Chorizo, is ground and can be made from almost anything (I think) where chourico is made from pork is coarsely chopped.
I was able to get it from a local bakery shop of all places, they have some ethnic cusine common in Portugal and Spain. The shop owner said this was an "americanized" version of what he grew up with but it was good.
It wasn't quite jambalaya but close enough I guess. Not really spicy though.
I have only done this one. I was going to share as I made them and rate them as I did. Don't have them all loaded loaded into my recipe database yet but will soon.
I used two tbsp's of olive oil and did have to add more chicken broth to the mix.
I don't know if you could use the Mexican chorizo as a substitute but probably.
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If I do good - I feel good. If I do bad -I feel bad. That's my religion.
That bastilla sounds really interesting. What little exposure I've had to Moroccan cuisine has left me curious to try more. You'll need to keep us posted on that.
And I'll join Kank in being anxious to hear of your upcoming explorations, avery61.
I recently learned that my local grocery store carries bulk Callebaut chocolate in white and in ~60% semisweet, the latter at $9/lb, so naturally I've been drawn to that. I've made some chocolate chip cookies, and today - er, since I last woke up - made some absurd brownies for my D&D group. I still have a fair amount left that I'll have to figure out what to do with...
Other than that, am planning on doing some basic French breads, and I was going to do soft pretzels last Sunday for that D&D group, but decided to wait for the next meet. That or breadsticks, using a recipe I've not yet tried. Both seem like good snacking foods - particularly if I fold some fine-grated Parmiggiano into the dough.
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
I pretty much only play limited in competitive play, and rarely at that. As a hobby, I buy boxes and sell them off piecemeal often barely just breaking even. I make a bunch of decks with the leftover commons and get my game on that way. I don't have any friends in the area that play anymore. Zith swung by one day in August (he lives in the bay area) and I even trounced him a few times with my $2 decks versus a few of his $100+ decks.
My favorite colors are RBGWU in that order. Sometimes green comes before black in certain sets. When I draft, I usually find myself going the R/G route. I dropped off the rankings earlier this year because the last time I played in a sanctioned tournament was for the Lorwyn release. I ranked as high as 18th place in my district for limited (Sacramento/Yolo), but that was during Kamigawa/Ravnica when I played weekly.
I don't play constructed simply because I sell off any card of value I get my hands on.
Even the Lightning Bolts in my common decks are now proxies.
I'm liking it fair enough, about on par for what I call "back in the day" - my biggest play period was Mercadian Masques through Onslaught block (sloping off until Time Spiral block, after which I largely lost interest). Well, maybe more like Mirrodin; not too big on the set as a whole, but deeply interested in certain sections. I'll definitely be interested in picking up some singles from the set, and I think it looks awesome for draft, but probably won't return to my old love of buying boosters.
My biggest complaint is the same complaint I've had since TS block: color matters too little.
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
I pretty much only play limited in competitive play, and rarely at that. As a hobby, I buy boxes and sell them off piecemeal often barely just breaking even. I make a bunch of decks with the leftover commons and get my game on that way. I don't have any friends in the area that play anymore. Zith swung by one day in August (he lives in the bay area) and I even trounced him a few times with my $2 decks versus a few of his $100+ decks.
My favorite colors are RBGWU in that order. Sometimes green comes before black in certain sets. When I draft, I usually find myself going the R/G route. I dropped off the rankings earlier this year because the last time I played in a sanctioned tournament was for the Lorwyn release. I ranked as high as 18th place in my district for limited (Sacramento/Yolo), but that was during Kamigawa/Ravnica when I played weekly.
I don't play constructed simply because I sell off any card of value I get my hands on.
Even the Lightning Bolts in my common decks are now proxies.
(I was invited by Kank, so here goes....)
I am not a fan of ZEN, as a blue constructed player. The control element is so noncounterspell in this set. I hope Worldwake is somewhat redeeming of my favorite archetype.
RE: Chorizo
My wife has turned me on to a dish called "Meegus". It is basically huevos rancheros with my fav veggies and Beef chorizo. Sooooo good!!!
I have no idea what he's talking about.
Guards! Seize this man!
I've never heard of Meegus. It sounds like a character out of Harry Potter!
apaulogy PM'd me a great Bonnie Tyler literal video version link on YouTube.
Whatever happened to the one from A-HA? (Take on Me)
I can never find any link to it.
Did it get removed due to a rights issue or something?
I'm also hoping Jabberwocky stops by here too, whether he brings something to eat or not. I feel like our poor MTGSalivation thread needs some fresh ingredients/blood!
Oh, I never posted it here but I did end up getting The Beatles: Rock Band and it's great! (Even Zith can appreciate the Beatles, right Zithy-poo? ;))
Here you are, Kank. I also enjoy the Head Over Heels one, but Take On Me is easily the best.
And yeah, The Beatles are good, particularly their later work. My friend got Rock Band 2, and I was pleasantly surprised by some of it. Picked up Don't Stop, Amazing Journey and Behind Blue Eyes. They've also been throwing me some of their favorites for me to sing; I sing in a bass tone, which is hilarious for Eye of the Tiger, Hungry Like a Wolf, and I'll be learning Painkiller and Down with the Sickness.
And yes, it's a sad time for blue control. Counters are getting expensive, bounce doesn't offer give you pseudo-first strike anymore, the meta is shifting toward combat... but still, I like Sphinx of Lost Truths, appreciate the two mana two power flier, and think Hedron Crab could be part of a reasonable mill deck. Probably not competitive, but closer than usual.
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My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
Thank you sir! So far Total Eclipse of the Heart dwarfs the rest of the ones I've seen in terms of quality and humor.
So far, I have about half of the acheivements on Rock Band: Beatles. Most of the others involve singing or 4-person bands which I haven't done yet.
Today I just picked up Guitar Hero: Smash Hits that you can play with the whole band too.
We also finally grabbed A Threevening with Kevin Smith and watched the first disc. Classic, classic stuff there. So far, nothing beats his London stop on Evening Harder. That one is pure genius.
So far I was able to use "so far" five times in this post!
I wasn't too impressed by Total Eclipse of the Heart, myself, but then I hadn't heard the song or seen the video before seeing the literal version. My sister, who had far too much exposure to the song (on the BGM track of a job she held for a few years), would agree with you.
Just got back from a night of Space Hulk, Carcassone and Wii - and sushi. Went to a local, well-liked Japanese restaurant with a friend, who was dismayed that the bar was full, and ordered an appetizer and sushi rolls to split and a chef's choice nigiri sushi and sashimi combination plate for each.
The appetizer was the house carpaccio, scallops paired with a white flesh fish, and octopus. I was surprised at how firm the octopus was, but loved the scallop and white fish combination - I forgot to ask what the fish was. My friend didn't care for either; the octopus too firm, the scallops too strongly flavored.
The sashimi was of two fish, one dark red that we presume was snapper, and one white flesh that we haven't a clue, and a single shrimp. The former was a bit heavy on the tongue to me, and the latter two were enjoyable but nothing I'd rush to try again.
The nigiri was a single piece each of various selections, which we ate in line as it seemed to scale towards heavier flavors. A third of the way in, I had some issues swallowing, which would recur later. On the second time I realized just what it was - and was quite surprised: I have a gag reflex. I've been under the impression that I don't have one since an incident involving popsicles in high school, which was the source of many jokes and further demonstrations with some friends (no, none like that :P). Anyways, after that I had some issues eating the rest of my meal. I think the nigiri was simply too big to enjoy with proper etiquette. Of the food itself, I don't really know how to talk about it; most of the fish I didn't recognize at all. I know there was salmon, and all of the items in the sashimi, and one at the end had a rich, not-quite-teriyaki sauce and didn't seem to be fish, or at least the same types as the others. Overall it was alright.
The roll was tempura-fried shrimp with cucumber and topped with flying fish roe, which I wasn't nearly as fond of as I was the salmon roe. It's just too small to get the delight of caviar, but it did accompany the tempura crunch well.
And I decided to try for the lightest, finest level of sake, to see how it compared to the middle level (which I thought was alright, but not worth returning to). The presentation, which I presume was traditional, made it difficult: its glass was set in a small box, and it was poured until it overflowed. Beautiful, but I had no idea how to approach it. So I poured more off the top and just went for it. Very delicate, a bit of complexity on the finish, overall pleasant. Easy to overlook the alcohol content, too. A very nice drink, one I'd have again, but I still think I prefer wine.
Similarly, I'm not falling in love with these raw fish preparations. I like it, but I expect the most I'll have of it in the future is as a single course in places which blend cuisines, which I intend to try at Ame in San Francisco.
The rest of my evening as food is concerned was spent with some very nice chocolates and a bit of ice cream. The ice cream was good, not great, and the chocolates a bit of a disappointment (hazards of being spoiled by some of the world's finest). But later I had half of one of my two bars of Amedei's Chuao 70% chocolate and melted along with it. Still the best chocolate I've ever had, still worth that crazy ~$10/oz price.
The last chocolate I had was some Hershey's Caramel Kisses at work on Thursday! Mmmmm....Hersheys.....
I'm a wizard of the plastic guitar! I'm already halfway done with the new Guitar Hero game (that I got last night).
I think I'm going to have to set up a game trader thread here so I can get my hands on all of the X360 Guitar games that I don't have.
I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on some Zen. This is the first time in years that I've bothered to buy a box, and I'm very happy that I already preordered mine from a local brick and morter store. The hype around the set is making ordering cards a little annoying now, so I'm glad I got mine for a decent price (fingers crossed that the shop gets it's full inventory in).
There are a couple of build-around-me cards that has my inner johnny sense tingling, and there are several cards that are going to let me re-imagine some of my existing decks.
Electropotence is one that is interesting to me, and I can see it going into my bizzare :symu::symb::symr: unearth deck. I use what I consider the best unearth creatures, Dark rituals, Avatar of Discord and old school draw-then-discard stuff. Electropotence should fit in perfectly and turn it into a nice little machine.
I'm also planning on making a very casual phoenix deck. Phoenixes have always been my favorite creature type in magic, but I realized that I never actually sat down and tried to make an enjoyable phoenix deck.
I'm thinking of making a :symu::symr: phoenix deck, and base it slightly off of the old "counter phoenix" archtype. I'll use Forbid as a long game recurable counter with the phoenixes, mabey some gifts ungiven to fetch some good stuff. i also may include a few Spellbound dragon and perhaps one Squee, Goblin Nabob as a third gifts target. The phoenixes that I'm wanting to use are Magma Phoenix and Shard Phoenix.
Anyway, the one card that I think could fit into it from the new set is Chandra Ablaze. I'm just going to have to be carefull with avoiding too many high casting cost spells.
I'm actually not a big fan of Electropotence, simply because of Pandemonium. I don't think it's a good trade-off. I like the idea of counter-phoenix returning, however. Very poetic.
On a whim, I went to Bouchon Bakery with a friend to try their donuts. They make them Saturday and Sunday mornings only, so I haven't had the opportunity until now. $3 for a donut somewhat larger than my palm, one was coated in powdered sugar and had a very liquid center that was orange-lemon. I'm not too sure, as the second I had was chocolate pastry cream, with more chocolate pastry cream on top and then dipped in small malted milk balls. Heaven! Delightful donuts, absolutely worth it. The donut itself was lovely, cakey, just enough egg in there, fried perfectly. Mmm...
And some excellent mocha, six macaroons, and pain au chocolat (chocolate-filled croissant). A good dessert, really.
So I won't be sleeping tonight, heh. Figure me eating this at 8am (it's 10:30a now) is comparable to a normal person having coffee and donuts at midnight or so.
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
Kank, are you doing boxes of Zen? If so, let me know, cause I'm sure I'll want some singles after I get through sorting through my box.
Why, yes I am!
I don't expect my shipment to arrive before Friday though. My distributor is paranoid about any retailers receiving product earlier than street date. (They must have been reprimanded by WotC I'm guessing.)
On a whim, I went to Bouchon Bakery with a friend to try their donuts. They make them Saturday and Sunday mornings only, so I haven't had the opportunity until now. $3 for a donut somewhat larger than my palm, one was coated in powdered sugar and had a very liquid center that was orange-lemon. I'm not too sure, as the second I had was chocolate pastry cream, with more chocolate pastry cream on top and then dipped in small malted milk balls. Heaven! Delightful donuts, absolutely worth it. The donut itself was lovely, cakey, just enough egg in there, fried perfectly. Mmm...
And some excellent mocha, six macaroons, and pain au chocolat (chocolate-filled croissant). A good dessert, really.
So I won't be sleeping tonight, heh. Figure me eating this at 8am (it's 10:30a now) is comparable to a normal person having coffee and donuts at midnight or so.
So you finally was able to partake of their famous rare donuts, eh? You've been talking about them for ages. Were they everything you'd hoped they'd be and then some?
Yes. And I took the macaroons to my D&D night alongside my normal box of cupcakes. We foolishly began with the cookies, after which the cupcakes were almost totally uninteresting. Right now, the only things that sound good to eat are those donuts and macaroons, and maybe some butter, cream and/or chocolate.
My friend said he had a bit of an issue with food at this level of fattiness, figuring he could enter a contest with an unsalted butter sculpture of the Statue of Liberty, with some colored salt for the torch and grey salt for the ground on the island, set it in a bowl with cream for the ocean, and get full marks. I think he could be right; it sounds delicious.
My friend and I opened our box last night, and it went really well.
Between the two of us, we got three fetchlands, and a bunch of other cool stuff. I pretty much finished my vampire deck (other than Bloodghast, which we didn't pull). My friend also got a planeswalker. Counting the promo Day of Judgment that we got, we definatly made our money back and then some.
We also set aside 10 packs for the end of the night, and did a little friendly draft to decide who got the day of judgment.
Out of the five boxes I got, only one Lotus Cobra, one Bloodghast, and one Sorin Markov. Anybody see anyone pull one of those mythical Priceless Treasures? I sure didn't.
It's not that format-shatteringly good. Compare reanimation decks. And there are those drawbacks of being a token: it takes a third party, Crucible of Worlds, for it to be as resilient to bounce as most reanimate targets, and it's susceptible to temporary RFG kills.
I think it's a great, fun thing to do, and it's quite potent, but the older formats aren't in trouble over it.
Awesome news, Shaharazad. Sad to hear you came across no bombs, Kank. From what I read, your average is 1 Treasure per 2 or 3 boxes, so not seeing one in five boxes isn't too much of a stretch.
I'm thinking of getting a box to draft with some friends because the set looks awesome for the booster drafting. It'd have to be in a month or two, though; I promised myself no more major purchases until I've gotten a car (the definition of "major purchase" has been shrinking, too).
The cupcake shop has shifted in its fall/winter flavors as of 1/10, so I'm now making my favorite of all our cakes: gingerbread! The adorable gingerbread men that go on top take it over the top, making its position as my favorite uncontested.
Something that might interest. A friend and I talked to a college student who had a food budget of $50 to last through the month, and now we're talking about taking up a Challenge to try for a minimal food budget that won't drive me insane with endless repetition and avoids things like Top Ramen. We've figured $50/person/month with a $25/person start-up fund for purchasing certain long-lasting items in large quantity (flour, rice, sugar, spices, salt...) will give us enough to actually eat comfortably. (To ensure I don't go insane, I can supplement from an entertainment fund for going out to eat - no more than once a week.)
My plan is to produce my own breads, bagels, pretzels, crackers by going with the large quantity flour, and other than that eating a lot of vegetables and rice. There'll be a reduction in quality from what I'm used to, of course, but I think it's doable.
Unfortunately, we can both cheat. His folks have chickens that have started laying, and they'll soon be getting more eggs than they need. And I have access to an absurd number of cupcakes through work, and have essentially been told that it's my duty to take a box of 9 home per shift alongside testing one from every batch I make...
Damn! 5 boxes and only one Bloodghast and Lotus Cobra. I hope you at least did okay on Fetchlands. I'll buy the Bloodghast if no one else has.
Zith... that sounds like a good challenge. 50 bucks a month does seem a little extreme though, but I imagine it's doable.
One decent budget thing I know of is Spaghetti and meatballs. You can stretch them out by buying like a pound of ground beef, and making the meatballs with extra breadcrumbs (from your old fresh bread of course), and trying to stretch it out with cheap "parmesan". Make the sauce out of some gigantic can of cheap tomatos. Then you can seperate it into individual serving sizes and freeze them. Could easily be made into 6 meals.
Beans are another great staple, and make for a great source of protein with rice.
Speaking of protein, you can sometimes find fantastic bargins in the meat section these days. I've seen huge packages of chicken go for like 8 bucks, and all of this could be seperated and frozen.
Of course you know about making the most of your meats, by creating stocks and such (but what college kid has the time for making stocks?!).
Speaking of all this storage and freezing, I would make sure they have some freezer storage stuff. Small ones work best for me, so that I can do portions.
It also sounds like the student will be able to have french toast quite often thanks to the eggs and bread. However, I've never tried to make it without dairy products before, and they can be quite expensive; I wonder if there is an alternative.
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This guy that comes into the bar works at Kampai Tokyo, and sometimes he brings in this "white sauce" from there. I love the stuff, but he doesn't know the details of making it... I think it is mostly mayo, and I'm guessing it has carrot puree in it, but other than that, I've got no idea.
And I have a feeling it's the real deal. Apparently this person spent years trying to find the secret recipe for this stuff. guess it doesn't have carrots afterall!
$50/month for food? I could do it. In fact I did it for less than that when I was in college in Arizona back in the 90's--food was a bit cheaper then though. I can't actually do it because I have a wife that wants to eat out EVERY meal. She hates the time and effort it takes to make something at home.
If you liked Mexican food, one can do wonders with a bag of pinto beans, a bag of rice, and a stack of cheap corn tortillas. Mix in cheap pasta dishes and limit the fresh meat/fresh fruit budget, and you could feed a family for that much a month easily. (You'd get pretty tired of bean/rice/pasta dishes, but it is financially possible.)
EDIT:
Ah, Shaharazad and I are on the same page on many things.
You want my Bloodghast? It's yours for $6!
[img]http://img2.pict.com/7e/51/42/1718356/0/mtgsalivation.jpg[/img]
I'm sorry it took so long to get this made up. I had so many things going on I couldn't find an hour to work on it! But it's done now. I hope you guys like it!
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DCI Level 2 Judge
Modern: GRB Jund BRG RBU Grixis Delver UBR Legacy: W Death & Taxes W GRB Punishing Jund BRG GUR Canadian Threshold RUG Commander: RUG Maelstrom Wanderer GUR
Awesome! Could we also get a zoom-in of the color pie (separately)?
I'd like to see it in closer detail!
Thanks!
Yeah, I'll get to that when I finish the science report I'm supposed to be working on right now.
EDIT: Report finished, card resized, picture in. The quality's a little poor, I had to resize it and sharpen it as best I could.
Modern: GRB Jund BRG RBU Grixis Delver UBR Legacy: W Death & Taxes W GRB Punishing Jund BRG GUR Canadian Threshold RUG Commander: RUG Maelstrom Wanderer GUR
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This almost looks like a portuguese version of jambalaya. You made this recently you say?
I was able to get it from a local bakery shop of all places, they have some ethnic cusine common in Portugal and Spain. The shop owner said this was an "americanized" version of what he grew up with but it was good.
It wasn't quite jambalaya but close enough I guess. Not really spicy though.
I have only done this one. I was going to share as I made them and rate them as I did. Don't have them all loaded loaded into my recipe database yet but will soon.
I used two tbsp's of olive oil and did have to add more chicken broth to the mix.
I don't know if you could use the Mexican chorizo as a substitute but probably.
Member: Team Revolution & MTGSalivation
I'll be patient until you have time to go through some other recipes!
I've been thinking of cooking something special for a while. I'm planning on making Bastilla; this very special Moroccan meat pie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastilla
However, I'm going to need to track down and order some good ras-el-hanout before starting.
And I'll join Kank in being anxious to hear of your upcoming explorations, avery61.
I recently learned that my local grocery store carries bulk Callebaut chocolate in white and in ~60% semisweet, the latter at $9/lb, so naturally I've been drawn to that. I've made some chocolate chip cookies, and today - er, since I last woke up - made some absurd brownies for my D&D group. I still have a fair amount left that I'll have to figure out what to do with...
Other than that, am planning on doing some basic French breads, and I was going to do soft pretzels last Sunday for that D&D group, but decided to wait for the next meet. That or breadsticks, using a recipe I've not yet tried. Both seem like good snacking foods - particularly if I fold some fine-grated Parmiggiano into the dough.
I pretty much only play limited in competitive play, and rarely at that. As a hobby, I buy boxes and sell them off piecemeal often barely just breaking even. I make a bunch of decks with the leftover commons and get my game on that way. I don't have any friends in the area that play anymore. Zith swung by one day in August (he lives in the bay area) and I even trounced him a few times with my $2 decks versus a few of his $100+ decks.
My favorite colors are RBGWU in that order. Sometimes green comes before black in certain sets. When I draft, I usually find myself going the R/G route. I dropped off the rankings earlier this year because the last time I played in a sanctioned tournament was for the Lorwyn release. I ranked as high as 18th place in my district for limited (Sacramento/Yolo), but that was during Kamigawa/Ravnica when I played weekly.
I don't play constructed simply because I sell off any card of value I get my hands on.
Even the Lightning Bolts in my common decks are now proxies.
My biggest complaint is the same complaint I've had since TS block: color matters too little.
(I was invited by Kank, so here goes....)
I am not a fan of ZEN, as a blue constructed player. The control element is so noncounterspell in this set. I hope Worldwake is somewhat redeeming of my favorite archetype.
RE: Chorizo
My wife has turned me on to a dish called "Meegus". It is basically huevos rancheros with my fav veggies and Beef chorizo. Sooooo good!!!
Guards! Seize this man!
I've never heard of Meegus. It sounds like a character out of Harry Potter!
apaulogy PM'd me a great Bonnie Tyler literal video version link on YouTube.
Whatever happened to the one from A-HA? (Take on Me)
I can never find any link to it.
Did it get removed due to a rights issue or something?
I'm also hoping Jabberwocky stops by here too, whether he brings something to eat or not. I feel like our poor MTGSalivation thread needs some fresh ingredients/blood!
Oh, I never posted it here but I did end up getting The Beatles: Rock Band and it's great! (Even Zith can appreciate the Beatles, right Zithy-poo? ;))
And yeah, The Beatles are good, particularly their later work. My friend got Rock Band 2, and I was pleasantly surprised by some of it. Picked up Don't Stop, Amazing Journey and Behind Blue Eyes. They've also been throwing me some of their favorites for me to sing; I sing in a bass tone, which is hilarious for Eye of the Tiger, Hungry Like a Wolf, and I'll be learning Painkiller and Down with the Sickness.
And yes, it's a sad time for blue control. Counters are getting expensive, bounce doesn't offer give you pseudo-first strike anymore, the meta is shifting toward combat... but still, I like Sphinx of Lost Truths, appreciate the two mana two power flier, and think Hedron Crab could be part of a reasonable mill deck. Probably not competitive, but closer than usual.
So far, I have about half of the acheivements on Rock Band: Beatles. Most of the others involve singing or 4-person bands which I haven't done yet.
Today I just picked up Guitar Hero: Smash Hits that you can play with the whole band too.
We also finally grabbed A Threevening with Kevin Smith and watched the first disc. Classic, classic stuff there. So far, nothing beats his London stop on Evening Harder. That one is pure genius.
So far I was able to use "so far" five times in this post!
Just got back from a night of Space Hulk, Carcassone and Wii - and sushi. Went to a local, well-liked Japanese restaurant with a friend, who was dismayed that the bar was full, and ordered an appetizer and sushi rolls to split and a chef's choice nigiri sushi and sashimi combination plate for each.
The appetizer was the house carpaccio, scallops paired with a white flesh fish, and octopus. I was surprised at how firm the octopus was, but loved the scallop and white fish combination - I forgot to ask what the fish was. My friend didn't care for either; the octopus too firm, the scallops too strongly flavored.
The sashimi was of two fish, one dark red that we presume was snapper, and one white flesh that we haven't a clue, and a single shrimp. The former was a bit heavy on the tongue to me, and the latter two were enjoyable but nothing I'd rush to try again.
The nigiri was a single piece each of various selections, which we ate in line as it seemed to scale towards heavier flavors. A third of the way in, I had some issues swallowing, which would recur later. On the second time I realized just what it was - and was quite surprised: I have a gag reflex. I've been under the impression that I don't have one since an incident involving popsicles in high school, which was the source of many jokes and further demonstrations with some friends (no, none like that :P). Anyways, after that I had some issues eating the rest of my meal. I think the nigiri was simply too big to enjoy with proper etiquette. Of the food itself, I don't really know how to talk about it; most of the fish I didn't recognize at all. I know there was salmon, and all of the items in the sashimi, and one at the end had a rich, not-quite-teriyaki sauce and didn't seem to be fish, or at least the same types as the others. Overall it was alright.
The roll was tempura-fried shrimp with cucumber and topped with flying fish roe, which I wasn't nearly as fond of as I was the salmon roe. It's just too small to get the delight of caviar, but it did accompany the tempura crunch well.
And I decided to try for the lightest, finest level of sake, to see how it compared to the middle level (which I thought was alright, but not worth returning to). The presentation, which I presume was traditional, made it difficult: its glass was set in a small box, and it was poured until it overflowed. Beautiful, but I had no idea how to approach it. So I poured more off the top and just went for it. Very delicate, a bit of complexity on the finish, overall pleasant. Easy to overlook the alcohol content, too. A very nice drink, one I'd have again, but I still think I prefer wine.
Similarly, I'm not falling in love with these raw fish preparations. I like it, but I expect the most I'll have of it in the future is as a single course in places which blend cuisines, which I intend to try at Ame in San Francisco.
The rest of my evening as food is concerned was spent with some very nice chocolates and a bit of ice cream. The ice cream was good, not great, and the chocolates a bit of a disappointment (hazards of being spoiled by some of the world's finest). But later I had half of one of my two bars of Amedei's Chuao 70% chocolate and melted along with it. Still the best chocolate I've ever had, still worth that crazy ~$10/oz price.
I'm a wizard of the plastic guitar! I'm already halfway done with the new Guitar Hero game (that I got last night).
I think I'm going to have to set up a game trader thread here so I can get my hands on all of the X360 Guitar games that I don't have.
I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on some Zen. This is the first time in years that I've bothered to buy a box, and I'm very happy that I already preordered mine from a local brick and morter store. The hype around the set is making ordering cards a little annoying now, so I'm glad I got mine for a decent price (fingers crossed that the shop gets it's full inventory in).
There are a couple of build-around-me cards that has my inner johnny sense tingling, and there are several cards that are going to let me re-imagine some of my existing decks.
Electropotence is one that is interesting to me, and I can see it going into my bizzare :symu::symb::symr: unearth deck. I use what I consider the best unearth creatures, Dark rituals, Avatar of Discord and old school draw-then-discard stuff. Electropotence should fit in perfectly and turn it into a nice little machine.
I'm also planning on making a very casual phoenix deck. Phoenixes have always been my favorite creature type in magic, but I realized that I never actually sat down and tried to make an enjoyable phoenix deck.
I'm thinking of making a :symu::symr: phoenix deck, and base it slightly off of the old "counter phoenix" archtype. I'll use Forbid as a long game recurable counter with the phoenixes, mabey some gifts ungiven to fetch some good stuff. i also may include a few Spellbound dragon and perhaps one Squee, Goblin Nabob as a third gifts target. The phoenixes that I'm wanting to use are Magma Phoenix and Shard Phoenix.
Anyway, the one card that I think could fit into it from the new set is Chandra Ablaze. I'm just going to have to be carefull with avoiding too many high casting cost spells.
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Anyway, I'm still playing Champions online. One of my favorite characters right now is an almost perfect copy of Space Ghost.
I also made a character highly influenced by the henchmen of Venture Brothers.
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Kank, are you doing boxes of Zen? If so, let me know, cause I'm sure I'll want some singles after I get through sorting through my box.
On a whim, I went to Bouchon Bakery with a friend to try their donuts. They make them Saturday and Sunday mornings only, so I haven't had the opportunity until now. $3 for a donut somewhat larger than my palm, one was coated in powdered sugar and had a very liquid center that was orange-lemon. I'm not too sure, as the second I had was chocolate pastry cream, with more chocolate pastry cream on top and then dipped in small malted milk balls. Heaven! Delightful donuts, absolutely worth it. The donut itself was lovely, cakey, just enough egg in there, fried perfectly. Mmm...
And some excellent mocha, six macaroons, and pain au chocolat (chocolate-filled croissant). A good dessert, really.
So I won't be sleeping tonight, heh. Figure me eating this at 8am (it's 10:30a now) is comparable to a normal person having coffee and donuts at midnight or so.
Why, yes I am!
I don't expect my shipment to arrive before Friday though. My distributor is paranoid about any retailers receiving product earlier than street date. (They must have been reprimanded by WotC I'm guessing.)
So you finally was able to partake of their famous rare donuts, eh? You've been talking about them for ages. Were they everything you'd hoped they'd be and then some?
My friend said he had a bit of an issue with food at this level of fattiness, figuring he could enter a contest with an unsalted butter sculpture of the Statue of Liberty, with some colored salt for the torch and grey salt for the ground on the island, set it in a bowl with cream for the ocean, and get full marks. I think he could be right; it sounds delicious.
Between the two of us, we got three fetchlands, and a bunch of other cool stuff. I pretty much finished my vampire deck (other than Bloodghast, which we didn't pull). My friend also got a planeswalker. Counting the promo Day of Judgment that we got, we definatly made our money back and then some.
We also set aside 10 packs for the end of the night, and did a little friendly draft to decide who got the day of judgment.
Dark Depths + Vampire Hexmage = WTF?!
How did this pass scrutiny?
I think it's a great, fun thing to do, and it's quite potent, but the older formats aren't in trouble over it.
Awesome news, Shaharazad. Sad to hear you came across no bombs, Kank. From what I read, your average is 1 Treasure per 2 or 3 boxes, so not seeing one in five boxes isn't too much of a stretch.
I'm thinking of getting a box to draft with some friends because the set looks awesome for the booster drafting. It'd have to be in a month or two, though; I promised myself no more major purchases until I've gotten a car (the definition of "major purchase" has been shrinking, too).
The cupcake shop has shifted in its fall/winter flavors as of 1/10, so I'm now making my favorite of all our cakes: gingerbread! The adorable gingerbread men that go on top take it over the top, making its position as my favorite uncontested.
Something that might interest. A friend and I talked to a college student who had a food budget of $50 to last through the month, and now we're talking about taking up a Challenge to try for a minimal food budget that won't drive me insane with endless repetition and avoids things like Top Ramen. We've figured $50/person/month with a $25/person start-up fund for purchasing certain long-lasting items in large quantity (flour, rice, sugar, spices, salt...) will give us enough to actually eat comfortably. (To ensure I don't go insane, I can supplement from an entertainment fund for going out to eat - no more than once a week.)
My plan is to produce my own breads, bagels, pretzels, crackers by going with the large quantity flour, and other than that eating a lot of vegetables and rice. There'll be a reduction in quality from what I'm used to, of course, but I think it's doable.
Unfortunately, we can both cheat. His folks have chickens that have started laying, and they'll soon be getting more eggs than they need. And I have access to an absurd number of cupcakes through work, and have essentially been told that it's my duty to take a box of 9 home per shift alongside testing one from every batch I make...
Zith... that sounds like a good challenge. 50 bucks a month does seem a little extreme though, but I imagine it's doable.
One decent budget thing I know of is Spaghetti and meatballs. You can stretch them out by buying like a pound of ground beef, and making the meatballs with extra breadcrumbs (from your old fresh bread of course), and trying to stretch it out with cheap "parmesan". Make the sauce out of some gigantic can of cheap tomatos. Then you can seperate it into individual serving sizes and freeze them. Could easily be made into 6 meals.
Beans are another great staple, and make for a great source of protein with rice.
Speaking of protein, you can sometimes find fantastic bargins in the meat section these days. I've seen huge packages of chicken go for like 8 bucks, and all of this could be seperated and frozen.
Of course you know about making the most of your meats, by creating stocks and such (but what college kid has the time for making stocks?!).
Speaking of all this storage and freezing, I would make sure they have some freezer storage stuff. Small ones work best for me, so that I can do portions.
It also sounds like the student will be able to have french toast quite often thanks to the eggs and bread. However, I've never tried to make it without dairy products before, and they can be quite expensive; I wonder if there is an alternative.
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This guy that comes into the bar works at Kampai Tokyo, and sometimes he brings in this "white sauce" from there. I love the stuff, but he doesn't know the details of making it... I think it is mostly mayo, and I'm guessing it has carrot puree in it, but other than that, I've got no idea.
Edit: Heh. I just found http://www.japanese-steakhouse-white-sauce.com/white-sauce-recipe.htm
And I have a feeling it's the real deal. Apparently this person spent years trying to find the secret recipe for this stuff. guess it doesn't have carrots afterall!
If you liked Mexican food, one can do wonders with a bag of pinto beans, a bag of rice, and a stack of cheap corn tortillas. Mix in cheap pasta dishes and limit the fresh meat/fresh fruit budget, and you could feed a family for that much a month easily. (You'd get pretty tired of bean/rice/pasta dishes, but it is financially possible.)
EDIT:
Ah, Shaharazad and I are on the same page on many things.
You want my Bloodghast? It's yours for $6!
[img]http://img2.pict.com/7e/51/42/1718356/0/mtgsalivation.jpg[/img]
I'm sorry it took so long to get this made up. I had so many things going on I couldn't find an hour to work on it! But it's done now. I hope you guys like it!
Modern:
GRB Jund BRG
RBU Grixis Delver UBR
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes W
GRB Punishing Jund BRG
GUR Canadian Threshold RUG
Commander:
RUG Maelstrom Wanderer GUR
I'd like to see it in closer detail!
Thanks!
Yeah, I'll get to that when I finish the science report I'm supposed to be working on right now.
EDIT: Report finished, card resized, picture in. The quality's a little poor, I had to resize it and sharpen it as best I could.
Modern:
GRB Jund BRG
RBU Grixis Delver UBR
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes W
GRB Punishing Jund BRG
GUR Canadian Threshold RUG
Commander:
RUG Maelstrom Wanderer GUR