Nirvana in Fire & homemade General Tso's

[hugseverycat]

My brother came over tonight and we cooked dinner and watched some Nirvana in Fire, as is becoming our custom on Mondays. We made General Tso's chicken from scratch using this recipe on Serious Eats. The recipe was extremely messy and much, much more time consuming than I had imagined, but it was really really good! The sauce was spicy and vinegary and a little bit sweet. If I made it again, I'd probably double the sauce. My brother is also starting to learn to cook a little more seriously so I try to teach him some things. Tonight he learned how to separate an egg and he learned the joys of using long cooking chopsticks.

I am not a particularly good cook, but I am a pretty good baker and I think some of the skills are transferring over slowly but surely. Honestly, I find cooking kind of exhausting, a lot of effort just to do something you do 3 times a day: eat. Baking is more satisfying because baking is almost always something I do for someone else. It's an event, a treat. A gift. So cooking dinner with my brother kind of feels more like we're doing something special together rather than the drudgery of keeping our bodies alive.

Anyway, NIRVANA IN FIRE!! Spoilers thru episode 26.

Tonight we watched episodes 24-26.

Poor Jingrui! My heart breaks for this boy. I hope he has a good time meeting family #3. I hope they are a little less murdery.

I was dying during the scene on Consort Jing's birthday, where she is visiting the Empress and Consort Yue shows up. The Empress and Consort Yue sitting there throwing verbal knives at each other while Consort Jing is like, "if I sit very very still, no one will stab me".

And I was wondering when Prince Yu (and Qin Banruo) would start to notice that, ever since Mei Changsu showed up and started "helping" them, everything has been going wrong. Sure, it's been going a bit more wrong for the Crown Prince, but you'd think the Divine Talent would be able to do a little better than having Prince Yu's fortunes fall only slightly less than his brother's.

Last but not least... That Scene where Mei Changsu bows before Prince Jing! Ugh! It's just... clenches fist... SO MUCH. I am not sure whether Mei Changsu actually wanted Prince Jing to give up the search for the truth, or if he was just trying to play it off like "I'm definitely not Lin Shu". But I think Consort Jing might notice some things in the travelogue he borrowed that Prince Jing didn't.

Comments

[lirelyn]

Ahhhh that Jingrui farewell was the first time I realized this show had a very particular hold on my emotions. I don't cry super easily and usually only at big final things, but there I was weeping just because Jingrui is so good! He's so good.

And that bowing scene was INTENSE. And Consort Jing is my absolute favorite, you really start to see how sharp and skillful she is and it's wonderful.

I got into cdramas through The Untamed and I love it with all my heart, but Nirvana in Fire, to me, is just one of the best shows I've ever seen.

[hugseverycat]

It is really, really good. The scene early on when Mei Changsu tells Prince Jing he wants to make him emperor, I was like, YES I am irrevocably invested in this show. The scene where he is talking to Xie Yu in the prison was also just incredible.

I watched ~20 episodes on my own before I decided to bring my brother in and we started over from zero. Part of me just wants to binge the whole rest of it because I'm so into it, but the other part of me is enjoying being forced to space it out.