A $45 swap meet blade outcutting the $180 YouTube special is wild.

Ha! I killed like 4 calatheas blaming my tap water before realizing my "bright indirect" was basically plant desert sun. The internet just loves a dramatic scapegoat I guess. Glad yours bounced back, nothing beats clean new growth after months of crispy sadness.

The "sad, naked fungus swimming in grease" line got me good because I have stared into that same oily abyss once before myself. Mine was fried pickles, and I figured hey, pickles are already wet and salty, how hard could it be. Turns out batter does not care about your confidence, it just slides off into the oil and laughs. My first batch came out looking like wrinkled green fingers that had given up on life. The fix for me was drying everything like crazy and keeping the batter so cold my fingers went numb mixing it. My dog would not even eat the failed ones, which honestly hurt worse than the wasted oil.