Sunday Dinner, May-12-2002
May. 13th, 2002 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ralphmeltonLori was still busy with school, so Sunday dinner was in my hands. I wanted something easy. I settled on Spicy Cajun Corn Soup (replacing the ham and sausage with chicken and turkey sausage). Finding a dairy-free dessert was a big hassle, but I eventually settled on strawberry shortcake (made with dairy-free dessert shells.)
The Spicy Cajun Corn Soup turned out to be very nice indeed. I felt that I made a really nice roux to begin it, which was cool because I've had trouble with roux before. I had trouble identifying the contribution of the roux in the final product, though. But the final soup was thick and tasty, with tomatoes and corn and meat combining with onions and peppers in a thick, tasty soup.
Lori had to go back to work, but the rest of us played games. First, we played a card game I had picked up called Gnumies. I haad leapt to false conclusions about what sort of game it would be based on the card text; it turned out to be a sort of auction game with some semi-interesting twists. I tend to do fairly badly at auction games, and this didn't really break that trend. Unfortunately, we had made one misinterpretation of the rules that turned out to be fairly significant. Oops. I would try it again to see what effect that rule difference had.
After that, I wanted to play something simpler and more visceral. So I brought out Car Wars: the Card Game. This suited my desires, although I was the second to die. It came down to a race between Eli and Mike, with Mike pecking away at all sides of Eli while Eli tried to line up a shot at Mike's exposed right side.
After that, I said, "We are five people, which is the right number of people to play Ghost Chase. That might not be a strong enough argument, though." I had bought Ghost Chase for half price from a sidewalk sale from Phantom of the Attic. When I looked at the rules, though, it seemed like a sort of exercise in graph theory, and I never had the enthusiasm to play it. The premise is that one player is the ghost, who can move through walls and is invisible, and the rest are the ghost hunters trying to catch the ghost, who cannot move through walls, but who can work together.
So we gave it a try, with Eli as the ghost. He ended up winning, but it was a close call; there was an interesting endgame in which we were able to reason "he must have gone here, which means that he must now be here or here". If that sort of endgame is common, the game is much better than I had initially thought.
One thing that really increased our enjoyment of the game: for most of the game, we played enthusiastically, without pondering strategy at length. I think this made it much more fun.
Summary:
Menu:
Spicy Cajun Corn Soup
Bread
Strawberry Shortcake
Games:
Gnumies
Car Wars: The Card Game
Ghost Chase
The Spicy Cajun Corn Soup turned out to be very nice indeed. I felt that I made a really nice roux to begin it, which was cool because I've had trouble with roux before. I had trouble identifying the contribution of the roux in the final product, though. But the final soup was thick and tasty, with tomatoes and corn and meat combining with onions and peppers in a thick, tasty soup.
Lori had to go back to work, but the rest of us played games. First, we played a card game I had picked up called Gnumies. I haad leapt to false conclusions about what sort of game it would be based on the card text; it turned out to be a sort of auction game with some semi-interesting twists. I tend to do fairly badly at auction games, and this didn't really break that trend. Unfortunately, we had made one misinterpretation of the rules that turned out to be fairly significant. Oops. I would try it again to see what effect that rule difference had.
After that, I wanted to play something simpler and more visceral. So I brought out Car Wars: the Card Game. This suited my desires, although I was the second to die. It came down to a race between Eli and Mike, with Mike pecking away at all sides of Eli while Eli tried to line up a shot at Mike's exposed right side.
After that, I said, "We are five people, which is the right number of people to play Ghost Chase. That might not be a strong enough argument, though." I had bought Ghost Chase for half price from a sidewalk sale from Phantom of the Attic. When I looked at the rules, though, it seemed like a sort of exercise in graph theory, and I never had the enthusiasm to play it. The premise is that one player is the ghost, who can move through walls and is invisible, and the rest are the ghost hunters trying to catch the ghost, who cannot move through walls, but who can work together.
So we gave it a try, with Eli as the ghost. He ended up winning, but it was a close call; there was an interesting endgame in which we were able to reason "he must have gone here, which means that he must now be here or here". If that sort of endgame is common, the game is much better than I had initially thought.
One thing that really increased our enjoyment of the game: for most of the game, we played enthusiastically, without pondering strategy at length. I think this made it much more fun.
Summary:
Menu:
Spicy Cajun Corn Soup
Bread
Strawberry Shortcake
Games:
Gnumies
Car Wars: The Card Game
Ghost Chase
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no subject
Date: 2002-05-13 06:46 am (UTC)The soup was really good. I don't know anything about the theory and practice of roux, but I imagine that that's what made it nice and thick. (Could I have the soup recipe, by the way?)
no subject
Date: 2002-05-13 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-14 11:42 am (UTC)The most convenient method for me would be to loan you the cookbook and let you photocopy the recipe. Is that convenient for you?
no subject
Date: 2002-05-14 11:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-14 09:37 pm (UTC)I had no idea what roux was, so I called him and he explained. He said, "you'll know you've done it right when it smells like almonds." I thought he was crazy and figured I'd fake it, but lo! he was right! It was sorta freaky, but the dip was a huge hit.