I don't even like jazz flute. But damn!

Also on a recent Splendid table, I learned about Chinese mater sauce. This is a braising sauce used with any meat (commonly pork, chicken and duck) that is used over and over again, possibly for years! If a chef leaves a restaurant, she takes her master sauce with her. If a one dies, he might will his sauce to someone.

This screams wuxia game to me...

Tags: food, podcasts, rpgs

I've been listening to podcasts of the Splendid Table while I have shifts with the cook who disgusts me. Last night I heard an ep. with this poem by Jane Hirshfield:

"Cook"

Each night you come home with five continents on your hands:
garlic, olive oil, saffron, anise, coriander, tea,
your fingernails blackened with marjoram and thyme.
Sometimes the zucchini's flesh seems like a fish-steak,
cut into neat filets, or the salt-rubbed eggplant
yields not bitter water, but dark mystery.
You cut everything to bits.
No core, no kernel, no seed is sacred: you cut
onions for hours and do not cry,
cut them to thin transparencies, the red ones
spreading before you like fallen flowers;
you cut scallions from white to green, you cut
radishes, apples, broccoli, you cut oranges, watercress,
romaine, you cut your fingers, you cut and cut
beyond the heart of things, where
nothing remains, and you cut that too, scoring coup
on the butcherblock, leaving your mark,
when you go
your feet are as pounded as brioche dough.

Tags: food, podcasts, poetry, work
Current Mood: cooking

http://paizo.com/planetStories

Pazio, publisher of the Pathfinder D20 system, has been reprinting some out of print pulp classics. I just finished Brackett's Sword of Rhiannon. Fun Sword and Planet fare with a touch of Howard style serpent dread. Carse, a rather standard pulp protagonist, is WAY out of his depths on Old Mars and has a rather twisted relationship with both the Cursed God and the Warrior Princess. Fun but short.

There are a couple of white kids standing at the back of all these guys, workin' the door? they have this look on their faces. You know the one. :-0 The "blown away" look.

from Robin Laws' LJ:

"Today's shout again goes to a fine item at the Design Matters both, Ribbon Drive, by fellow Canadian Joe McDonald. I always admire efforts to step outside the subculture's genre boundaries, so a road movie RPG is right up my alley. Gorgeously designed by Kevin (Sweet Agatha) Allen and packaged in a DVD case, this game of external and internal exploration easily grabs this year's indie production value prize. Mix CDs are as essential to play as they are to any actual road journey, so the game comes packaged with an audio disc containing tracks from Vancouver BC's indie music scene, including a contribution from Toren Atkinson of Darkest Of the Hillside Thickets fame. If you've ever yearned to run a game of Two-Lane Blacktop, Ribbon Drive is your muscle car."

Tags: gaming
Current Mood: envious

Tags: music
Current Music: figure it out

This kind of stuff makes me want to pick up my guitar and never stop playing. It also makes me never want to pick up my guitar again. See more here.

Gotta do something 'cause I'm not at GenCon. :-(

BTW, my buddy Ben won second place for best writing with the Ennies!

ps
jesus, son house just came on. i'll be in my bunk.

Tags: music

I've been experimenting with steel cut oats, making creamy oatmeal. With all the inexpensive berries and mango I've been able to find, I've had a lot of success making scrumptious breakfasts. But it takes me between 30 and 40 minutes to prepare. I don't know if I'll be able to keep it up when we have a more structured schedule. I recall Alton doing a "cook over night in a crock pot" thing, but I don't have one so... Worth picking up? Maybe.

Tags: food
Current Mood: curious
Current Music: Meshell Ndegeocello