I can’t make a comparison unfortunately as I haven’t joined lemmy.zip, but it seems like a good instance to me!

This was my exact trajectory and reasoning, but I ended up adding lemmings.world after that. 😅

I have joined several instances and all have their pros and cons, but I’ll plug the most recent one (lemmings.world) because it checked all of these boxes for me:

• Federated with both lemmy.world and beehaw.org
• Not federated with certain more problematic instances
• Stable/good uptime record
• Upvotes/downvotes, community creation and image uploads enabled
• I liked the name

Yes, I’d love an audiobooks community! I’d also like audiobook and ebook deals communities.

A headphones community exists! !headphones@lemmy.film

Beauty communities seem conspicuously absent for topics that have a large internet presence elsewhere. Makeup, skincare, hair, nail art, etc. I specifically miss the asian beauty sub.

We have a few general cooking/food communities that are nice and active, but I miss more specific things like ask culinary, chef knives, and communities geared toward dietary restrictions.

City and region-specific forums.

It’s basically the same for me! I’d say anchovies/fish sauce in general. My first introduction was through Thai fish sauce, which I grew up with and learned how to use in Thai cooking. Then, I started cooking with anchovies in oil and Worcestershire sauce in what I viewed as their respective cuisines. At some point I understood the similar role these ingredients played in providing the umami element needed to complete a dish, and that made me feel more confident using them in a wider variety of foods and “across” cuisines as needed. Used in the appropriate amount, they won’t overpower a dish or turn it fishy; a little bit provides so much flavor!