Stuff...

[tarotgal]

Watched 'Jake in Progress' tonight. Cute :-) In the first episode that was on, he sneezes... or fakes a sneeze, perhaps, from an allergy to cats. Just something to look out for if and when this episode repeats when the series actually officially starts.

Fic progress:

• Obviously, I wrote a short Wolfcrawler ficlet and posted that. It just struck me today as I was eating lunch/breakfast and had to go and write it. *snuggles them*
  
• Just now finished my annual Oliver/Percy St. Patty's Day fic. I'll post it on St. Patty's Day, as usual. It's short & sweet and certainly less angsty than last year's.
  
• Started a page for my gay nightclub series which I am unoficially calling 'Strokes'. Counting "Escape", which is now called "Sweetie's Story" I have 3 finished fics and 2 WIPs in the "introductory" series, though there may be more depending on the characters. I have another 2 started starring Jamie, Sweetie's love interest in "Escape" who is right now my favorite character by far. Though Coyote's kind of growing on me, too. There are a couple characters I'm having trouble with, but that's mostly because I've never written anyone quite like them before.
  
• Came up with a fantastic Obi/Qui non-sneezefic I really want to work on. It's an AU, which is strange, coming from me. But it'll be a lot of fun and probably much less cliche than the Mindwiped-Slave!Obi fic I've been working on. Yummy as the angst in that one is :-)
  
• Played a little with another Oliver/Percy fic that's sitting open in my taskbar at the moment. It's close to getting done. I need to remember to put in the part where they talk about Percy's brothers, but otherwise I just need to get through fortune cookie scene without sounding too cheesy and it's good to go :-)
  

My back's been hurting all day again. Completely different spot, though. Think I pulled a muscle or slept on it wrong or something. Growl.

And then I got all excited about buying a pack of jellybeans only to find there's Gelatin in them. GROWL! Stupid me. The last few times I bought jelly beans there wasn't any, but I switched brands because of a sale and forgot to check. Stupid me.

Need to go get a load of clothes out of the dryer now. Then I'm off to bed. Must go to work early in the morning *grumble*

Comments

[silly-sooze.livejournal.com]

how can there not be gelatin in jelly beans? or am I being stupid?

[tarotgal]

You're being stupid. LOL JK!!

Seriously, that's an excellent question :-) According to recipes "Jellybeans must contain a gelatinizing agent, such as starch, gelatin, pectin or gum arabic to provide the chewy texture"
There are some brands like the well-known 'Jelly Belly' (who does Bernie Botts Every Flavor Beans) which do not use gelatin as that particular agent. Jelly Bellys aren't *vegan* since they do use dairy for a few of their flavors and beeswax for part of the coating, but as I'm not a vegan, I can live with that. Sorry bees and milk-giving moo-cows.
I have recently seen some snack packs (like Jello gelatin snack cups) that are made without gelatin and use agar instead (I *sooooo* miss Jello so that rocks for me!). Now if they could only sell gelatin-free rice krispie treats I'd be in heaven!

So to answer your question, most jelly beans DO contain gelatin, but there are substitutes that can be used and *are* being used by a few companies. Just not the one I stupidly bought from without checking. *kicks self*

A couple of sites in my bookmarks which seem to have a little info on this (though it might be easier to do a yahoo search on jelly beans and/or gelatin substitutes)-
http://www.ivu.org/faq/gelatine.html
http://veggietable.allinfo-about.com/articles/gl-gelatin.html
http://www.vegsoc.org/info/gelling.html

[silly-sooze.livejournal.com]

yay, thanks for the explanation. where did you get that perfectly lovely icon with those beautiful drawings, anyway?

[tarotgal]

Yet another excellent question! :-)

I made the icon myself, but the drawings are by my favorite HP artist ever. Marta(seviet)'s work can be found on her website Art Dungeon. She's to blame for my love of Oliver/Percy. And she did a great book 5 series that is not to be missed. But my favorite is how she draws the Weasleys- each one so different, and yet clearly related. Her work is just fantastic.