Ookings of d00m

Thai noodles

2019-07-14T02:17:07Z

While I remember it, the dish I made tonight, built around what looked good at the farmers market this morning:

2 sirloin steaks, sliced thin, marinated for an hour in:
Ginger, garlic, fish sauce, soy sauce, lime juice, cane sugar and oyster sauce.

1 bag wide rice noodles, soaked in cold water

1 bunch of garlic scapes
5 big scallions
1 red pepper
1 bag bean sprouts
Cremini mushrooms
Oyster mushrooms
Ginger
6 diced chilies
2-3 cups fresh basil

Sauce:
Fish sauce
Lime juice
Cane sugar
Oyster sauce
Rice wine
Tamarind broth
Salt

Heat 1 tbsp of sesame oil and several tbsp of grapeseed oil in a non-stick pan on maximum.

And in a handful of beef, stir fry, then a handful each of the other ingredients except the noodles. Cook until everything is browned and crispy. Add the noodles and 2-3 ladels of sauce. Cook until the noodles just start to stick to the pan, then remove to a bowl. Repeat until its all cooked.

Turned out better than any of my other rice noodle experiments with the possible exceptions of the peanut noodles.

comments

Oof.

2018-02-12T02:14:46Z

It seems like maybe doing six acro classes last week was maybe a little much. Today's handstand and beginner acro class dragged. Last week, my handstands were great, but today I was just a little too tired to be amazing.

Playing on the tumble track (a long trampoline) is still fun, though, and my front handsprings are still improving.

Trying to get my body to recover from bingeing in November and December. Some progress has been made. I'm hopeful that I will get all of my pants back soon. Trying to spend more of my calories, even on high exercise days, on actual nutritious food rather than sugar and/or booze.

Super sleepy today - almost fell asleep on the couch when I should have been leaving for acro this afternoon.

Managed to convince myself to do a first pass on sweeping the snow off the car on my way home, so tomorrow won't be quite as bad. Though in doing so I managed to pour heaps of snow on the sidewalk the super next door had just finished cleaning, so I offered to shovel it up. There's a foot or more of snow surrounding my car on all sides, so getting out might be fun at 7:30 tomorrow.

Now, though, sleeeeep.

comments

GameNerd: A History of Shadow Earth

2018-01-17T18:17:54Z

Ambercon and BreakoutCon are approaching, and that means I am thinking about role-playing games again. I'm not going to run anything at either con, because last year I was feeling burned out and ended up running a pretty terrible game. So I think I need a year off to refresh, and maybe a more practice than running once a year.

Still, I have come up with an idea to run at some point for Amber, though I don't want to use the ADRPG rules.

The basic idea is that there are 3-5 time periods. Each player has an Amberite on Earth in each timeline. They don't have to be the same one. Depending on how long the play session is, you go through each time period and work out a basic arc that builds to a larger arc (which is admittedly a hell of a trick for the GM). Ideally, you do the eras out of order, though it will probably work best if the conclusive resolution happens relatively late in the timeline.

I'd want to do this in something like Fate, both so that each era's character sheet is a set of simple Aspects, and so that we can throw Aspects around for things that cross timelines, like "Betrayed Corwin in 1943" or "Injured seriously some time before 1986". We can stick these Aspects on characters whenever something comes up that impacts a PC in another era, and either invoking or compelling it encourages everyone to work on a complicated interplay between timelines.

The flaw for me running this game, of course, is that I haven't actually played Fate at all, and I'd need to work out a lightweight Fate adaptation of Amber (make all the Powers skills, maybe, along with Psyche and fighting skills?) I should probably playtest something like that before subjecting folks to it at a con. I'll be in a couple Fate games at Breakoutcon, so that may help.

Also, I may want to actually come up with a plot? I'm less good at that part, which is how my games keep falling apart.

comments

Recipe: Dreamcake

2017-12-21T03:25:28Z

This is a family tradition. It's too sweet for pretty much anyone except me and my dead grandmother, so I'm the one who makes it now.

Bottom crust:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar

cream sugar and butter together, fold in flour.

grease pan
pat down mixture in the bottom of the pan
bake at 350 F for 12 minutes, watching it until it is golden brown.
Take out and let cool to room temp

Top layer:

Beat 2 eggs (the recipe says by hand, but it works just fine in my stand mixer.) until fluffy
Slowly add in 1 cup of brown sugar
Add a pinch of salt
Stir in 2 level tablespoons of flour and 1/2 tsp of baking powder

Add 3/4 cup of walnuts or pecans
Add in 1/2 to 3/4 cup of shredded coconut (unsweetened)

Make sure it's all stirred up.
Pour over the cooled bottom layer
Put back in 350 F oven, bake for 20 min or so, until it passes the toothpick test.

Let it cool again.
Make frosting out of 4 tbsp butter, icing sugar and condensed milk. Dye it the brightest pink you can. Because family tradition says you have "red" frosted dreamcake and green frosted brownies, because Xmas. No, I don't know why you would frost your brownies. I sure don't.
Anyway, frost your dreamcake with your pink icing, then put some red crystal sprinkles on top. Eat in small pieces to avoid insulin shock.

comments

Spicy Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2017-12-12T20:59:37Z

Spicy chocolate cookies with chocolate chunks and pecans.

A post shared by Matt Fimbulwinter (@curgoth) on Dec 12, 2017 at 12:34pm PST

I started with this recipe as a base.

Instead of the chili powder, I used ground guajillo chilies, and a dash of chipotle and ancho powder as well. Grocery store chili powder has garlic and cumin in it, which I figured didn't belong in a cookie.

Instead of chocolate chips, I used chopped up lindt dark spicy chocolate, because more spice.

Lastly, I added in a half cup of pecans, because I always want my desserts to have crispy/crunchy textures.

The cookies are sort of like dense brownies with a high octane kick. They're not quite as sweet as I might like, but we'll see how they are after they've cooled.

Next week when I'm on vacation, I'll also make my whiskey honey cake and dream cake. Which, of course, is just *my* Xmas baking - Zil has a much longer list planned for herself, including fruit cake and a pear trifle.

comments

Super Hero Eras

2017-06-10T15:40:22Z

From my Blog: Super Hero Eras.

comments

Appropriation, symbolism and magic.

2017-04-17T23:33:18Z

Originally posted at http://www.memento-mori.ca/blog/appropriation-symbolism-and-magic-2/

I have a symbolism problem. The problem is, essentially, that the symbols that have a strong resonance for me have meaning derived from a toxic culture. The meanings they have for me that seem so deep and magic(k)al are inextricably linked to cultural appropriation, sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia and all the other memetic toxins of modern WEIRD culture.

It's a problem because even if I could come up with a new symbol that is utterly without historical contextual problems, it would lack two things; first, the communication of an idea, and second, the conceptual relevance for me internally. The reason I want symbols is the conceptual weight and shared information tied up in the symbol.

I first ran into problems with this when I started working out what I wanted from my own Pagan practice. I know I'm not going to recreate a historical Pagan religious practice that will satisfy my inner pedant for accuracy, and I dislike the idea of grabbing a god and redefining it for my own use. So, I tried meditation and divination as a way to grab stuff out of my own subconscious for use. I got a bunch of god-symbol-things to work with that felt really representative of parts of myself to work with.

They're also a bunch of problematic ideas. It turns out that my unconscious mind has a lot of toxic masculinity, racism, etc. seething just below the surface, and tapping in pulled that out, too. For my own use, I've come to terms with that - as long as I acknowledge the problematic aspects and don't start assigning cosmic significance to the kyriarchical shit the inside of my skull has accumulated by growing up in this world.

It gets harder, though, when that starts being something I want to communicate with. I don't have to tell anyone what the god-thing that represents love and dancing and joy looked like when it showed up the first couple times. But if I want to use that concept as something I put out in the world, I need a way to represent the underlying ideas without the problematic imagery my subconscious put on it.

My current problem is around a symbol for something else. I'm an old post-goth, and as such, ancient Egyptian symbolism is something I have history with. Eye of Horus eyeliner and an ankh necklace used to be a visible flag for "people like me". A tribal signifier for a subculture of spooky kids. I've been wearing ankhs on and off since somewhere around the end of high school, so let's say at least 20 years, which is a lot of time on the scale of a person. I'm wearing one now, for that matter.

Beyond the "warning: this person probably likes the Sisters of Mercy" aspect, the ankh has further personal meaning. It's a symbol for the concept of "mystery", for "magic" and "wisdom". Which is a pretty idiosyncratic meaning for an ancient Egyptian symbol representing eternal life.

I can pick apart where it comes from, and how the ankh became both personally significant and where the meaning I have stuck on it accumulated. I like ankhs because they used to be what goths wore, and as a weird kid without a place to belong, that became my way of trying to connect to people I thought of as "like me".

Where did the goths get it? From a general association of Egyptian symbolism with death and the occult that goes back to... The fucking Victorians. Who spent a lot of time and energy ripping up everything old that wasn't nailed down from, among other places, Egypt, and carting it back home. The popularity of mummies, hieroglyphs and the book of the dead all go back to the Victorian cultural imperialism and appropriation. This especially comes into play for the goths with Aliester Crowley, who was a) big on swiping Egyptian symbolism, b) big on talking about stuff from his supposedly secret occult societies and c) liked to talk about how Dark and Wicked he was. Early goth subculture liked referencing Crowley a fair bit, and I'm comfortable pointing some blame at him.

So, I have this idea of what an ankh means for me that is rooted in a cultural context of a wealthy European country looting artifacts and ideas from "the Orient" and repurposing them for its own use. Redefining and claiming ownership of a culture for its exotic appeal. So, exactly the kind of thing that we talk about when we talk about why cultural appropriation is bad.

There is an argument that there's a loophole for ancient Egypt (along with the old gods of Greece and Rome), that it's the artifacts of a dead culture and a vanished religion. The people of Egypt, after all, are primarily either Coptic Christians or Muslims. The ankh isn't a symbol of their faith. My unease remains, though, because the whole *reason* it has meaning for me is that my culture, a few hundred years ago, looted theirs. Egypt still wants the stuff in the British Museum back.

Is there an expiration date on symbols? Can one claim that the two century pedigree of symbolism that gave me my gothic ankh of teen angst and spooky mystery is "enough" history on its own, or that Egyptian ownership of its history doesn't come into play? It feels dodgy.

However, I can't throw off the weight of meaning of half my life. My subconscious keeps pulling out ankhs. My graphic design skills aren't really up to coming up with something unique but still that simple to try to attach meaning to. Basically, if I don't use an ankh, what can I use? I also use a raven/crow for similar meanings, but a) not as visually simple, and b) there are similar problems with appropriation with Canada's First Nations.

Maybe loot the symbols of my own culture? The ones we didn't swipe from someone else. That pretty much leaves me trying to redefine Christianity (at which point I guess I go join the Church of Satan?) or Norse Heathenry, where I run into some reeeealy uncomfortable Nazi shit that I want nothing to do with. Furthermore, the idea that your spirituality is tied essentially to genetic descent is super problematic on its own. There are people who try to claim you can't follow Odin unless you're of pure Germanic descent, and now we're right back at Nazis again.

The question boils down to wanting a symbol with no cultural baggage but with relevance and meaning. Is it possible to come up with a symbol that doesn't have a cultural context? Corporate ad departments work really hard at this. How many random connections of lines and circles remain untrademarked in this age of melancholy elephants?

All of this is a really long whine about how I want a tattoo with an ankh in it that I think looks cool. I want the design on my body, but I don't want to feel guilty about it.

A friend gave me a suggestion to use as a test for appropriation; no matter what, someone will think you're an asshole for it. It's a spectrum with white people at Coachella in feather war bonnets at one end and yoga at the other. So, how many people are you comfortable with thinking you're an asshole? They will always be some. There is no decent place to stand, no symbol without baggage.

I guess the final question is, how much of an asshole do I think I would be for getting that tattoo, and how embarrassed will I be explaining it in 20 years? 

comments

Ook

2009-05-04T02:41:09Z

This is a post. Ook.

comments