Archive for November, 2013

A nice day

Sunday, November 24th, 2013

Spent a few hours volunteering mid-day, helping pass out food packages. Worked in the kitchen preparing dinner this afternoon – beef rib roast, roasted vegetables (sweet potatoes, onions, carrots, garlic, and chestnuts), Yorkshire pudding, and shallot gravy. It was a special dinner for my daughter, whose birthday is coming up. She also picked up her combination birthday/Christmas present: the Designer’s Edition of Ogre, which I backed on Kickstarter.

I don’t game, but she does, and she loved her present. She knew it was coming – it was supposed to be her present last year, but it took longer than expected to get everything nailed down for the release. Worth it, though. It’s an impressive package.

It’s Veteran’s Day

Monday, November 11th, 2013

My thanks to all my fellow veterans, even the WooPoos 🙂

Cooking is great. It’s a wonderful excuse …

Sunday, November 3rd, 2013

for playing with knives and fire.

I have a button that says that. I do enjoy cooking and baking, but the toys can get awfully pricey. I don’t have really good knives, but I do have reasonable ones, and I do try to keep them sharp and take care of them – I own an assortment of sharpening stones from 200 to 6000 grit, as well as two or three books on sharpening and use of knives and other edged implements.

I ran across a mention of Japanese Binchotan charcoal the other day and got curious, so I searched on the web. Most of the sites I found were merely descriptive, but I did find one that sold a few varieties of it. It also sells a number of Japanese-made knives. I believe that this one one is the most expensive knife they sell. Note that they charge 50% more for left-handed versions.

It’s a bit rich for my tastes. I can’t justify a $300 knife to myself, let alone something like that. I also don’t have need for such a specialized knife. That being said, I can dream, can’t I?