Penguins in my dreams
Burrow themselves in my arms,
Chirping happily.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Birthday Party Baking
Over the weekend we had our annual tri-birthday party for me and my two friends, Sarah and Jeff. This year I decided to make the cakes as well as a couple of dips to tide people over for the evening.
Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
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Cake 1: Pound Cake I pulled this from the Cooks' Illustrated cookbook my girlfriend's parents got me for Christmas. It was my first attempt at Pound Cake and I slightly overcooked it, but it still turned out fairly well. This was the "classy" cake and as such gave it to Sarah. |
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Cake 2: Chocolate Sheet Cake This one went to Jeff. If you love chocolate, you'll love this cake. I considered it the "common man's" cake of the group and it was very easy to make, though applying the warm icing was a mess as my sheet cake baked lopsided. This was probably the most popular of the three, followed closely by... |
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Cake 3: The Pig Cake This one was a bit weird and as such I gave it to myself. It's a boxed yellow cake mix with mandarin oranges in the batter and a pineapple whipped topping. While delicious, the frosting drowned out the flavor of cake, but that was probably good as I accidentally added double the margarine. |
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Dip 1: Salsa Probably the easiest thing I made and by far my favorite of the bunch. I would absolutely recommend try this out for yourself. That said, if you don’t have a food processor I can’t vouch for the consistency, which might alter my opinion. |
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Dip 2: Red Pepper Hummus It's so bad I'm not going to bother linking to the recipe. This used waaaay too much tahini, to the point where it just tasted like peanut butter. I tried to save it by adding more red peppers, garbanzo beans and lemon juice, but to no avail. Someday I'll find a good hummus recipe, but not today. |
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Dip 3: Spinach and Artichoke I honestly didn't try enough of it to give it a fair shake, but what I tasted I liked. We did end up throwing it into the food processor as we though the pieces of artichoke and spinach were too big. I'll probably try it again, along with the salsa, at the next party. |
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Dip 4: Buffalo Chicken Though it may not look terribly appealing, this was another incredibly delicious dish. Sadly, I don't think I'd ever make it for myself as it involves two sticks of cream cheese and a cup of ranch dressing. Evening sticking to low-fat versions of both it was a fairly rich dish. But I'll gladly make it for others. |
Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Daily Haikus - January 27, 2013
Spent the day cooking
Feeding the birthday masses
Cake, cake, dips, cake, dips.
Eleven Thirty
Is too late to talk outside
Lo, the cops arrive.
Real chai from a pot
Steeped and mixed with sugar, milk
Holds the rain at bay.
Feeding the birthday masses
Cake, cake, dips, cake, dips.
Eleven Thirty
Is too late to talk outside
Lo, the cops arrive.
Real chai from a pot
Steeped and mixed with sugar, milk
Holds the rain at bay.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Stories from the Dungeon (sans Dragons)
In 2008, five year years after their last edition, Wizards of the Coast release the 4th Edition rule set for Dungeons & Dragons. Having all played D&D back in the day, it was suggested by my friend Brian that our gaming group have a go at it again for nostalgia’s sake. That ‘go’ lasted two and a half years.
Now there are many entertaining stories from that campaign, but none more dear to my heart than that of time my character finally got what was coming to him in the form of an angry Owlbear.
Alabaster was my foppish Eladrin (think magically inclined Elves) Wizard of no small repute, but he suffered from a chronic case of being kind of a dick. He usually got away with it, but karma eventually caught up with him when our group stumbled into the middle of a brawl. Apparently a mother Owlbear and two of her cubs had stumbled into (and through) a Quickling village (tiny lightning-fast pixies. With knives.) and the residents were none too happy. As these things often do, it quickly descended into a free-for-all melee.
The quicklings thought we were attacking them too and Momma Owlbear was in a maternalistic frenzy and attacking anything that came within reach. The baby owlbears were having a great time chasing the colorful flying candy (and inadvertently trampling their little huts in the process), and, frankly, the PC’s had just suffered a fairly significant setback and needed to get back on the horse, so to speak. Spells were slung. Quicklings died. Mom was bloodied, which just pissed her off more. And the party was taking a huge beating. Finally, one of the cubs went down and mom snapped. She grabbed the remaining cub, flattened the largest building possible and hunkered down in the rubble. It was at this point that the party leader signaled the retreat. We were pretty messed up. Either of these groups would have been a giant fight. Both at once was too much to handle. So the party runs away into the forest, but Alabaster decided he wasn’t quite done having fun.
Turning invisible, he snuck up behind the Owlbear and her cubs and cast Thunderwave, sending the lot of them (and the rubble of the smashed hut) into another block of quickling huts. Alabaster then promptly teleported himself to the edge of the map as I giggled madly, thinking myself safe from repercussions. Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten that creatures could charge (and thereby double-move) and so the enraged mama Owlbear ran me down and tore me to pieces a square away from leaving the encounter. As the rest of the party had already escaped into the woods, nobody was around to save him.
Fortunately our DM was a generous God, and allowed my comrades to come back and recover what was left of my body in the hopes they could find a cleric and resurrect me. Unfortunately, at the time we were in the middle of vast forest with no towns or churches nearby that might offer such services. But they did find a forest witch, who for a suspiciously small fee was willing to give it a shot. It turns out her "best" involved vivisecting Alabaster and reanimating him as a giant Flesh Golem, who cheerfully spent the next few gaming sessions running around crushing everything in sight.
They eventually found a way to resurrect me into my original body (btw – casting resurrection on a creature made up of 35 other creatures….bad idea), but Alabaster will always remember those fond days as a hulking brute and the valuable lesson learned about fooling around with Owlbears.
Many thanks to Brian for filling in the blanks from my memory for this piece.
Image sources: 1, 2.
Now there are many entertaining stories from that campaign, but none more dear to my heart than that of time my character finally got what was coming to him in the form of an angry Owlbear.
Alabaster was my foppish Eladrin (think magically inclined Elves) Wizard of no small repute, but he suffered from a chronic case of being kind of a dick. He usually got away with it, but karma eventually caught up with him when our group stumbled into the middle of a brawl. Apparently a mother Owlbear and two of her cubs had stumbled into (and through) a Quickling village (tiny lightning-fast pixies. With knives.) and the residents were none too happy. As these things often do, it quickly descended into a free-for-all melee.The quicklings thought we were attacking them too and Momma Owlbear was in a maternalistic frenzy and attacking anything that came within reach. The baby owlbears were having a great time chasing the colorful flying candy (and inadvertently trampling their little huts in the process), and, frankly, the PC’s had just suffered a fairly significant setback and needed to get back on the horse, so to speak. Spells were slung. Quicklings died. Mom was bloodied, which just pissed her off more. And the party was taking a huge beating. Finally, one of the cubs went down and mom snapped. She grabbed the remaining cub, flattened the largest building possible and hunkered down in the rubble. It was at this point that the party leader signaled the retreat. We were pretty messed up. Either of these groups would have been a giant fight. Both at once was too much to handle. So the party runs away into the forest, but Alabaster decided he wasn’t quite done having fun.
Turning invisible, he snuck up behind the Owlbear and her cubs and cast Thunderwave, sending the lot of them (and the rubble of the smashed hut) into another block of quickling huts. Alabaster then promptly teleported himself to the edge of the map as I giggled madly, thinking myself safe from repercussions. Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten that creatures could charge (and thereby double-move) and so the enraged mama Owlbear ran me down and tore me to pieces a square away from leaving the encounter. As the rest of the party had already escaped into the woods, nobody was around to save him.
Fortunately our DM was a generous God, and allowed my comrades to come back and recover what was left of my body in the hopes they could find a cleric and resurrect me. Unfortunately, at the time we were in the middle of vast forest with no towns or churches nearby that might offer such services. But they did find a forest witch, who for a suspiciously small fee was willing to give it a shot. It turns out her "best" involved vivisecting Alabaster and reanimating him as a giant Flesh Golem, who cheerfully spent the next few gaming sessions running around crushing everything in sight. They eventually found a way to resurrect me into my original body (btw – casting resurrection on a creature made up of 35 other creatures….bad idea), but Alabaster will always remember those fond days as a hulking brute and the valuable lesson learned about fooling around with Owlbears.
Many thanks to Brian for filling in the blanks from my memory for this piece.
Image sources: 1, 2.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
For the Love of Injera
Saturday night I got my first taste of Ethiopian food and fell in love with their fascinating style of bread called Injera.
At first glance it looks like a very porous, thicker version of a crepe, and feels very much like foam padding or felt. My suspicion is that I could have made a very nice jacket out of the material, were I not constantly eating the damn stuff. The flavor is very much like sourdough, which was incredibly weird to me as it didn’t seem like a substance that should have that sort of taste. Fortunately it paired well with the food, so I got over the first impression quickly.
In Ethiopian cuisine the Injera takes the place of utensils and rolls of the bread are served with the meal, and the dishes themselves are presented on Injera. In our particularly case, we ordered three different dishes, Chicken, Beef, and Lamb Tibisi, and the chef threw in the Vegetarian platter as well and brought everything out on one giant Injera. To serve yourself you would simply tear of a piece of Injera, scoop up your desired filling and eat.
While the dishes were quite good (the chicken was my personal favorite), I think I ate more for the Injera than the dishes themselves. After the food was gone I continued to graze on the bread until we left. Suffice to say I will definitely being trying this out at home somewhere in the near future.
Image sources: 1, 2.
At first glance it looks like a very porous, thicker version of a crepe, and feels very much like foam padding or felt. My suspicion is that I could have made a very nice jacket out of the material, were I not constantly eating the damn stuff. The flavor is very much like sourdough, which was incredibly weird to me as it didn’t seem like a substance that should have that sort of taste. Fortunately it paired well with the food, so I got over the first impression quickly.
In Ethiopian cuisine the Injera takes the place of utensils and rolls of the bread are served with the meal, and the dishes themselves are presented on Injera. In our particularly case, we ordered three different dishes, Chicken, Beef, and Lamb Tibisi, and the chef threw in the Vegetarian platter as well and brought everything out on one giant Injera. To serve yourself you would simply tear of a piece of Injera, scoop up your desired filling and eat.
While the dishes were quite good (the chicken was my personal favorite), I think I ate more for the Injera than the dishes themselves. After the food was gone I continued to graze on the bread until we left. Suffice to say I will definitely being trying this out at home somewhere in the near future.
Image sources: 1, 2.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Daily Haiku - Weekend Edition (January 21, 2013)
Played Risk Legacy,
Friendships reduced to rubble.
Why do we still play?
Ethiopians
Make some amazing, weird bread
Bring me some more, please.
Amour's beautiful
Yet terribly heart-breaking,
But that's how love goes.
Friendships reduced to rubble.
Why do we still play?
Ethiopians
Make some amazing, weird bread
Bring me some more, please.
Amour's beautiful
Yet terribly heart-breaking,
But that's how love goes.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Daily Haiku - January 17, 2013
Mundane shorn with fear,
Arms flail as I run about.
Last minute reprieve!
Arms flail as I run about.
Last minute reprieve!
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