• Drinks - Coca Cola 24x375ml $20,
• Drinks - Kirks $1.40, 10 cans $6.95
• Drinks - Lipton's iced tea 2 for $6.50 peach or lemon no sugar
• Drinks - Ocean Spray 5% Juice low sugar 1.5 Litre $4.85
• Drinks - Pepsi Max or Solo 1.25L $1.70,
• Drinks - Schweppes 1.1L $1.50 zero of no sweetener,
• Drinks, energy - Red bull 8x250ml $9.50 half price,
• Drinks, kombucha -- Remedy 4x250ml $6.50, Nexba 1L $4.95, Nexba 4 pack $6.90
• Drinks, no sweetener - Bubly 8 cans $7.50, Schweppes 10 cans $7.50, Dash 4 pack $6.30
• Fish - Fresh Tasmanian Salmon Portions Skin On $29kg
• Fish - John west Tuna Tempters 95g $1.35, Wild Scottish Mackeral 125g $3
• Fish - Sole Mare Portuguese Style Sardines In EV Olive Oil 120g $2.40
• Fish - Thawed blue grenadier $12kg
• Ice cream - Denada tubs and sticks 2 for $20 ONLINE ONLY
• Mayonnaise - Kewpie 300g $4.30 in Asian area, S&W whole egg 440g $6.30
• Meat - Australian Lamb Half Leg Roast bone in $12kg, Boneless shoulder $18kg, Bone in $13kg
• Meat - Australian Pork Belly Roast Boneless $16kg, Pork ribs $16kg, Boneless pork shoulder $9kg
• Meat - Beef Corned Silverside $11kg
• Meat - Chicken drumsticks $4kg, Whole chicken $4.50kg,
• Meat - Don kabana $3.30 from deli
• Meat - Free Range Rspca Approved Chicken Breast Fillets Large Pack $13kg
• Meat - Graze Grass Fed oyster blade $22.50kg
• Meat - Hans Twiggy Sticks $23.50kg from deli
• Meat - Pork mince 500g 2 fr $10
• Meat - Primo Middle Bacon 750g $11pk, Streaky Bacon $17kg from deli, Shortcut from deli $16kg
• Meat - Rocco's Smokey Bacon & Cheese Sausages 450g $7
• Milk - Rokeby Farms Fit Milk $2
• Milk - Suncoast Gold Macadamia UHT 1L $3 note contains vanilla but not on label
• Milk, almond - Vitasoy fridge $3, Inside Out fridge $3 (Woollies cheaper)
• Nuts - Coles natural macadamias 400g $15, Market Land smoked almonds 500g $8
• Oil, EV olive - Cobram Estate Aust 750ml $10.80, Coles 3L can $28, La Espanola 1L Organic $13, La Espanola mild 1L $9.50
• Peanut butter - Sanitarium 375g $3.50
• Pickles - Fehlbergs Burger Pickles 490g $4
• Protein bars/cookies - BSC 60g $3.15 maltitol
• Protein powder - Coles Perform 35g 2 for $4
• Sauce, pasta - Val Verde passata 700ml $2.50 , Mutti varieties 40g $4
• Sauce - Valcom Curry Paste 210g-240g $3.40, Massaman 08.8/100g, Thai Green 05.3, Thai Panaeng 03.8, Ayams 185g $3.20, Mai Ploy green 50g $1
• Snacks - Don Donski pork crackle 50g $2.50, Master 50g $2
• Snacks, sweet - Atkins 20 pack cherry coconut in big size area $20 maybe less. (maltitol_
• Spice - Mingle better gravy 120g $4.40 higher carbs
• Stock/Bone broth - Campbells Real UHT 1L $2.25, half price
• Sweetener - Natvia Gold 250g $6.80 E&S
• Syrup - Natvia maple syrup 250ml $5.50
• Tea - Dilmah Inspiration spiced rooibos 20 pack $3
• Yoghurt, flavoured - Chobani Greek no sugar 2 for $4, Danono Yo pro Perfor 20g protein 175g $1.85 half price
• Yoghurt, flavoured - Chobani Fit 15g protein 170g $2.15
• Yoghurt, plain - Chobani Greek Yogurt 907g whole milk $6.30

WOOLWORTHS

30% off PranaOn, Keep It Cleaner & Bodiez# #Excludes Bounce Multi Packs, Keep It Cleaner Bars

• Aeroplane - Jelly Lite $2 look for watermelon, blueberry, grape
• Avalanche - Hot chocolate 10 pack $4.40 higher carbs
• Beer - Steersman Blonde Low Carb Bottles 6x330ml 2 for $22 ??? carbs, Better Beer zero carbs 6 pack $18
• Bread/Wraps - Simson's Pantry High Protein Low Carb Wraps 5 Pack $4.40
• Butter - Devondale 250g $4.20
• Butter - Mainland organic NZ 250g $4.50
• Cheese - Always cheddar cheese block or slices on special
• Cheese - Bega Cream 225g block $3,
• Cheese - Castello varieties 150g $6.50, Tasmanian Heritage 125g $5.65
• Cheese - King Island 200g $7.50
• Cheese - King Island Brie or Camembert 175-200g $9.50
• Cheese - Melbourne Cheese co marinated fetta varieties 250g $7.50, Castello Greek 450g $5.50
• Cheese - Perfect Italiano 450g melting mozzarella, mexican $7
• Cheese - Picon corners cream 120g $2.50, Babybel 100g $5
• Chocolate - Lindt Excellence $3.30
• Chocolate - Well Naturally 90g bars or coated almonds $3.50
• Crackers - Olina simply seed 80g $3.50
• Cream - Bulla Double 200g $4
• Dips - Always something on special - all brands have high and low carbs
• Dips - Yumi's $3.50, Chris heritage %7.50
• Drinks - Bickfords diet cordial 750ml $4 try Tropical good sweeteners
• Drinks - Coca Cola, Sprite Fanta diet 1.25L $1.70, 30 cans $24.95
• Drinks - Cottees Diet cordial 1l $2.95 half price
• Drinks - Ocean Spray 5% Juice low sugar 1.5 Litre $4.90
• Drinks - Pepsi Max, Pepsi, Solo Zero, or Raspberry Zero 12 x 450ml bottles $10
• Drinks - Pepsi, Solo Zero, Sunkist Zero 24 x 375ml $19, 12x450ml bottles $10
• Drinks - Schweppes 1.1L $1.50 zero or Unsweetened
• Drinks, energy - Monster Energy 4 x 500ml $6.92, NEW C4 473ml $3.80, Gatorade or G active 600ml $2.30
• Drinks, kombucha – Lo Bros 4 pack $6, Remedy prebiotic 4 pack $6,
• Drinks, no sweetener - Mt Franklin 1.25l $1.35, Strangelove 4 pack $7.20
• Fish - Brunswick sardines 106g $2, Kippers $1.65
• Fish - Just Caught Frozen Atlantic salmon no skin $29kg
• Fish - Paramount wild Alaskan pink salmon 415g $7.50
• Fish - Sirena tuna 95g $2.30 try Aldi slices in O oil
• Ice blocks - Twisted Raw C coconut Lychee 4 pack $5.50
• Mayonnaise - Hellmans Real 400g $6
• Meat - Beef Mince 500g $7
• Meat - Bertocchi Gold varieties Bacon 400g $8 (thin & crispy middle is my fave) Shortcut from deli $15kg, Streaky from deli $18kg
• Meat - Chicken maryland $7kg, Free Range drumsticks $6kg, Drumsticks large pack $4kg, loose $4.50kg
• Meat - Don Sliced Meats 160-200g $3.20, Primo varieties 2 for $6.30
• Meat - Lamb midloin chops $23kg
• Meat - Luv a duck legs 500g $10
• Meat - Macro Free Range Australian Fresh Whole Plain Chicken $4.50kg
• Meat - Primo Kransky Double Smoked or Cheese – From the Deli $10.80kg half price
• Meat - Woolworths COOK precooked Slow Cooked Chicken Breast in Creamy Mushroom Sauce 700g $12 6.3g/serve
• Meat - Woolworths COOK precooked Shanghai Style Pork Belly 600g $12 separate sauce reduce carbs by ditching most of the sauce
• Meat - Woolworths COOK precooked Slow Cooked Pork Knuckle $10kg
• Meat - Woolworths COOK Slow Cooked Beef Brisket in a BBQ Sauce 700g $15.50 ditch most of the sauce
• Meat - Woolworths Cook Slow Cooked Butterflied Beef 700g $15
• Milk, almond - Almond Breeze UHT $2, Australia's Own UHT $1.85, Almo fridge $5.50, Inside Out fridge $2.25 stock up half price long dates, Sanitarium fridge $3.30
• Milk, coconut - Australia’s Own UHT $1.90
• Oil - Coco Earth liquid coconut oil 500ml $11
• Oil - The Grove EV avocado 250ml $8.50
• Oil, EV olive - Monini 750ml $13. Moro 500ml $7.80, Red Island Aust 1L $16
• Peanut butter - Mayvers 375g 2 for $9, Pics $5 (online only), Bega Simply Nuts $4.40, Noya almond butters $7.20, Skippy no added sugar 450g $2.75 USA jhalf price
• Pickles -
• Protein bars/cookies - BSC, Noway, Bounce Load up 30% off, QUEST PB cups $2.40 half price, Quest cookies $2.40 ONLINE ONLY
• Protein drinks - Bodiez Protein Water Powder 290g $24.50, Premixes cans and bottles 30% off
• Protein powder - Keep it cleaner protein 375g $23.10
• Sauce - MasterFoods Reduced sugarTomato or Barbecue Sauce 475-500ml (some maltitol) $1.90 half price
• Sauce - Pataks curry pastes 283g $4 check carbs
• Sauce, pasta - Leggos Providore Tomato & Chilli 400g $5 lowest carb not hot
• Sauve, hot - Franks red hot buffalo 148g $3.50, Byron Bay varieties 150ml $4.20, Bull's-eye Chilli Louisiana Style Chipotle Cajun Spices 135ml $4, Frank's Redhot Original Thick 368ml $5, Nandos peri peri 250g $6
• Snacks - D'orsogna Tasty Sticks 400g $9.75, From deli $25kg dearer
• Snacks - Normandie Pate Chicken & Black Peppercorns 150g $4.60
• Snacks - O olive oil roasted seaweed 4 pack $2.75
• Snacks, sweet - Aussie Bodies 4 pack $8, Atkins 5 pack $7.50 (maltitol)
• Soup - Hart & Soul konjac noodles pho100g mug size $1.50
• Spices - Mingle Seasoning 35-50g $2.47 half price
• Stock/Bone broth - Maggie Beer 500ml stock $4, Campbells bone 500ml, $7, Hart & Soul bone 350g $3.50
• Sweetener - Natvia E&S 350g $7.50, Whole Earth E&MF 200g $7.10, Truvia E&S 360g $8
• Syrup - Lakanto monkfruit golden malt, or vanilla bakers syrup 300ml $7
• Syrup - Natvia Choc Topping No Added Sugar 250ml $2.85 half price
• Tahini - Mayvers gulled 385g $5.20
• Yoghurt, flavoured - Chobani Fit 15g protein $2.15
• Yoghurt, flavoured - Chobani no sugar 680g $5.40
• Yoghurt, plain - Chobani Greek Natural Whole Milk 907g $6.30

Built during the Space Race to compete with the Soviet Union, the Saturn V Rocket was launched on July 16, 1969 and was used during the Apollo 11 mission and spearheaded America's effort in landing on the moon. Not only was it an engineering marvel far ahead of its time, it would later lay the cornerstone for building newer and better rockets. It was a testament to the feats mankind can achieve on this "pale blue dot" and it secures a place among some of the best inventions humanity has ever created. Moreover on the engineering and capabilities of the Saturn V, it was able to generate 34 million newtons of energy during launch, had a 310,000 lbs payload, and was a 363 feet, truly marking it as one of humanity's best creations yet, as it still stands as one of the most powerful rockets NASA has to offer. One thing overlooked, however, is it's political symbolism, as it showed how truly influential and powerful America was during the Space Age. This brings me to its dick shape. The Saturn V was shaped like a dick, perhaps purposely, and in a way showed America's raw ambition to beat the Soviets, as well as its justified distaste towards Communism. It was a dick flying through the sky, a dick integral to the Apollo 11 mission, and was respresentative of our superior engineering and space program. In addition, the launching of the Saturn V and the planting of the American flag into the grey lifeless rock known as the moon, was one of, if not, the most televised event in history, meaning that everyone would know we were launching a large boner through the sky to combat the Soviet Unions power of influence. While the Motherland watched in awe as we beat them at the space race, we launched our glorious 363 foot cock known as the Saturn V to the moon so that Soviets could know their glorious nation was boned, porked, and fucked. Metaphorically, NASA was the handsome Chad with a defined jawline thrusting inwards to the MILF that was the Soviet Union, and the Saturn V was the cock that made it possible. We fucked their Motherland. Next time you see a rocket, next time you see the ISS fly over your town or city, next time you see another launch from NASA, show some patriotism and remeber the technological marvel that is the Saturn V which made all this possible.

Question in the title basically - where would I go to grab some pork bones to make broth for ramen? I'm thinking Peoria Packing but wondering if anyone else has ideas.

I make meatballs pretty regularly, I'd always just go with Chef John's recipe, and have it down pat enough that I don't even really look at the recipe anymore, I just know how to do it.
So I had ground pork frozen for long enough that it was definitely time to use it, and I also had some ground beef, so it was meatball time, baby! But the package of pork was really quite large, it was at least 1.5 lbs. I've never made swedish meatballs, and thought to my self, "self, let's make meatballs 2 ways!". It was really easy, I just left the nutmeg and allspice out of half, and added extra italian seasoning to that half.
ANYWAY, the swedish recipe I went with called for panko, I'd always just used regular "italian style bread crumbs" in the past.
Yo!!!! My meatballs are so damned juicy and moist! (An aside, a friend of mine, trying to avoid using the word "moist", described his pot roast as staying "damp" in the slow cooker. I advised him that in this context, please use "moist" from now on, lmao).
I have to assume that it's the panko making the difference, since everything else was pretty standard, besides being a 60/40 pork/beef ratio, which, I'm sure I'm always off by a bit, I don't think that could account for it. I ate swedish meatballs for dinner the past 3 nights and would do it again if I weren't out. But I do have a bunch of frozen meatballs of both kinds for some quick meals!
Was it the panko? What's the magic?

India is a country that has become even more enchanting during the monsoon season. The monsoons bring a respite from the scorching heat and transform the lush green hills into a breathtaking spectacle. India's hill stations, nestled amidst the Western Ghats and the Himalayas, become a paradise during this time, offering a unique and mesmerizing experience to visitors. In this article, we will explore seven captivating and the best hill stations in India where you can truly immerse yourself in the magic of the monsoons.
1. Munnar, Kerala:
Located in the Western Ghats of Kerala, Munnar is a haven of tranquility and natural beauty. The monsoons drench the tea gardens and spice plantations, creating an ethereal ambiance. The mist-covered hills and cascading waterfalls add to the allure. Take a leisurely walk amidst the tea gardens, breathe in the refreshing scent of wet earth, and witness the symphony of raindrops falling on the leaves. The picturesque landscapes and the pleasant weather make Munnar an irresistible destination during the monsoons.
2. Lonavala-Khandala, Maharashtra:
Situated in the Sahyadri Range near Mumbai, Lonavala-Khandala is a popular hill station renowned for its scenic beauty. During the monsoons, the entire region transforms into a lush green paradise. The misty valleys, gushing waterfalls, and iconic vantage points like Tiger Point and Rajmachi Point offer breathtaking views. Take a hike to the mesmerizing Bhushi Dam or explore the ancient Karla and Bhaja caves. The cool monsoon breeze and the captivating landscapes of Lonavala-Khandala will leave you spellbound.
3. Shimla, Himachal Pradesh:
Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, is a timeless hill station that becomes even more enchanting during the monsoon season. The rain-washed forests, blooming wildflowers, and mist-covered mountains create a dreamlike ambiance. Take a stroll on Mall Road, explore the colonial architecture, and savor a hot cup of tea while enjoying the panoramic views of the surrounding hills. Don't miss visiting Chadwick Falls, where the cascading water gushes down amidst lush greenery, providing a spectacular sight.
4. Coorg, Karnataka:
Known as the "Scotland of India," Coorg in Karnataka is a breathtaking hill station that comes alive during the monsoons. The verdant coffee plantations, misty hills, and cascading waterfalls make it a perfect destination for nature lovers. Trek through the enchanting trails of Pushpagiri Wildlife Sanctuary, visit the mesmerizing Abbey Falls or simply relax amidst the aroma of coffee in a cozy homestay. Coorg offers a rejuvenating experience, immersing you in the magic of the monsoons.
5. Darjeeling, West Bengal:
Perched in the Himalayan foothills of West Bengal, Darjeeling is renowned for its tea gardens and the iconic toy train. The monsoons add a touch of mystique to this hill station, enveloping it in a veil of clouds and mist. Wake up early to witness the mesmerizing sunrise at Tiger Hill, visit the famous tea estates, and take a ride on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The lush greenery and the cool monsoon climate make Darjeeling a must-visit destination during this season.
6. Mahabaleshwar, Maharashtra:
Located in the Sahyadri Range of Maharashtra, Mahabaleshwar is a charming hill station known for its captivating landscapes and pleasant climate. The monsoons transform this place into a paradise with lush greenery, foggy hills, and cascading waterfalls. Explore stunning viewpoints like Arthur's Seat and Wilson Point, which offer panoramic vistas of the valleys below. Indulge in the famous strawberries and enjoy a boat ride on the serene Venna Lake. The misty atmosphere and the romantic ambiance make Mahabaleshwar a perfect destination to experience the magic of monsoons.
7. Nainital, Uttarakhand:
Nestled amidst the Kumaon Hills in Uttarakhand, Nainital is a picturesque hill station known for its emerald-colored lake and lush surroundings. The monsoons bring a refreshing transformation to this enchanting town. The rain-washed forests, blooming rhododendrons, and misty mountains create a mystical atmosphere. Take a boat ride on the serene Naini Lake, explore Mall Road, and visit the beautiful Nainital Zoo. The tranquility and natural beauty of Nainital during the monsoons make it an ideal destination for a rejuvenating getaway.
Monsoon Activities and Experiences:
Apart from the breathtaking natural beauty, these best hill stations in India offer a plethora of activities and experiences during the monsoons. Here are some notable ones:
1. Trekking and Nature Walks: The monsoon season breathes new life into the forests and hills, making it an ideal time for trekking and nature walks. Explore the verdant trails of places like Munnar, Coorg, and Shimla, and immerse yourself in the lush surroundings. Spot exotic flora and fauna, listen to the melodious chirping of birds, and rejuvenate your soul amidst nature's wonders.
2. Waterfall Rappelling: The monsoons bring several gushing waterfalls to life, providing the perfect backdrop for adventure enthusiasts. Many hill stations, such as Lonavala-Khandala and Mahabaleshwar, offer exciting opportunities for waterfall rappelling. Strap on your harness, descend the cascading water, and feel the adrenaline rush as you conquer nature's forces.
3. Boating in Lakes: The monsoons add a certain charm to the lakes in hill stations. Take a leisurely boat ride in the serene lakes of Nainital, Udaipur, or Ooty, and witness the surrounding beauty come alive with the touch of rain. The misty atmosphere and the tranquil waters create a serene and romantic experience.
4. Tea Tasting and Plantation Visits: Hill stations like Munnar and Darjeeling are famous for their tea estates. Visit a tea plantation during the monsoons to witness the tea leaves glistening with raindrops. Engage in tea-tasting sessions to savor the flavors and aromas of freshly brewed teas. Learn about the tea-making process and gain insights into the rich history and culture associated with tea production.
5. Ayurvedic Spa and Wellness: India is renowned for its Ayurvedic practices that promote holistic well-being. Many hill stations offer Ayurvedic spas and wellness centers where you can rejuvenate your mind, body, and soul. Indulge in therapeutic massages, herbal treatments, and yoga sessions amidst the tranquil surroundings of the hills.
The Charm of Monsoon Cuisine:
Monsoons in India are not just about the captivating landscapes; they also bring a unique culinary experience. The hill stations during the monsoons offer a delectable array of local delicacies that are sure to tantalize your taste buds. From piping hot pakoras (fritters) and steaming cups of masala chai to piping hot momos and bhutta (roasted corn), the monsoon cuisine is a delight for food lovers.
In places like Mahabaleshwar, you can indulge in fresh strawberries, served with cream or in the form of jams, during the monsoons. Coorg offers a unique gastronomic experience with its traditional Kodava cuisine, where you can relish dishes like pandi curry (pork curry) and akki roti (rice bread).
The monsoons also bring out the flavors of piping hot soups and stews, such as thukpa in Darjeeling and hot and sour soup in Shimla. Additionally, don't miss the opportunity to savor local street food like vada pav in Lonavala-Khandala and momos in Darjeeling.
The combination of the monsoon ambiance and the tantalizing flavors of local cuisine create an unforgettable culinary experience during your visit to these hill stations.
Conclusion:
India's hill stations are truly magical during the monsoon season. From the misty tea gardens of Munnar to the foggy valleys of Nainital, each destination offers a unique experience that will leave you spellbound. The lush greenery, cascading waterfalls, and the refreshing aroma of wet earth create an ethereal ambiance that is hard to resist. Whether you seek tranquility, adventure, or simply a rendezvous with nature, and also the hill stations in Uttarakhand have it all.
As you embark on your journey to witness the magic of monsoons in best hill stations in India, be prepared for occasional showers and carry appropriate rain gear. The off-season crowds allow you to immerse yourself fully in the beauty of these destinations. Remember to respect the local culture and environment, and leave behind only footprints.
Experience the joy of sipping hot tea while gazing at mist-covered hills, taking leisurely walks amidst lush green landscapes, and witnessing the grandeur of waterfalls in full flow. Discover the enchantment of India's monsoon-drenched hill stations, and create memories that will last a lifetime.

Motivation — A Close Reading of Tea Time

"I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking: maybe six feet ain't so far down?"
Nimander Golit
Chapter V of Weathered
2002 BS
Click Here for the Introduction to the essay series.

Prelude to the Close Reading

Why, hello there, again. It’s been a few weeks but I promise that this endeavor is still moving forward. For those that don’t know, this essay is a part of a collection I’ll be putting together which investigates the Eleint, their blood, and sorcery within the Malazan shared secondary universe. We’re still laying down our foundations, and today we’ll be covering a sequence of scenes in Chapter 8 of Toll the Hounds.
My intentions were to cover all of the scenes in a single post, but that has proven itself to be difficult. As such, I’ll cover the first scene in this sequence in this post. There’ll be one or two follow-up posts.
There are ten scenes that are in this sequence:

1. Nimander 1
2. Desra 1
3. Desra 2
4. Skintick 1
5. Desra 3
6. Nimander 2
7. Desra 4
8. Kedeviss 1
9. Nimander 3
10. Kedeviss 2

I’ll be approaching these scenes (including the one discussed today) through a few lenses.

A ringing of bells.

In his musings on writing, Erikson discusses the notion of a bell. I’ll let him speak for himself.
In the scenes we’ll be looking at, some of the bells that I believe are used are (and not all of these are represented in this first particular scene):

• Past versus present — ancestors/parents vs. living/children
• How others see us, and how we see others
• The word ‘beast’ and its many meanings
• The words ‘child/children’ and their many meanings
• The relationships between gods and mortals
• Portals/thresholds

Existentialism.

Particularly the genealogy of continental philosophy that led to Sartre’s existentialism and the shared/adapted/bifurcated philosophies of his contemporaries (such as de Beauvoir, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty). This wasn’t my initial intention when I decided to use this sequence of scenes as a launch pad into my collection of essays. However, the beauty of close-reading is that you go into a text with a hypothesis seeking evidence and support, and then end up with new insights.
Some of the concepts that will be brought up are:

• Anxiety
• Facticity and transcendence; Authenticity and bad faith
• The Look/Gaze and being-for-others
• The Absurd and Revolution
• Perception

Genre conventions as grammar.

Particularly, we’ll look at Erikson’s use of genre conventions from the likes of Gothic literature and Weird Fiction — namely the Sublime, cosmic horror, and the Weird — as the subtle language used to convey tension that is congruent with some of the other subtexts. If these grammars are subverted, we’ll try to point that out too.
We will later delve more into Malazan’s literary genealogy in other essays, but I want this lens to be present during the reading to see how Erikson aligns or subverts these genre conventions.
We’ll be using Professor Michael Moir’s YouTube lectures on Weird Fiction as reference.

What the fuck is happening?

This is a question about plot that I will answer at the end of all of the scenes, but keep it in mind as we go through. It has less to do with existentialism and Gothic literature and more on what Gothos was trying to do during these scenes.

Pre-TtH Context

We first meet Nimander and his siblings (unnamed) in House of Chains on Drift Avalii. By Bonehunters, they had left Drift Avalii and ended up at Malaz City, where they then joined Tavore Paran’s fleet while fleeing Malaz City. In Reaper’s Gale, we find the siblings had been ‘adopted’ by Sandalath while they traveled to Lether with the Malazans. Phaed wanted to kill Sandalath. Nimander stopped Phaed from killing Sandalath. Withal (Sandalath’s husband) throws Phaed out a window. The murder is taken as a suicide. The siblings intern Phaed and then meet Clip, who offers to lead them to Anomander in Black Coral via Kurald Galain.
This gets us to Toll the Hounds, where Nimander is being haunted by Phaed. They’ve left Kurald Galain and are now on Genabackis (but not yet to Black Coral). Nimander fears the future meeting his father and the rest of the Tiste Andii. The siblings and Clip ‘stumble’ on Morsko, where Clip is curious about its cult of the Dying God. A ritual takes place there. Nimander and Skintick are nearly enthralled, but are saved by Aranatha (and thus Mother Dark herself). The group then find Clip, who is in a coma. They collect him, and set off in a wagon to follow the Dying God’s priests to Bastion. Along that journey, the siblings stumble upon the High King, Kallor, who reluctantly chooses to not kill them and instead travels with them.
The sequence of scenes in Chapter 8 that we’ll be discussing follows some time after Kallor joins the siblings.
Now that the administrative stuff is out of the way, let’s dive into the first scene.

Nimander 1

Rum-induced memories.

We start this sequence thrust into Nimander’s introspection on ‘rage’ as a breaking of a vessel, impossible to fix. He recalls Deadsmell’s musings that ‘rage in battle’ was a gift while the two drank rum. Rum that awakened memories once ignored by Nimander.
(Note: in Scene 2, we’ll see Desra’s view of Nimander, and we’ll see that Nimander’s ruminations on rage here are what inform Desra’s view of him, and not in the way that Nimander’s doubt imagines.)
In the previous post, we discussed memories and their decay. So much of this series and the lore surrounding it is driven by the memories of ancient beings. Nimander is younger with respect to ancient beings (but ancient nonetheless), and even he struggles with his memories. Perhaps this is a result of the traumas he’s experienced with respect to his being in diaspora and perceived abandonment by his father (a symmetry itself with Rake’s — and the Tiste Andii as a whole — relationship with Mother Dark).
He recalls the rum lighting “a fire in [his] brain, casting red light on a host of memories gathered ghostly round the unwelcoming heart.” He reminisces on the time after Kurald Galain (but before Drift Avalii) and his father’s emotional indifference. He recalls the pranks him and his kin would pull on Endest Silann; the arrival of Andarist and his arguments with Anomander. It is unclear what the arguments were — if you’ve read Forge of Darkness, you might be able to infer what’s likely, but I’m curious if the argument is Andarist asking to take the siblings and Anomander refusing, or Anomander asking Andarist to take the children and Andarist was reluctant? Was the argument about Anomander thrusting the Hust blade, T’an Aros/K’orladis (i.e., Vengeance / Grief), onto Andarist or did Andarist already possess the blade? We don’t know exactly to my knowledge, but it’s fun to speculate.
Regardless, Nimander recalls, like a certain inscribed hearthstone, there was peace. Andarist was to take them all through a threshold, a portal elsewhere (as mentioned, portals end up being a rung bell, so pay attention). Nimander remembers Endest’s weeping as the children were pulled through a “portalway into an unknown, mysterious new world where anything was possible.”
Andarist raised the Tiste Andii children on that portal’s other side, on Drift Avalii. We know (or can infer) that this was a task to protect the Throne of Shadow, but Nimander and his kin didn’t understand this as children. But Andarist led them with his pragmatism, he ensured they learned how the world was. With our knowledge of Kharkanas, this is so powerful. We know Anomander’s hubris was abused as a motivating factor for Hunn Raal’s despicable acts. We know that Andarist likely lacks children of his own in response to this, and so his taking on guardianship over the children of his brother — that very same brother that rejected Andarist’s grief in favour of vengeance (and materialised in the T’an Aros/K’orladis dichotomy) — is a stark, challenging, and ultimately selfless decision.
But this pragmatism created child soldiers. The collision of reality’s necessity to survive and carry out the duty of protecting the Throne of Shadow came at the expense of what little remaining childhood innocence Rake’s brood still had (even as a people on the run, exiled from their home due to a sociopolitical schism). Andarist became a stern teacher, juxtaposed to the echoes of Endest’s gentleness. “The games ended. The world turned suddenly serious.” Nonetheless, the Tiste Andii siblings grew to love Andarist.
Nimander continues his introspection:

See a bored child with a stick — and see how every beast nearby flees, understanding well what is now possible and, indeed, probable.

This reminds me of a general rule of advice: ‘never fuck around when a child has gun.’ Tiste Andii or not, children can be cruel especially when mixed with unknown doses of trauma and violence. Regardless, I want to call attention here that this notion of children and beasts are each bells rung. To Nimander, Andarist “unleash[ed] them, these children with avid eyes.” He “had made them good soldiers,” ones that know rage.
Vessels broken.
As such, from his own experience, Nimander suspects that the Dying God is a child. He speaks to the dialectic between gods and their worshippers (another bell rung):

The mad priests poured him full, knowing the vessel leaked, and then drank of that puerile seepage. Because he was a child, the Dying God’s thirst and need were without end, never satiated.

The group stumbles on desiccated bodies staked among fields: dried up, tapped of their libations. This speaks to a particular exploitation between mortal and god, symbolised literally as worshippers feeding a god to then become the harvested. This perpetuates the Dying God’s power to accumulate more worshippers via addictive kelyk. The language here shows that the Dying God has stumbled upon a sort of cheat code, an exploitation of the god-mortal dialectic that allows him and his priests to arbitrage power. Like a cancer that, via the law of large numbers, is equipped with the mechanisms to divert a body’s resources to it while it slowly destroys the body.
The scarecrows being in fields is such a perfect choice of this analogy: things to be harvested. A product, a commodity — a thing with both use-value and exchange-value, for our Marxians out there. I believe Erikson has said that he was thinking of oil here, and that is fine by itself, but I do like the mirroring to Eucharistic transubstantiation in Catholicism (due to my being a very-very-lapsed Catholic). Especially with wine, an extremely addictive substance, transcending into God’s blood to cleanse us as cannibalistic sacrament.

Dal Honese burial practices.

Nimander sees these fields as “bizarre cemeteries, where some local aberration of belief insisted that the dead be staked upright, that they ever stand ready for whatever may come." This makes him recall some shipwrecked Dal Honese on Drift Avalii. He thinks on the ancestor cult and burial practices of Dal Hon: literally constructing their homes with their dead in the walls as both material and essence, the building stretching out with additional rooms as time moved on and kin died.
This reminds me of the Neolithic proto-city, Çatalhöyük, found in Anatolia within modern-day Türkiye where ancestors have been found to be buried beneath platforms in living quarters. See: Chapter 6 of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow.
With or without intention, I like to view this ritual via an existentialist lens, particularly Sartre’s notion of the Look. To Sartre — in contrast to other phenomenologies — being is in flux, some path of a given chaotic double-pendulum switching to and from poles of being-in-itself***\**¹* and being-for-itself***\**²*. The Look, to Sartre, is a sort of symmetry breaking — a realisation by being-for-itselves that decentralises it, the sudden awareness of its being an object, an Other, to Other consciousnesses.
A heuristic often used to showcase Sartre’s notion of the Look (or Gaze) is that of a voyeur peeping through a keyhole into someone’s room that hears a noise down the hall. Regardless if that noise is from another person (another being-for-itself) or not (say, the house settling), the subjective voyeur suddenly objectifies themselves, collapsing the chaotic pendulum from being-for-itself (nothingness as "no thing-ness") to their facticity — their being-in-itself, their thing-ness — whose meaning to Other being-for-themselves is relative to a separate centre than the voyeur’s own.
To Sartre, the resulting anxiety experienced snapping from subject to object is a proof against any nihilistic approach to solipsism. The fact that we can Other our own being-for-itself means that we can also recognise being-for-itself external to us since those we Other too can Other us as we Other ourselves. The reflexivity as a result of the Look is evidence against solipsism to Sartre.
As a result, this Dal Honese practice is a cultural self-burdening via Sartre’s Look by literally having your ancestors clay-filled bodies decentralise your subjectivity and externalise you as an object that can be judged by its facticity. This results in a sort of collective Dal Honese being-for-others, Sartre would argue. This isn’t inherently good or bad to existentialists, but it does necessitate a calculus that discerns if the living descendants are authentically expressing their freedom with each moment they accept this practice, or if they are living in bad faith.
Regardless, though, this is a haunting of the Past. This haunting isn’t something that is only important to existentialism or other philosophical traditions (such as post-structuralism — see: Derrida’s hauntology), but to the genre conventions and tropes of Gothic horror and its descendants (such as cosmic horror, weird fiction, and their influences on sword and sorcery, etc.).
There are mappings (some more subtle than others) between the Sublime and the existential anxiety and dread experienced in phenomena similar to the Look. The experience of looking upon the vastness of the sea, of stumbling upon an ancient statue, of learning of the size of the universe — which are described as the Sublime, the Weird, or Eldritch in some literary traditions (e.g., Romantic, Gothic, Horror, the Weird, etc.) — are the same experiences that are often analysed in continental philosophies using words such as angst/anxiety/despaiabsurdity/alienation.
Nimander goes on to further expose the relationship between this Dal Honese ancestor cult and inter-tribal conflicts that lead to deaths and stolen bodies that leave physical voids in Dal Honese architecture. He muses how this physical representation of wounds begets a cycle of vengeance (a cultural tradition, a product of facticity and bad faith): “blood back and forth,” he says. He mentions that this cycle is what pushed the shipwrecked Dal Honese from their homes, an act of revolt and perhaps even authenticity to Sartre. Eventually the Dal Honese recovered and “paddled away — not back home, but to some unknown place, a place devoid of unblinking ghosts staring out from every wall.”
I love that Erikson has this whole little short story in this scene, especially in the contrast of its being some rum-induced reflection by Nimander on his own past’s haunting of him and his siblings. Moreover, these Tiste Andii are travelling with Kallor, the Undying Unascendant: a being-for-itself that literally manifests the past’s haunting on the present — a man cursed, jaded, who carries the past with him wherever he travels. All of these together show that one’s freedom can have one flee (even be redeemed — which balances with other plotlines in TtH), but that doesn’t necessarily — nor sufficiently so — annihilate the past.

Finding a tower.

After this, Nimander’s reminiscing is interrupted by his hearing Kallor nearby (like a footstep in a hallway). Kallor comments on the use of the corpses and notes that the flora “[is] not even native to this world, after all.” Nimander replies that the corpses are being used for saemankelyk. The mention of the plants not being native to this world should orient the reader back to the Weird, especially since it brings upon a sense of unease, an Othering — the house settling that again serves to reduce both Nimander and the readers to our thing-ness
‘The past’ versus ‘the present’ versus ‘the future’ (and their hauntings of one another) bubble up again with some banter between Skintick and Kallor about the state of things. Kallor states ‘nothing changes.’ Skintick counters ‘it keeps getting worse,’ to which Kallor claims is but an illusion.
I find this dialogue to be a comical little conflict between Kallor’s perceived-postmodern, nihilistic judgement of the state of things being inert versus Skintick’s pseudo-Rousseauian, inverted-Hegalian, modernist grand narrative of things getting worse.
Again, it alludes to a haunting of the past on the current generation. Interestingly, this is a trend within the Book of the Fallen in general: not as an espousing of the ‘old vs. young’, but Erikson’s decentering/challenging/deconstruction of that binary. Think of Raest in GotM; Menandore, Sukul and Sheltatha in RG; Karsa in HoC; the Witness trilogy. He does this via a sort of Ancient's Hubris colliding with its differences to the Present’s Ingenuity, and this being dual to the Present’s Naivety colliding with the Ancient Wisdom.
Kallor eventually hits a sore spot with the Tiste: he brings up Rake. Unlike the Dal Honese whose freedom had them flee the cultural practices of letting their ancestors haunt both literally and figuratively, Nimander and his siblings were pulled/pushed away from their father (and people) as children — by what very well could be their father’s request. The Tiste siblings are haunted by Anomander’s active absence. Their continued distance from their father isn’t an act of expressing their freedom against an Ancestor’s Gaze — it isn’t an act of revolution — it is their facticity and a source for their Othering of themselves. We often see this from Nimander’s POVs up to and including this sequence.
Kallor sniffs out this weakness and presses upon the wound. Nimander gets flustered and retorts. To which Kallor responds:

'Anomander Rake is a genius at beginning things. It’s finishing them he has trouble with.'

Damn, Kallor.
Also, I didn’t need my ADHD called out so harshly, dude. What the fuck.
Without diving into what Erikson was dealing with while writing this book, this hits hard for Nimander, and is an interesting commentary nonetheless. His father, Anomander, is the leader of a diasporic people who’ve been without home, without a centre, for 400,000 years. I think Kallor’s words hurt Nimander so much because the Tiste siblings don’t know Anomander’s current plans nor have they experienced the "settling-down" from the unveiling of Kurald Galain in what is now Black Coral. They are unaware of Rake’s teleology for his people, for himself even. Regardless, we see again and again that Kallor isn’t just a strong skirmisher, his words cut nearly as well as his blades.
Kallor goes on to confirm that he knows Rake before the group notices a ruined tower among the alien plants and scarecrows. Kallor says its Jaghut. Kallor trudges forth indifferently, pushing corpses out of his way as he bee-lines it to the ruined tower. I don’t think such a sequence of action has ever described Kallor’s whole raison d’être and modus operandi so well: just a man seemingly indifferent to the corpses in his path as his will pulls him forward.
We get a small interaction between Skintick and Nimander that reveals Skintick’s acuity in reading Kallor’s take on Rake. Kallor sees their father as an equal (it isn’t just the readers that need to be keen to subtext, characters do too).
Skintick offers the idea of sicking Kallor on the Dying God, hoping he “decid[es] to do something for his own reasons, but something that ends up solving our problem.” I like the use of “deciding to do something for his own reasons,” as this aligns so well with authenticity in existentialism (and the absence of some absolute morality for authenticity).
As Nimander approaches the tower behind Kallor, both Nimander and the readers get a great sense of horror, the weird, the uncanny, and the sublime with how Erikson describes the scenery:

Drawing closer to the ruin, they fell silent. Decrepit as it was, the tower was imposing. The air around it seemed grainy, somehow brittle, ominously cold despite the sun’s fierce heat.
The highest of the walls revealed a section of ceiling just below the uppermost set of stones, projecting without any other obvious support to cast a deep shadow upon the ground floor beneath it. The facing wall reached only high enough to encompass a narrow, steeply arched doorway. Just outside this entrance and to one side was a belly-shaped pot in which grew a few straggly plants with drooping flowers, so incongruous amid the air of abandonment that Nimander simply stared down at them, disbelieving.

Nimander notes an incongruity of this place — its aesthetic of abandonment juxtaposed with a curated garden. “The cold despite the sun’s fierce heat.” This evokes a certain unsettledness to Nimander (and thus, the reader). These genre conventions are sources of tension and anxiety, similar to non-diegetic violins building up to a real or false jump-scare in a slasher flick.
Arrogantly, Kallor chooses to go out of his way and insult the presumed Jaghut within the tower. Classic Kallor. The Jaghut replies “nothing changes,” resulting in Kallor shooting Skintick and Nimander a “pleased smirk.”

Tea time, but before falling into a rabbit-hole and not after.

Before Kallor can announce himself, the Jaghut lists off Kallor’s titles, his facticity. Kallor’s reputation precedes him and there’s an asymmetry here in which the Jaghut knows who Kallor is but Kallor doesn’t yet know who the Jaghut is. This is our first hint that this meeting isn’t serendipitous, and is instead an intentional interaction with regards to the plot. And if this Jaghut knows of Kallor, does he know those who Kallor travels with? Who is this Jaghut’s intended audience among those options?
I also like the play here with facticity: the Jaghut lists out things about Kallor, but is Kallor some sum of those thing-nesses? How many are true, how many are manufactured myths? It’s an act by this Jaghut to Gaze upon Kallor, to show to Kallor that he’s being seen. It’s a deliberate tactic to destabilise and decenter Kallor: an offensive.
We as readers are informed of Kallor’s limitations from the Azathanai curses via Draconus, K’rul and Nightchill, but these limitations on Kallor don’t necessarily restrict his freedom until Kallor allows them.
We get a flash of Jaghut humour and guest rites — this ancient dismisses Kallor while inviting everyone in for tea. Interestingly, Erikson has this Jaghut use the proper noun of ‘Others’ which lends me to think that an existentialist lens hasn’t been the worst pick (not that ‘Othering’ is strictly existentialist by any means).
So, we’ve had corpses drained dry for kelyk, alien plant-life, a ruined tower of an unknown age stumbled upon beyond the urban, a preternatural creature to Nimander and his kin (something they’ve maybe only witnessed a handful of times) and then we get this description:

The air of the two-walled chamber was frigid, the stones sheathed in amber-streaked hoarfrost. Where the other two walls should have been rose black, glimmering barriers of some unknown substance, and to look upon them too long was to feel vertiginous — Nimander almost pitched forward, drawn up only by Skintick’s sudden grip, and his friend whispered, ‘Never mind the ice, cousin.’
Ice, yes, it was just that. Astonishingly transparent ice–

I love this. First: “it was just that” screams “no it isn’t” to anyone paying attention to the words Erikson is using to make the reader uncomfortable. We know: Jaghut + Ice = Omtose Phellack. The atmospheric setting here is directly being called out in not just a sublime way, but his description has an added layer of horror to Omtose Phellack.
Erikson uses “vertiginous,” giving both Nimander and us a sense of vertigo, being decentred and unoriented. This isn’t too different from descriptions found in works like Vandermeer’s Annihilation or other New Weird authors. This ice wall calls to Nimander, draws from him feelings of unknown when he’s caught himself staring for too long — emphasis on staring.
For all intents and purposes, this ice wall is a thing, a being-in-itself, neither active nor passive. But its effect on Nimander is similar to the Dal Honese ancestors’ Gaze — this ice wall objectifies him, calls to him, evokes his being-for-others, and emotionally alienates him. The pull Nimander feels is his submitting his being-for-itself with the freedom of those that Gaze upon him. A justification of his facticity, his bad faith. This will be important later.
Eventually we get this awesome line from the Jaghut host:

’Once, long ago, a wolf god came before me. Tell me, Kallor, do you understand the nature of beast gods? Of course not. You are only a beast in the unfairly pejorative sense — unfair to beasts, that is. How is it, then, that the most ancient gods of this world were, one and all, beasts?’

There’s so much going on to unpack in this paragraph.

• He’s called Kallor a beast, but says his doing so is unfair to beasts (damn, this ice orc just roasted Kallor).
• It calls back to Nimander’s thoughts on children wielding sticks and beasts fleeing as a result. With or without knowing it, this Jaghut is calling Kallor a child, too, in the pejorative sense, unfair to children.
• He says the first gods were beasts, but does he mean these early gods were explicitly Beasts (in essence, not the pejorative sense) or that they were beast-like akin to the pejorative sense used on Kallor (or some combination of both)?
  • Interestingly, we know that this wolf god is possibly an Azathanai d’ivers from FoL — with this knowledge, would Fanderay and Togg count as a Beast-as-literal-beast beast-god?

Later, again, we get this Jaghut saying Others as a proper noun, and then the Others are called Tiste Andii.

‘Ah, and what of the Others with you? Might not they be interested?’
Clearing his throat, Skintick said, ‘Venerable one, we possess nothing of worth to one such as you.’
‘You are too modest, Tiste Andii.’
‘I am?’
'Each creature is born from one not its kind. This is a wonder, a miracle forged in the fires of chaos, for chaos indeed whispers in our blood, no matter its particular hue. If I but scrape your skin, so lightly as to leave but a momentary streak, that which I take from you beneath my nail contains every truth of you, your life, even your death, assuming violence does not claim you. A code, if you will, seemingly precise and so very ordered. Yet chaos churns. For all your similarities to your father, neither you nor the one named Nimander — nor any of your brothers and sisters — is identical to Anomander Dragnipurake. Do you refute this?’

Above, the Jaghut goes on to describe genetics, but also calls out the fact that they are children of Anomander — dude definitely knows more than he’s leading on, that’s for sure, and is winking directly to us readers, seemingly going over the heads of both Kallor and the Tiste. Also, the bit about chaos in blood will come up again and again in later scenes and later essays.
Moreover, we see that the Jaghut says that which he scrapes "contains every truth of you, your life, even your death" — our genetics are facticities, among our thing-nesses. "Yet chaos churns," the Jaghut rebuts. That chaos in our blood is a source of our "no thing-ness," from which we may express our freedom against the determinism of genetics — of facticities — and transcend.

For each kind of beast there is a first such beast, more different from its parents than the rest of its kin, from which a new breed in due course emerges. Is this firstborn then a god?’

I love this for two reasons. One, it speaks to a criticism of the assumption that a prime-mover is necessarily divine. But, through the existentialist lens, it’s a challenge and criticism of the presumed Authority of Genealogy. Jumping back to the early musings on ancestry: if ancestors haunt us and dictate our facticity as a result of suppressing our being-for-itself, then where does that chain of dictating/suppressing end? And is that terminus also an Authority above all generations below it just due to its being something new, something sufficiently different from its own genealogy, its ancestors ‘behind’ it?
I also like the subtext of trauma as hereditary here with the double entendre behind ‘beast’, we can think of this Jaghut as asking if the primordial source of generational trauma has authority over its descendants? What does this dialogue mean for Nimander and his siblings and their place with respect to their father and the rest of the Tiste Andii people? Does this inform an analysis of Nimander’s chaotic double-pendulum between being-in-itself, being-for-itself, and his being-for-others?
A huge thing I would like to point out here, too, is that neither Skintick, Nimander, nor Kallor have used the Tiste Andii’s names, yet this Jaghut knows them by name. Kallor could deduce they were Rake’s children, but he didn’t know their names. Even though Skintick showcased an acuity to subtext when considering Kallor’s opinions of Rake, he doesn’t catch onto this subtlety. This Jaghut not only knows of Kallor, he knows of Nimander and his siblings. The evidence that this meeting isn’t serendipity continues to build.

‘You spoke of a wolf god,’ Skintick said. ‘You began to tell us a story.’
‘So I did. But you must be made to understand. It is a question of essences. To see a wolf and know it as pure, one must possess an image in oneself of a pure wolf, a perfect wolf.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Kallor grunted. ‘See a strange beast and someone tells you it is a wolf — and from this one memory, and perhaps a few more to follow, you have fashioned your image of a wolf. In my empires, philosophers spewed such rubbish for centuries, until, of course, I grew tired of them and had them tortured and executed.’

This sequence of dialogue is fantastic and reminds me of arguments foagainst the strong/weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis/es. We see the Jaghut musing on a seemingly prescriptive Platonic idealism that Kallor interrupts with a more descriptive, pragmatic, empirical framework in which he follows with a jest of torturing and executing philosophers (remind me to never live in the Kallorian Empire).
Kallor speaks as if his words contradict the Jaghut and show the assumed idealism to be wrong. But, by Kallor’s own argument, the Jaghut’s words of ‘pure’ and ‘perfect’ are just as empirically contingent to one’s memories as ‘wolf’ is. The combinations of signs and symbols language users use give flesh to those signs’ and symbols’ own meaning — but bury that meaning beneath the flesh by doing so. The concept of a ‘perfect wolf’ (i.e., ‘perfect’ + ‘wolf’) emerging from one’s own contingency with the notion of ‘perfect’ and ‘wolf’ is entirely possible without that imagined ‘perfect wolf’ being actually some idealisation, i.e., some Platonic Perfect Wolf.
The Jaghut responds with laughter to Kallor’s absurdity: both in his misinterpretation of the Jaghut’s musings as well as the nature of Kallor’s brutal reaction to those that question things he finds to be rubbish. This pairs well with Skintick’s future POV in this sequence, but the contrast between Kallor and this Jaghut is entertaining nonetheless. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish when Kallor is telling the truth about his brutality or if his mutterings are just words congruent to his reputation.
The two then have a pissing contest. We find out the Jaghut was in disguise — I don’t have the evidence or time here to say, but there are ideas that this particular Jaghut is a d'ivers and it is fucking awesome even if untrue. The discussion here points to some T’lan Imass’ Jaghut War. It being the Kron, I’m inclined to wonder if there is a relationship with the bones Karsa stumbles upon in HoC (where he and his war party find Calm).

Skintick squatted to pick up two of the cups, straightening to hand one to Nimander. The steam rising from the tea was heady, hinting of mint and cloves and something else. The taste numbed his tongue.

Don’t take candy from strangers tea from Jaghut, people.
We find out that Raest is this Jaghut’s child. We find out that this Jaghut took on 43 T’lan Imass and a Bonecaster, killing them all. This is a threat rallied back against Kallor’s assertion that he’s killed Jaghut.

Teeth bared, Kallor bent down to retrieve his cup.
The Jaghut’s left hand shot out, closing about Kallor’s wrist. ‘You wounded that wolf god,’ he said.

Oh shit. What follows is one of the first times I can recall that Kallor is scared. Contrast with his earlier treatment of Rake as equal.

'Oh, be quiet, Kallor. This tower was an Azath once. Shall I awaken it for you?’
Wondering, Nimander watched as Kallor backed towards the entrance, eyes wide in that weathered, pallid face, the look of raw recognition dawning. ‘Gothos, what are you doing here?’
‘Where else should I be? Now remain outside — these two Tiste Andii must go away for a while.’

The revelation: the Jaghut is none other than the Lord of Hate himself, Gothos. You can understand why Kallor, always so arrogant, submits to Gothos and listens to his instruction.
Immediately after the reveal, Skintick and Nimander succumb to the effects of whatever extra ingredient Gothos had slipped into their tea. We get this final sequence:

Nimander’s eyes were drawn once more to the walls of ice. Black depths, shapes moving within.
He staggered, reached out his hands–
‘Oh, don’t step in there–’
And then he was falling forward, his hands passing into the wall before him, no resistance at all.
‘Nimander, do not–’
Blackness.

Again, the readers eyes are drawn along with Nimander's to the icy, abyss-like, objectifying, Gazing threshold. Here's where the sublime and the weird really flavour the setting in this scene.
There's a bell’s echo here from the start of this scene: this sequence starts with Nimander discussing the uncertainty related to moving through a portal with Andarist away from the rest of his kin, a breaching. During these final lines of this first scene, we get a tension between us and the unknown, between what has happened and that-which-is-to-come, between what we’ve imagined about Malazan’s cosmos and some contorting of those assumptions. What’s beyond the veil decentres not only Nimander in its draw and pushing him to being-for-others, but it decentres the readers too. Hic sunt dracones, terra incognita, the sublime, the enigmatic, the terror. We’re made to feel small and inconsequential by this icy threshold.
It isn’t mysterious because it evades our Gaze like other fantastical things (e.g., many renditions of some archetypal tricksters found within various folklores), instead it invites our Gaze eventually since It Gazes back (almost Nietzschean).

Thoughts

Calling back to the genre conventions, this extended scene is one that definitely plays with the established conventions of Gothic literature and its descendants. Constantly, Erikson hits us with tension sewn into his choice of words in Nimander’s ruminations, his angst associated to diaspora, the notion of Dal Honese ancestors gazing upon their descendants from clay walls, absent ancestors that too haunt the same, the fields of scarecrows as desiccated (and harvested) bodies of worshippers, the alien plant-life, the ancient Jaghut tower, the ice threshold. Each of these (and those unmentioned) add onto to the dissociation (de-centering) of both Nimander and us, the readers. Each of us seem small and inconsequential to the dynamism of the cosmos: everything we know, including that of what we already know about the Malazan universe (and our own) can be challenged. We’re each just travellers who have stumbled upon a shattered visage in the desert that reads: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
This stands in contrast to — almost a revolution against — the modalities one can garnish from the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment that favour an almost religious rationalism and positivism. This is why I believe (and hope I have shown) that the existentialist (and those schools of thought peripheral to it) lens is apt. The genealogy of Gothic literature serves as a grammatical sandbox that gives way to exploring the things that existentialism tries to frame in its study, such as the dread and anxieties — the nothingness (no thing-ness) — of being.
Not only are the Dal Honese clay-filled ancestors present to alienate the reader by entertaining a certain ‘exoticism’ (by the readers’ juxtaposing such practices against what we consider ‘normal’ — here's where Sartre is applied to White or Male Gazes), but they are there as conduits for understanding how Nimander is affected by Others, by their Looks — his siblings, his absent father, his dead uncle, Kallor, Gothos, and the icy threshold — even if this ‘othering’ is one done only by Nimander onto himself (the house settling perceived as a footfall). This becomes more important in the scenes that follow.
So, how does this relate to the Eleint, dragonblood or sorcery? If you want to know now, please read ahead in the text — i.e., he future scenes in this sequence in Chapter 8 of TtH — you’ll find out. Otherwise, I’ll attempt to provide more clarity in the follow-up post(s). Until then, I just want put forth some questions:

• Are the Eleint actually dragons in the usual fantastical/conventional sense, or are they something different, something alien, something terrifying, something that evokes horror?
• If meaning-making (and, as such, essentializing) — according to my reading of existentialism — is a choice of ascribing/burying the Real with its facticity, what does this mean for K’rul’s warrenification and the birth of sorcery? What does this mean for aspecting, particularly for the Eleint and the Azathanai?

Beyond those questions (which align with my grander narrative shared in this collection of essays) — in regards to the plot, I think it is smart to continue asking, ‘why has Gothos ensured that Anomander’s children and Kallor would stumble upon his tower?’
¹ the facticity of what can be understood as objective states ascribed to things, including social constructions — thing-ness — e.g., how things are thrown into the world, a mode of existence that simply is, the contingent being of ordinary things, such the language(s) one speaks, one’s occupation, etc.
² the mode of existence of consciousness that stands in contrast to being-in-itself, “no thing-ness”, that which negates being-in-itself

Hello! My husband and I went on our first-ever cruise on the MSC Meraviglia earlier this month and it just occurred to me that it might be nice to post a review. Since the biggest questions I see people ask about with MSC are "how is the food?" and "why do people hate the food?" I thought I'd do a food review. Obviously I can't compare it with any of the other cruise lines, but we like to eat out and are willing to spend money on a great meal so that's what I am comparing it to. We've eaten at Michelin starred restaurants and typically avoid chains but on a normal day we're making spaghetti with meat sauce or dumping frozen garlic chicken pasta into a pot like the average American.
Before I get started with this, I need to note that I have been dealing with a health issue that makes me constantly somewhat queasy and have little appetite. While I've lost a bunch of weight I do not recommend this method. However, some days I feel better than others, and I had a couple of good days on the trip, enough to try a couple of specialty restaurants, but not enough to try everywhere I wanted to.
So MSC food is *different*. It's like when you go to Europe and the food isn't really unfamiliar, but you don't find the stuff you're used to eating. They don't really have fried food, they didn't seem to have bags of chips or candy. On days I didn't feel well, I ordered a chicken sandwich from room service. It came on thin-sliced white bread with no crusts, with sliced roasted chicken (not deli slices), tomato, and darker greens. The potato chips were hand-sliced potatoes and tasted like potatoes pan-fried with a little salt. There was a small side-salad too, again with darker greens, not iceberg or romaine, dressed with a little vinagrette. I got chocolate-chip cookies for dessert, and they were crisp and the size you'd get making them at home, not the giant size you usually get here. And it was all delicious! Hopefully that helps to clarify what I mean by "different".
My husband ate at Kaito Sushi by himself, and I joined him at Butcher's Cut and Ocean Cay specialty restaurants. He said the sushi was good, not spectacular, but at least as good or better than we get in our Midwestern city (which has a well-respected food scene). He liked it enough to eat there twice. At Butcher's Cut, I had bone marrow with parsley sauce for an appetizer, filet mignon and crispy fries for the entrée, and lava cake with vanilla ice cream for dessert. The steak was done perfectly medium-rare, per my request. I didn't try the sauces on the steak because it didn't need them. The scoop of ice cream with the lava cake was small but rich and creamy. Best, though, were the fries. OMG the fries were the most amazing thing I have ever tasted! I cannot express how much I loved them. Steak fries, perfectly crisp and lightly salty with almost a caramelized crust on the outside, perfectly soft and almost melty on the inside. If I could only eat those fries for the rest of my life, I would die happy. This was as good a meal as we would get at a higher-end steakhouse, and definitely worth buying the package.
At Ocean Cay, I had the crackling fennel salad (very good, and a large portion), the roasted lobster tail with bourbon vanilla cream and pureed carrots (very surprising and delicious flavors, not sure that I would have roasted lobster again) and crème brulée (large portion, very rich, so much that I couldn't finish it though I sure tried). I tried my husband's crab cakes - they were tender and seasoned fine for me but he thought they were a bit bland. His tuna steak was good, though. The waitstaff there were particularly attentive and helpful. Worth it with the package, though I got the lobster off the regular menu.
We are not drinkers so did not get an alcohol package. I got a glass of wine with supper at both specialty restaurants, but there were surprisingly few choices by the glass. They were both nice wines but I would have liked a few more options. BTW, there are AA meetings ("Friends of Bill W") every evening in the "library" - more a corner with some bookshelves - in case you need them.
We only ate in the main dining room once for supper. I would say it's like eating at a mid-range restaurant, maybe like a local chain. Not the best meal ever, but far from the worst. This is where you're most likely to find food that is closer to a typical American restaurant - they had meatloaf and potatoes as one option the night we went. Again, the staff is fantastic and are happy to give you more cheese or pepper or leave off the sauce, etc.
We ordered continental breakfast every day but one (it was free with our Fantastica experience). Pain au chocolate every morning, with fresh fruit! The only bad part was that I couldn't get a diet coke delivered with it - my husband ran up to the buffet to get some for me every morning. He said his coffee was great, though, plus he got big bottles of Sanpellegrino all day, so he was happy. We tried eggs and bacon one morning, but it wasn't that great. I had pain au chocolate with a little peanut butter and fruit the rest of the time and was quite content.
The buffet was big and very busy whenever I went to it. They had multiple stations for the more popular items, but I don't think everyone realized that. The pizza was, in fact, very good, but again it is not much like American pizza. The slices were large but had thin, flexible crusts that were not greasy and did not have tons of cheese or tomato sauce. There were pepperoni slices when I was there, but also white pizza and different kinds of veggie slices. The one closest to plain cheese was either pepperoni or one that had small slices of zucchini scattered on it that would be easy to pick off if you didn't want them. If you have a picky person in your party that intends to rely on pizza for their meals, please reconsider - it really isn't even like the Neapolitan pizza I've had here. They didn't have peanut butter out anywhere but they had it available. They had a grill section for burgers and hot dogs (I didn't get a close look, so not sure what else might be there but I didn't see chicken nuggets). They had lots of salad fixings and pasta salad and fruit and a rotisserie chicken station. A wide variety of tasty bread and rolls and real butter. Desserts were usually small - two bites - pieces of cake in different flavors, not necessarily plain chocolate or vanilla. ETA: We just put together a charcuterie plate with french bread and prosciutto and salami and fresh mozzarella and pears, etc a couple of times. Highly recommended.
The chocolate place served an absolutely divine hot chocolate with whipped cream, and the gelato was stellar, but they are extra. Budget for them, both in cash and calories.
My husband gained two pounds even though he mostly lounged around and he ate constantly. I'm sure it's possible to gain a lot more but the smaller portion sizes and dearth of heavy sauces and fried food definitely helped. Neither of us felt deprived at all.
So TL;DR: MDR food was fine, specialty restaurants better and worth the package prices, but picky eaters or fried-food lovers may not be happy with food options.

Join the Fort Worth discord to connect w/other folks in FW, chat & check out different meet ups: https://discord.com/invite/9KUdWdQVdJ
Thought this post would be the first w/o the PSA, but need to include it again: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
Early voting begins May 30th-June 6th for the Sat, June 10 runoff election. The ballot will include District 11 City Council member, District 5 Fort Worth ISD school board member, and District 4 TCC trustee.
[Tuesday May 30th]
Gymnastics - Level 1 3:30 p.m. Southwest Community Center $20-$65 Kids ages 5-18 can learn basic skills in a well-structured class.
Free Yoga Burnett Park 5:30-6:15PM bring your own mat
Silent Book Club 6:30-8PM Hotel Dryce free Silent Book Club
Geeks Who Drink T&P Tavern 7:30PM
Geeks Who Drink Trivia Night University Pub FW 8-10PM
Trig44 presents Trig Tuesday ft. Dalton Torres, Taylor Ochs, Matt Gumley Tulips FW doors 7, show 8PM
[Wednesday May 31st]
Martin House Brewing Company new permanent food truck, The Barley Gastrovan, serves options like wagyu burgers, confit pork wings, & cheese curds Operated by the owners of Rye in McKinney, the food truck’s open Wed-Sun
“Lucas before Luke” 7-10:30 p.m. The Stage West Theatre Free Join the FW Film Club’s monthly screening party
Nature Hike 10-11:30 a.m. Nature Center, 9601 Fossil Ridge Rd. $5 Take in the beauty of the Texas countryside during this morning hike surrounded by blooming flowers.
Lunchtime Music Series Burnett Park 12-1PM Grab your lunch & enjoy the beautiful weather paired w/local artists
We Run Wednesday’s The trailhead at clearfork 6:30-8PM
Fort Worth Film Club May Signature Screening: Lucas before Luke The Stage West Theatre 7-10:30PM
No Pressure w/ Koyo, Illusion, & Fleshwater Tulips No Pressure, Koyo, Illusion, Fleshwater Tulips FW 7PM
Tekken 7 weekly meet 6-11PM, 21+ after 8PM Electric Starship Arcade $10 for the night/ $20 monthly pass Can bring your own wired controllefight stick or they’ll have some for public use If enough people, casual tournament bracket @ 9
BettySoo and Pat Byrne The Post at River East 8PM An intimate acoustic performance $20+
[Thursday Jun 1st]
Family Camp 6-9 p.m. $45-$200 Bring kids ages 8+ to learn how to make a glass vase, suncatcher, and daisy.
Happy HouCrazy Crowler Sale 4-9PM Salsa Dance Lessons 7-8PM Neutral Ground Brewing Company
Erick Willis LIVE Rusty Nickel IceHouse 6PM $10+
Summer Menu Tasting Taste Community Restaurant 6-8PM
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s Concerts in the Garden Festival Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Greater Tuna Downtown Cowtown at the Isis June 1-3 8PM 2-man comedy show
Geeks Who Drink Trivia Night HopFusion Ale Works 8-10PM
Crimson Wine Tasting at Neighbor’s House Grocery complimentary wine tasting for sipping & shopping. Guests get to try 4 different wines from Napa’s Crimson Wine Group Drop by anytime 4:30-6:30 pm
[Friday Jun 2nd]
First Fri-YAY All day Fort Worth Bike Sharing Stations Free Explore the city on wheels with a free bike rental courtesy of Fort Worth Bike Sharing and the Blue Zones Project — promo code “92020APP.”
Kimbell Happy Hour Kimbell Art Museum’s weekend happy hour 5-7 pm beverages & bites w/live music by the Allegro Guitar Society.
National Donut Day TX Whiskey 6 p.m. a donut + cocktail pairing, burgers, live music, on-site engraving, & a donut hole bar $35
FWSO’s Concerts in the Gardenl Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Radio Highway Performs the Music of the Eagles *The orchestra does not perform on this concert.
Locals Only Hip Hop Haltom Theater 7-11PM
Live Music on the Plaza, Sundance Square 7-10PM every Fri-Sun
Dial Up - A 90's Party Experience Dial Up Tulips FW 8PM $15
Rhett Miller Tannahill's Tavern & Music Hall 8PM $28+
D.L. Hughley Arlington Improv Jun 2-4 times vary
That Texas Meskin Tour - THAT MEXICAN OT Ridglea Theater $40+
Special E.D w\ Dude-Man & MORE Doors 7:00pm, Start 8:00pm Lola's Fort Worth
[Saturday Jun 3rd]
Drag with Me! The Show: Brunch Located upstairs at The Red Goose Saloon the ONLY interactive Drag Show of its kind: 2 audience members will be selected each show to be transformed into a Drag Queen themselves, lip sync battle, & win their very own Drag with Me! Crown! Ticket price inc Meal & Show! 18+
FWSO’s Concerts in the Gardenl Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Chicago Nights featuring Jason Scheff
Zumba Sundance Square Plaza 9:45am - 11:00am
Goat Yoga Bedford! Generations Park at Boyd Ranch 10-11AM $20+
Catalina Canned Wine Mixer Truck Yard Alliance 12PM themed after the movie Step Brothers. Wear your best tuxedo t-shirt for a wine tasting, photo ops, food trucks, & a Step Brothers cover band. Admission is free, but a $15 wine tasting is offered 7-9 pm, ft. six wine samples & a souvenir glass filled w/frose. Costume contests held 5 pm & 10 pm.
Random Direction artist pop up 1-6PM Love Sammy's chef popup 2-7PM Neutral Ground Brewing Company
CyberPunk w/ APT 75 + P!xel Ampersand 5:15-9PM
Miracle Nights Allmo$t Music US Tour Fort Worth Ridglea Theater 6PM
Ill Nino with Through Fire, Dropout Kings and more The Rail Club Live 6:30PM
WOODEYE (One Night Only) w/ Brave Little Howl + Vacation Dad Lola's 8PM $15
FANCY: Queens of Country Party - 21+ Tulips FW 10PM $15+
WOODEYE (One Night Only) w / Brave Little Howl + Vacation Dad Doors 7:00pm, Start 8:00pm Lola's Fort Worth
[Sunday June 4th]
Panther Island Beer Yoga Panther Island Brewing 10:30AM $20
Sunday Supper Club: Courtney Patton and Bri Bagwell The Post at River East 6PM $25+
The Damn Quails Fort Brewery & Pizza 7PM $10
FW Symphony Orchestra’s Concerts in the Gardenl Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Classical Mystery Tour: A Tribute to the Beatles**The orchestra does not perform on this concert
Summer Afternoon Tea at Indulge Enjoy 3 courses inc chicken tarragon sandwiches, roasted vegetable phyllo cups, street corn crostinis, scones w/clotted cream & jam, cream puffs, madeleines, & shortbread cookies. The tea service is $65 & begins at 2 pm.
[Ongoing]
Riders of the Purple Sage Hip Pocket Theatre until June 11 Fridays-Sundays 9PM $10+ Featuring action, adventure, & romance in the wide open spaces, it’s a classic Western of the silent film era
“Lives of the Gods” until Sept. 3 Kimbell Art Museum $14+ Explore the divinity of Mayan art at this exhibition of nearly 100 rarely seen masterpieces & discoveries

Sharing my experience from my first long smoke

• Pork Butt about 5lbs
• Traeger Pro 22
• Smoked with Traeger Cherrywood Pellets
  
• Trimmed some of the fat, used yellow mustard as a binder, and seasoned it pretty heavily with a dry rub.
  
• Got the smoker up to 225, and put the Butt in at 8am fat side down. Pulled it at 163F, (4:00PM ish) flipped it over (fat side up), added a little coca-cola to the foil pan, added butter on top of the meat and wrapped it tightly in foil. Back on the smoker until about 7:00pm when people were starving. Caved in and pulled it at 190F, and let it rest for 40mins. (It stalled at 184F for like an hour)
  

The end result was alright, but I was expecting much better. The bone didn’t pull out like butter and it was a bit tough to shred.
Ya live and learn eh…

Here's a recipe for a delicious pork roast:
Ingredients:
4 to 5 pounds (1.8 to 2.3 kg) boneless pork loin roast 4 cloves of garlic, minced 2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil 2 tablespoons (30 ml) fresh rosemary, chopped 2 tablespoons (30 ml) fresh thyme, chopped 1 tablespoon (15 ml) paprika 1 teaspoon (5 ml) salt 1 teaspoon (5 ml) ground black pepper 1 cup (240 ml) chicken or vegetable broth 1/2 cup (120 ml) dry white wine (optional) Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). In a small bowl, combine the minced garlic, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, paprika, salt, and black pepper to make a herb rub. Pat the pork roast dry with paper towels. Place the roast on a cutting board or a large platter. Rub the herb mixture all over the pork roast, ensuring it's evenly coated on all sides. If you have time, let the pork roast marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or up to overnight. This step is optional but helps the flavors to penetrate the meat. Heat a large oven-safe skillet or roasting pan over medium-high heat. Add a tablespoon of olive oil and sear the pork roast on all sides until nicely browned, about 3-4 minutes per side. Once the pork roast is seared, pour the chicken or vegetable broth into the skillet or roasting pan. If desired, you can also add the white wine at this stage for added flavor. Transfer the skillet or roasting pan to the preheated oven. Roast the pork for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until the internal temperature reaches 145°F (63°C) on a meat thermometer. Occasionally baste the pork roast with the pan juices while it cooks to keep it moist and flavorful. Once cooked, remove the pork roast from the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes before slicing. This allows the juices to redistribute and the meat to become tender. Slice the pork roast into thin slices and serve it with the pan juices as a gravy. Enjoy your delicious pork roast with your favorite side dishes like roasted potatoes, steamed vegetables, or a fresh salad.

I am in no way a bbq expert. Hell, these are the only two places I have had bbq ever (I have been to another place in Austin but I forgot the name). But I thought a review from a novice can be useful for some people. I have tried 4 items from each place and here’s my review-

1. Brisket (moist) - Lockhart wins by a mile. TB’s brisket is not as juicy and flavorful as you’d expect. I literally had involuntary sound coming out of my mouth after the first bite I took from the Lockhart brisket.
   
2. Pork ribs - TB wins this one because theirs is so soft and the meat literally falls off the bone. Lockhart is not bad but theirs are slightly more chewy.
   
3. Jalapeño Sausage - TB’s sausage has thinner skin, apart from that pretty much tastes the same.
   
4. Mac n cheese - Lockhart’s spicy mac n cheese is a clear winner against TB’s regular mac n cheese just because it’s spicy.
   

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

Howdy folks! I'm reading a recipe that calls for 8-10 lb pork shoulder, skin on and bone in. I'm thinking a picnic cut should work for that. Does that make sense?

Attention meat lovers and flavor fanatics! Boneyard Barbecue is here to satisfy your BBQ cravings like never before. Located in the heart of town, our restaurant is a haven for all things smoky, juicy, and delicious.
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🌽 Sides that Delight: Pair your BBQ feast with our delectable sides that will leave you wanting more. From classic coleslaw and buttery cornbread to tangy baked beans and crispy onion rings, our sides are the perfect complement to your meaty indulgence.
🔥 Unforgettable Flavors: At Boneyard Barbecue, we take pride in our commitment to authentic BBQ flavors. Our pitmasters use traditional smoking techniques and top-quality ingredients to ensure every bite is packed with smoky, savory goodness.