Experimental Cooking

When I’m having a particularly good week it shows in the kitchen. I love to cook. Growing up my family ate pretty traditional meals, meat and potato. Spices were not a thing I ever learned about, and we didn’t try a whole lot of cultural meals or really eat outside of our comfort zone. We had a lot of meat and potatoes, spaghetti, Sheppard’s pie and things like that. My family was also pretty strict when it came to meals. If we wanted a snack, we asked first. I didn’t experiment a lot with cooking, and groceries were not the exciting times that they are now. None of this is ‘bad’ per say, I know money was pretty tight and my parents both did the best they could with three kids but it’s the background as to why I get so dang excited now when I cook or buy groceries.

Lately I’ve been watching some pretty amazing ASMR type cooking videos on YouTube. Some are Japanese, some Korean. They’ve got millions of views and they make cooking look simple and relaxed which it rarely ever is in my house. Best of all, the food looks amazing.

With this newfound interest, I bought a bunch of basic Japanese cooking ingredients last week and I’ve been experimenting with my own flavour profiles. I made chicken tonkatsu, and udon noodle miso soup (pictured above) that turned out incredible. I made onigiri. I have plans on doing some fried rice, and some shrimp balls, and all sorts of other yums. I’m experimenting with different types of heat – the heat you get from one spice can be very different than another. Take franks buffalo sauce and sriracha for example. Both are ‘heat’ but they’re very different in flavour profiles.

It has been amazing to experiment and play and explore. Not everything turns out, I’ve definitely had some failures, but it’s all a lot of fun and I’m having a great time learning what types of food I actually truly enjoy vs. those that I’d rather stay away from.

Fall, Blogging, and Comforts

In my neck of the woods, the temperature is almost at the freezing mark, geese are flying South, and I know that snow is just around the corner (in case you’ve forgotten I only have three months of the year without snow, June, July, August. The rest typically have a little or a LOT of snow). Seasons showcase my gaming habits VERY well. Every single time this fall weather comes, I start getting nostalgic for my ‘usual’ games. Hence the screenshot above that shows off Wurm Online. My ultimate favourite MMO. In the stand alone version of the game I have over 5,000 hours logged (thanks steam) and I can’t even begin to imagine the hours I must have in the base MMO version of the game. I have 12 characters, three of those are premium right now. I have two deeds that span across the newer steam-released servers and the old school servers. I’ve met some incredible people through this game that I remain friends with to this day, and it’s probably the first MMO that I played for me, and not because everyone else was playing it (in fact these days maybe only one or two people I know still play it, no one else likes it any more for a variety of reasons).

It also explains why I subscribed to FFXIV. A game that I love for so many reasons, but can’t actively devote the time to playing right this second. It’s a busy time of year for my husband and that means I’m with the kids 24/7 (no childcare where we’re at). I’m incredibly excited about the expansion coming out in a few months, but I’m not even at the part of the story I need to be. I go in with big ideas about catching up, but I don’t know if that’s feasible. I do want to remind people who are also trying to catch up that there are pay options to skip the first few expansion MSQ if that’s more to your liking. It won’t let you do that with the current / final expansion, but you can pay for both levels and MSQ unlocks in the shop.

Let’s talk about that a second. It’s obviously an option that is not for everyone, and not everyone is comfortable with doing that – but it doesn’t HURT anyone, and so if someone else has chosen to go that rout I really wish the community would rally behind them and appreciate that they’re playing at all instead of begrudging them for the fact that they skipped content. Not everyone plays the same, not everyone has the same time allowance, and allowing people to skip the MSQ on older content lets more people in the door and that is good!

Now what does all of this have to do with blogging?

Blogging for me, is comforting. This year I’ve made an effort into writing every single day, or at least posting an article up every single day and I’m really happy and proud about that. When my kids were born I found myself learning how to balance everything and I knew some things would have to take a step back especially if it was a particularly difficult week. Blaugust has been a great reminder on reassessing the balance in my life, and making time for the things I love – and that includes writing. While I still have to work on the community aspect and making time for that, it’s a start. I think each year I participate I learn a little bit more, I grow more appreciation, and I discover some amazing blogs while doing it.

It’s OK to do what’s comfortable – but there’s also something to be said for pushing yourself a bit, and growing. Whether it’s as a gamer, or a writer, or some other aspect.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Cable Hoodie – Update 2

The upcycled yarn I decided to go with for this cable crush hoodie is rustic and beautiful to knit with, but it’s hard to get the overall effect of the texture because I’m using 22″ needles that are quite small for the project that I’m working on (I decided to make this shirt oversized, so I’m knitting a 2XL which is one up from my actual size). The knitting on this stretch of 40 stitches is methodic and calming, out of a 10 row repeat only one of them is knitting the actual cables. I’ve been sticking with my goal of knitting 5 rows a day but it does take a few hours. I’ve also dropped a few stitches but I managed to pick them all up. I think I’m in good shape for whatever comes next. The project has “bat wing” sleeves, which means when you raise your arms it looks like giant bat wings, and I’ve never done those before. I’m cautious about the hood portion, and I just hope the whole thing turns out well. For now I’m just taking it step by step and doing one row at a time.

Happy knitting!

Just a Girl and her Fat Cat

It was too beautiful not to take a picture of. Lately all I’ve had time for is harvesting, I’ve been trying to get those timed nodes that pop up every so often so I can complete my mining log book. Why? Well, why not! It’s relaxing, to say the least. I’ve also made some good coin selling the materials. I know I could hang onto them and turn them into something then sell that something, but for now this is a nice easy way of generating a little income.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Let’s Harvest

I often log into an MMO not to actually do anything in particular, but just to enjoy the fact that there are other ‘people’ around. I spend a lot of time with my kids (in fact, all of my time is spent with my kids) and I need some sort of extra interaction or I just want to watch conversations float by without really being a part of them. Harvesting in FFXIV is the perfect addition to this. I’ve been going through my log book and completing harvests one at a time, marking them off of my list. I use this in conjunction with FFXIV TeamCraft which I absolutely adore.

It will display a map, and even create routes for you to travel to collect the resources that you haven’t collected yet. I’m hoping to put these items on the auction house, or even just give them to my retainer and then craft with them and put THOSE items on the market. One of the super handy features of FFXIV TeamCraft is that it will take the items you have, and tell you what recipes you can make (and even tell you which recipes are missing only one or two components to make something).

I also need to complete the DoH/DoL jobs that I’ve been neglecting. The only one I’ve completed is mining, and that was ages ago. Once again I’m in awe of all the things ‘to do’ in game, and I love that there are so many options, be they crafting, harvesting, adventuring, or something else.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!