4 annoying sounds you need to stop making

Video. Covers:



  • uptalk
  • vocal fry (and its cousin "sexy baby vocal virus": high pitch and vocal fry and uptalk)
  • shushing
  • "sustained mid-central vowel or bilabial nasal" noise; how we talk when we don't want the other person to interrupt.

Hard Boiled Eggs with an Electric Pressure Cooker

[click headline above] Works great! I've tried for a long time to make easy-to-peel hard boiled eggs, and this method seems to work well. And the Instant Pot is great for all kinds of other things: as a slow cooker, rice cooker, for saute and soups, etc.



My exact method for eggs:



  • although most pressure cookers come with a steamer tray or rack, I lost mine, so I got one of those folding metal ones [link] and put that in the pot
  • loaded a dozen eggs into it, and added approx. 1 cup water
  • put on the lid, with the vent in the closed position
  • started the cooker in manual mode, high pressure, set for 5 minutes
  • the device warmed up, hissed for a bit until the pressure built up, and then began timing 5 minutes, beeping when done and reverting to Keep Warm
  • I let it sit like that for 5 minutes, then released the pressure, and used tongs to move the eggs into an ice water bath to stop the cooking process
  • peeled one, very nice! put the rest back into the egg carton with "HB" written on it and put them in the fridge; had another a few hours later, still easy to peel and perfectly done
How I've found is the best way to peel eggs: tap them around the equator on the counter or side of the sink to break the shell, then roll them briefly between your hands to further pulverize the shell, and then peel the shell off.

There are many more recipes out there for eggs this way, and many of them use low pressure and a natural pressure release (where you just let things cool down until the pressure lets up; less steps); I may try one of those with the next batch.