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ralphmelton as GM). Now that I understand some
of the game background I'm even more eager to play again. This is
a cool game system.
There was a passage in the chapter on advice for GMs that rang true for me. He describes a scenario that can happen in some games approximately like this:
GM: You've discovered the Big Baddy's plot to destroy the world.
Player 1: Hey, I didn't sign up to save the world; I signed up to find
the boss's brother. I go back and tell him his brother's dead.
Player 2: I'm still chatting up that babe, remember?
Player 3 is reading your White Wolf magazines.
Sucks, doesn't it?
Yeah, I've been in that game. :-) GMed it, too.
Saturday I invited some people from my synagogue over for lunch.
There's a group that always goes out to lunch (at a restaurant)
together after services, and of course I can't join them, so I got
them to relocate. It was a lot of fun, and fortunately the conversation
was secular enough for Dani to feel comfortable.
I didn't know how many people would be coming -- and, in fact, while some people I invited couldn't come, we also picked up one stray person who's not usually part of the group; flexibility is good. My approach to food in that situation is: make more than you think you'll need of something that will freeze. So we had roasted chicken (with oregano, rosemary, sage, garlic, and black pepper), which went over well. (Also other stuff, of course, but my Shabbat meals are not as elaborate as some.)
I want a bigger dining-room table. Ours is designed to seat six (we had nine crammed around it) and has no more expansion capability. If we'd had any more people I would have added a folding table, but there are times when I'd like to be able to have a more formal dinner for eight or so where a card table would just be wrong. Ralph and Lori have a table where the expansion comes at the ends rather than in the middle, and I like that a lot. (I think their specific table is out of production.) But if we shop for a new table, what do we do with our perfectly-good existing one?
I got together a few days ago with the autocrat for our proposed
Purim event. (Purim is on a Sunday this year. I would be the cook;
someone else is the autocrat.) I think it'll be a fun event; I hope
the officers approve it (and that that part of the calendar isn't
too crowded). Officers' meeting is Wednesday, so we'll know soon.
The SCA isn't allowed to serve alcohol, but people can bring their own. Purim wouldn't be Purim without alcohol available, so to encourage folks to bring some to share, we decided to have a brewing competition. Often an entry to a competition only involves one bottle, so I suggested we announce it as people's choice. :-) (That might encourage people to bring more.)
Since Purim has a disguise component, we're also having a competition for illusion foods -- things that look like other things. We'll announce it as no pork, shellfish, or milk products, but feel free to make it look like any of those. Hey, if someone can fabricate a lobster out of chicken or pastry, I want to encourage that. We've got some creative cooks, so I look forward to seeing what we get. (It's no milk because the feast is meat, not because there's anything inherently wrong with milk. Yes, I realize that no lard and no butter makes some types of baking a challenge; we ran this by one frequent local cook who thought that challenge made it interesting, not unappealing.)
Dani and I went shopping yesterday for a new vacuum cleaner (old one died).
I did not expect to see models varying by almost a factor of ten
in price. I'm not making that up -- cheapest ones were around $60 and
one was about $550. No, I don't know what makes the expensive one so
desirable.
Dani bailed on Firefly, but I'm enjoying it and am almost through the series. I think if he'd stayed for "Jayne Town" his opinion might have changed; I think that's when depth started to happen. I'll have to see Serenity next (didn't catch it in the theatre), but I'll wait until after my birthday to buy it. :-)
Heh -- my birthday is on Rosh Hashana this year. Two conflicting thoughts: (1) we'll celebrate some other day, and (2) hey, heck of a birthday party! :-)
Rosh Hashana is three weeks away. I believe I'm reading torah on one of the two days; I hope they make the specific assignments soon. I'm reading this coming Shabbat, so I won't look at it before then anyway, but I'd like to start looking at it immediately after that. We're having a second-day service (for the first time) this year, so that's twice as much torah reading to assign as usual -- and then Yom Kippur is about a week later. Sounds like a giant jigsaw puzzle. (Our rabbis of course can do the readings, but they try to give the opportunity to others for the high holy days, including the best of the previous year's batch of bar/bat-mitzvah students.)
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table
(I decided that I needed a table that could be expanded by one person; inserting leaves really takes 2.)
I hope you'll post some of the food made for the Purim event.
(My first thought about foods that look like other foods is something I've only read about in a novel, that didn't have a recipe: a steamed white pudding that has lots of berry juice inside that spurts out when cut. The author called it Death of Marat :-).)
I thought Firefly (and Serenity) was great; I'm surprised Dani bailed on it.
Re: table
I certainly plan to post Purim food stuff. :-) We're doing a "food all day" event (fits Purim better), rather than a sit-down feast; my plan is to have some basic stuff out all day and deliver three "waves" of food at intervals throughout the day. I want to have each wave be from one time and place, but the three waves can be different. I don't know what foods I'll make yet, other than that fish will be included (and meat, of course). There's a recipe in Drizzle of Honey (expulsion-era Spanish, speculative reconstructions) for a fish pie that's very good; I'm thinking about interesting ways to present it. (I might actually make it look like a whole fish -- or maybe not. This is "pie" as in "dough wrapped around stuff", not as in "in a pie pan".)
Dani's complaint about Firefly was that it seemed too episodic without an overall story. I think he's spoiled by B5 and didn't give it enough time; arcs take many episodes to emerge, sometimes entire seasons. B5 wasn't obviously telling a big story in its first few episodes either, as I recall. Oh well -- his loss. :-)
Re: table
I have Drizzle of Honey! Which fish pie is it? (I found it a bit of an odd book, with notes on certain recipes that said they might not be kosher for all people that had nothing problematic that I could see, while others with actual meat and milk or meat and fish had no such notation. Very strange.)
If you wrap the fish in dough, you could put slices of something round over the top and glaze them into place... Or maybe that would make more sense with a dessert in the shape of a fish.
I agree with you; Firefly starts with more focus on each episode's story arc, but there are hints of a greater arc that become more important over time. (I know it's futile, but I would love there to be more movies or episodes.)
fish
The large fish pie on page 235. I've only made it once (making dough is a PITA), but I liked how it tasted. For a feast it would be worth it; for dinner at home, not so much.
Yes, it's an odd book. I don't know where the authors got their kashrut information. I, of course, know better than to take a recipe at face value if anything looks suspicious; it's not like the book was published by the OU or the like. It's speculative reconstruction based on accounts of people snooping on Jews who were trying to blend in. :-)
If you wrap the fish in dough, you could put slices of something round over the top and glaze them into place...
Ooh, I like that. Thanks!
Re: fish
If you wanted to do something very different, maybe make a sweet (non-fish) filling (marzipan? mincemeat?), then make a dough-fish with carrot scales (a goldfish!).
Re: fish
Re: table
Yaas. Also, Joss Whedon has a very distinctive and consistent style, wherein the first half of each season of a show appears to be episodic, and the second half turns out to be all about the arc that was brewing quietly in the first half. Happened throughout most of both Buffy and Angel, and I am pretty sure it was happening here.
Indeed, Serenity is, I believe, essentially the entire core of the second-season arc compressed into two hours. (Which is why it is startlingly plot-intense, relative to the rest of the series...)
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Would the event be a masquerade as well?
-- Dagonell
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I should have talked with the autocrat about it being a masquerade. That's certainly on-theme; I don't know how she feels about it. (There won't be a masked ball, though -- don't have the right kind of space for dancing.)
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I've been watching Firefly when I'm visiting folks who have the DVDs; seen through the first episode on disc 3 (of 4) so far, though I may want to go back and re-watch that one. I definitely want to finish the series and then see Serenity.
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Dogs was fun. I'd play again.
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Purim
Re: Purim
(And as I said before, I'll be thrilled if you can come down for this, though I recognize the distance problem. I can, of course, provide shabbat accommodations. :-) )