Cheap Seat Eats Turns 5

by A.J. Coltrane

Well, we know where we’re going
But we don’t know where we’ve been

And we know what we’re knowing
But we can’t say what we’ve seen

And we’re not little children
And we know what we want

And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out

Five years is a long time. Cheap Seat Eats is older than some of the neighborhood kids.

Even one year is a long time — my comments under the four-year anniversary post referenced Bill Cosby. Cosby was funny, but I’ll likely think twice before linking to him again.

It’s now 1,279 posts, 1,027 comments, and over 266,000 sp*m later. I touched on what I’m personally thinking about the blogging thing here, here, and here.

TL;DR: More Food posts. Fewer Sport posts. I’ll be making an effort to write more posts about Games.

Other than that? Who knows where we’re headed?

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read posts. Extra thanks to everyone who comments. It’s nice to know the blogging isn’t happening in a vacuum.

Backwards Through The Telescope — Food

by A.J. Coltrane

(a.k.a. — Part III of Where I’m At With Writing About Things. This time, Food.)

Food. By far the subject receiving the most attention at Cheap Seat Eats, including an incredible 237 “Beer of the Week” posts written within a 10-month window by Iron Chef Leftovers. (October 2013 to July 2014.) Add to that 142 “Recipe” posts, 92 “Gardening” posts (all since April 2013), and 60 “Food Humor” posts… we’re clearly inspired by food and food related things.

For me, the Food posts represent the best use of the blog as a journal of what worked and what didn’t, whether it’s when baking, cooking, or gardening. The pictures make for a great “memory jog” when I look back at the old material, and I think they add visual interest.

Going forward, I know I’ll be writing posts focused on baking and gardening specifically. I feel like I’m just starting to get an idea of what I’m doing with respect to those two subjects — there should be plenty “burnt toast” pictures in the future.

I don’t have any pictures of burnt toast, so:

Backwards Through The Telescope — Games

by A.J. Coltrane

(a.k.a. — Part II of Where I’m At With Writing About Things. This time, Games.)

I can’t write fiction. I can’t write poetry either.

To some degree it feels like writing the Games posts draws on that same part of my brain, which may be part of the reason why only 71 out of 1,277 CSE posts have been about games. (About 5.5% of the total posts.) Well, maybe that, and it’s easier for me to bake something, take a picture, and do a post-mortem. And I get to eat the something.

I’m even getting a mental block about writing about writing about games..

..I think it’s one thing to break something apart and examine the pieces. It’s something else altogether to describe the whole. Ideally when describing the “hook”, or what makes a game fun — that thing that keeps me coming back to a game — it’d be nice to create a vibrant picture of what it’s like to be playing, and how the game hits the same chemical receptors that create a drug-like high… even if it’s just a nice, low-level buzz. Given my writing ability, I think my best case scenario is “loose approximation of a vibrant picture”. I’m not sure that’s good enough for me to be putting out there.

Another issue is that I tend to fixate on one game for a while. I could write about a game We’re Not Currently Playing, but, out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

In any event, the category Games has seen about one post per month. I can see that increasing a little bit.

Maybe the right answer is to have a “Game Session Sunday”. Pick a Sunday afternoon and a game we like but don’t play much and do a post about it.

Not a terrible idea!

Backwards Through The Telescope — Sports

by A.J. Coltrane

CheapSeatEats is almost five years old (February 18). I thought I’d post about where I’m at personally with the three Pillars Of Leisure that form the foundation for writing here, starting with Sports.

You may have noticed that I haven’t written many posts about sports lately — July through October saw two or three each month, and none since November 12. Three months and no posts about sports.

I don’t think that I’m burned out on sports posts so much that the ecosystem around the blog has changed. Even over the last five years there has been a massive proliferation of sports writing on the internet. Large conglomerate sites compete for clicks with mostly unpaid content that to mind my isn’t original, and the writing often would benefit from some serious editing. Much of the writing is about as informative as is the average caller to the local radio sports talk show. I’ve never had any use for any it.

At the opposite end there are the highly researched sites like Fangraphs, Football Outsiders, Kenpom, and so on. If there’s a way to skin a cat they’re doing it. Those sites can provide excellent analysis of what’s really going on. And if breaking down trades and acquisitions is your thing… such as a math based article focused on the trade of Big Bat Billy for League Average Larry and a Package Of Prospects — they’ve got it covered. Those articles almost write themselves.

[Aside: At some point in the not too distant future a lot of sports writing, or a least the reporting on games will be done by a computer. I know it’s being worked on. Realistically, game summaries are basically just Mad Libs with sports verbiage and a few quotes to fill in the blanks. Just run your spider program over ESPN and away you go. Free content.]

Sort of like this:

I’ve also found that I’m not going back and looking at my sports posts from some time in the distant past. Sports writing is like taking a picture of a river, and the water in the photograph is now long gone.

What I’ve found I am doing is using the blog as a diary to track how I’m approaching baking, cooking, and growing things. I get value out of the old posts on those subjects, even if it’s been awhile. A written record, often with pictures, is very helpful to have around. That even applies to the gaming posts — I look at those strategy posts and wonder “What was I thinking?!?”

So.. I have no real desire to add to the endless Garbage Content pile. I’m frankly not educated and/or informed enough to add to the Excellent Content pile. I’ve absolutely established that I’m not a Unique Snowflake, at least when it comes to writing about sports.

What falls closer to Unique Snowflake status is me writing about me, and what I think I’ve learned while attempting new things. At the very least, having a record about what I did, or what I was thinking about the process of doing it has value to me. I know I learn a lot on the internet from watching people try, and sometimes fail. Just taking an aggregate of what worked means that I don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

There’s often no better teacher than negative stimulus:

I try to avoid being the captain of that ship, but when it happens, then hopefully someone else will learn from it.

TL;DR — Going forward, I’ll still be doing sports posts. I’m guessing many of them will come about because I’m convinced the world is wrong and I’m right. Or they’ll be gambling related somehow. Which is sort of the same thing, isn’t it?

The Spring Seed Catalogs Are Here

by A.J. Coltrane

Territorial Seed sent a 2nd Spring Catalog. NW Edible just posted “To Do In The Northwest Edible Garden: February 2015”.

I am *so* not ready for spring.

Maybe eventually I’ll stop being surprised by the seed catalog and instead view it as the first sign of the changing of the seasons. As of right now we have zero seedlings started inside, though almost all of the EarthBoxes contain cool-season greens and vegetables. The planned winter harvest never happened. Very few of the plants grew large enough to be useful, and I’ve learned that I’m not real inclined to go tromping out into the cold and rain to gather a few spinach leaves or whatever. The upshot is that we now have many plants in varying stages of development, and I’m hoping that they’ll go nuts over the next few weeks.

What will we plant this spring? The leftover seed from 2014. Last January we spent around $50 on seeds. As everyone but me was aware, that’s a lot of seed. I’d guess half of it is still stored in the wine refrigerator. We’ll need to figure out where there’s room to sow — the overwintered plants include cilantro, parsley, pak choi, spinach, mache, scallions, garlic, arugula, and a hodge-podge of other stuff. A few carrots and maybe some radishes overwintered as well. At this point I’m inclined to give the overwintering plants and dormant seeds until around late February to start doing something. At that point we’ll plant as much of the remaining seed as will fit.

On the bright side, there’s no shortage of seed to fill the containers.

How do I Hate Thee, Let Me Count the Ways

By Blaidd Drwg

Super Bowl 49 is a worst case scenario for me – the two teams I despise the most are playing each other in a game that I couldn’t give a crap about. I figured that I should pick a team to cheer for, but every fiber of my being is telling me I should be rooting for a giant space rock to destroy the stadium with both teams in it.

So, absent the space rock, who do I choose. Let’s figure out which team I hate the least.

Coaches – I cannot stand either Bill Belichick or Pete Carroll. Both will do anything they can do to gain a competitive advantage (i.e. cheat). Belichick has gotten caught taping the opposing team’s play, is suspected in deflate gate, will find some obscure formation that is technically legal to confuse the other team (well, I have to give him credit for that one) and that is just what he has been caught doing. Carroll broke just about every rule at USC and then bailed just as the NCAA was going to come down on him and his entire defensive game plan is to commit offsides, holding and/or pass interference on every play knowing full well that the refs are not going to throw the flag on every play. Think I am just making that one up? Well check out this article. I have the feeling that this is the game that the lets commit a foul is going to come back and bite the Seahawks. Belichick has a tendency to get inside the refs heads so I expect to see one of 2 things – either the Hawks get flagged on 3 consecutive plays and then back off their “style” of play or they keep getting flagged on critical plays. Either way, Belichick is smarter than Carroll, even though I can’t stand either of them, so that gets the Pats a rouge. The score: Pats 1, Hawks 0.

Players – The Seahawks players are a bunch of whiny douces who are basically hated outside of Seattle. Sherman does not know how to stop talking, Lynch acts like a freaking 5 year old with his antics around the media (although he seems to have no problem speaking when he is getting paid for it), the comments about the random drug testing (which I am shocked that none of the players who were tested got nailed for anything, although it was probably their first offenses which don’t get reported), and just the general idiocy of what comes out of their mouths. Quick – name another player on the Patriots besides Brady and Gronkowski. I bet you can’t without looking it up. The Pats get a field goal for just keeping their mouths shut. The score: Pats 4, Hawks 0

Cities – Boston is an historic town that is famous for things like Paul Revere, clam chowder, baked beans and the Standell’s “Dirty Water”. Seattle is famous for Bill Gates, smoked salmon and Nirvana. Boston educates the smartest people in the country and then they all come out here and work for Microsoft. Seattle has the reputation for being rainy and Boston is snows, sometimes a lot. Both cities have a major inferiority complex to a neighbor to the south of them. Having lived in both places for roughly the same amount of time, weather trumps history and gets the Seahawks a quick strike touchdown and the PAT is good. The score: Hawks 7, Pats 4.

Nicknames – the team nicknames are both appropriate for their regions the Pats harkening back to the American revolution and the Hawks representing the plethora of raptors in Washington. The Seahawks get the edge on the better current logo (although the Pats would win for the old Pat the Patriot logo), but I do love that the Pats are referred to as the Flying Elvii on ESPN (with that in mind, tell me the face on the Pats logo does not look like Elvis). The Pats are going to win this one for on simple reason – the Seahawks fly a raptor before every game. That bird is an Augur Hawk. Why does that matter. It is a bird that is found in Africa and is a plains hunter. I find it horrible that a team that is named the Seahawks has a mascot that is a bird from another continent and lives nowhere near water. The Pats score a safety for just sticking with a mascot with a giant, oversized head. The score: Hawks 7, Pats 6

The Bet – every year the governors of the state the teams are from make a bet. This year the Massachusetts governor is betting baked beans against the Washington governor betting…wait for it…calm chowder? See my previous point about the cities. You are going to give a city that is known for clam chowder, clam chowder if they win? Washington is known for a lot of things culinarily – salmon, cherries, apples, hot dogs with cream cheese, but really, chowder? Not that it matters, but the food is going to be donated regardless of the outcome of the game. And what is up with the New Hampshire governor getting involved in the bet? That mess is going to penalize both teams minus 10 points with the Seahawks losing another 5 for the stupidity of sending clam chowder to Boston. The score: Pats -4, Hawks -8.

Fans – the fans are obnoxious, whiny, boorish, and a bunch of band-wagoners. Which team am I referring to? Both of them. Boston sports fans are among the most obnoxious in the world and I am embarrassed most of the time to be around Red Sox fans in other cities. Patriot fans are actually more obnoxious, if that is all possible. Seahawks fans claim the unoriginal 12th man, which they actually stole and currently license from Texas A&M, and are mostly a bunch of band wagoners. How band wagon? They were one of the last NFL teams to not sell out a game (which is really hard to do), the almost failed to sell out a playoff game when they went to the Super Bowl in 2006, there was no season ticket waiting list until 3 years ago and they were actually leaving the game 2 weeks ago when they were down 17-0 to the Packers. Most Seahawks fans couldn’t tell you who the QB was before Russell Wilson let alone who their QB was in 1992. The best thing about Boston fans is that they don’t live in Seattle. The problem is they just never go away since they do travel well. At least Seattle will go back to not giving a crap about the Seahawks once this stretch of them being good is over. I hate sore winners, and that describes both groups of fans. Both sets of fans are annoying to the point of me not being able to stand either of them, so no one gets any points for this. They are both lucky that I didn’t dock them both about 1 million points, so lets say negative 6 TD’s for the Pats and negative 8 for the Hawks. The score, Pats -40, Hawks -56

Intangibles – Usually my playoff cheering hierarchy is determined by A)the steelers are in the playoffs, B)The team with the most Boston College alumni on their roster C) which team I dislike the least. This year, the Steelers got eliminated, neither NE or SEA have any BC Alums on their roster (although Seattle does have Kevin Pierre-Louis on their IR) and I hate both teams equally. I guess I can award a safety for having a BC Alum on IR, but he is not active, so there is no automatic rooting for the Hawks.

As the horn sounds, the final score is the Pats -40, the Hawks -54.

The conclusion is that I am rooting for the giant space rock first and then, very reluctantly, the Pats. At least with the Pats, I can just ignore all the Pats fans I know Facebook posts. I don’t want to go through another 2 weeks of Seahawks obnoxiousness if they win. My guess, the Pats win this bad boy 23-20. Go Flying Elvii, I think.

Star Realms Tips And Strategy Guide

by A.J. Coltrane

Star Realms tips, strategy, and collected thoughts.

Opening Game:

1. In the first two shuffles I like buying either – economy, Red “deck thinner” cards, or cards that can be Trashed for Trade, such as the Ram (3 Trade when Trashed) or Blob Wheel (same). If it’s the Ram or Blob Wheel then I try to immediately flip them for something bigger. The object is to try to get a big economy engine going without committing to a lot of cards that would represent late-game clutter. Generally I only buy Explorers (2 Trade/2 Damage when Trashed) if literally nothing else is available, and Trash them no later than the 3rd shuffle. I think if I need Explorers after the 3rd shuffle I’ve already lost.

2. Trash Vipers, then Scouts. The tiny amount of damage that a Viper might do isn’t as valuable as the potential 1 extra Trade from a Scout.

Mid Game:

3. Buy a maximum of 2-3 Red “thinners”. Red cards are good for thinning the deck and that’s about it. Once the deck has been thinned they’re relatively weak cards.

4. Try to buy a minimum of 3-4 Stations (Bases and Outposts). Bases and Outposts effectively thin the deck for as long as they’re in play, and Outposts function as bonus life every time they’re drawn. I love getting 5 or 6 Stations total, including at least 3 Outposts. That’s a lot of damage prevention.

Late (End) Game:

5. I think the end game starts at around 30 life (for either me or the opponent). I try to focus on Outposts, card draw, and offense after that point — ideally expensive stuff only. No cheap clutter allowed. Which leads to…

Other Thoughts:

6. Don’t feel compelled to spend just because you have it. I generally avoid all 1 cost cards after the first shuffle, and by the time the mid game rolls around I try to avoid purchasing anything that costs less than 5. The exception is Outposts. Outposts = extra life. I like extra life. It’s possible I’m too “purchase averse” — it may be as I play more games I’ll reconsider this point, though right now it appears to be working.

7. Draw > Opponent Discard. In fact, I think Opponent Discard is basically useless, and the cards that have it are relatively too expensive. I say this because I’ve had it happen where I’ve been forced to discard down to two or three cards and redrawn a dozen cards anyway. I actively try to avoid buying Opponent Discard, except lately I’ve been buying a turn 1 Imperial Frigate (if there’s nothing else) and immediately Trashing it for card draw. (With the Frigate I will have paid 3 Trade for 4 damage, 1 Opponent Discard, and 1 Draw. That seems not unreasonable to me. But I’m not going to leave it to suck up space in my deck.)

8. Pay attention to what cards the hard AI likes. Especially Recycling Station.

9. Try to focus on buying only one or two factions + a few Red. Faction bonuses are really important. The exception is that sometimes I’ll snap up a 6+ cost stompy Ship or powerful Station, even if it doesn’t “fit”. I’ll also buy Outposts regardless of what it is, though I still try to match factions if possible.

10. Yellow: Focus on draw and Outposts.

11. Green: I tend to go for off-faction Outposts and Bases. Exception: Blob World is a game-ender.

12. Blue: Really needs a blue-heavy thin deck — without faction bonuses Blue isn’t very good. Blue bases help.

Encouraging A Better Rise For The Big Sandwich Bread

by A.J. Coltrane

When we’re feeding a crowd I’ll make a big-*ssed sandwich — it’s basically the same size as a sheet tray (18″ x 13″). For the last GNOIF it was … either a ciabatta with a little bit of oil in the dough, or a focaccia with no oil on top and no dimples. It wasn’t the platonic ideal of either, but I’m calling it a ciabatta this time around.

Ingredient	Measure	Baker’s %
AP Flour	300g	50
Bread Flour	300g	50
Water	420g	70
Salt	15g	2.5
Instant Yeast	1 tsp
Olive Oil	24g	4

I wanted to encourage a lighter bread than the usual focaccia. The changes were:

1. The incorporation of bread flour into the formula.

2. I chose not to top the dough with oil before it went into the oven. Also, no dimpling the surface.

3. Before kneading, the flour, water, and 1/8 tsp of yeast were combined and allowed to rest for an hour. This is called an “autolyse.” It allows for the gluten strands to start setting up, and yeast doesn’t have to compete with salt for the available water.

Very foreshortened. It's 13" wide and 18" long. — Very foreshortened. It’s 13″ wide and 18″ long.

4. Normally when I proof the bread I’ll do it directly in a parchment-lined sheet tray. I’ll cover that with another inverted sheet tray. It dawned on me that the rise might be improved by using steam in the oven, which is how I’ve been baking baguettes… But then why not just leave the inverted sheet tray as a cover for the first 10 minutes of baking, similar to the No-Knead Bread dutch oven technique?

I mean really, why did that take so long to occur to me?

The finished bread was 2-3″ tall, which is about half again as tall as the focaccias have been. It was lighter and less oily too.

I think it’s a variation with potential.

GNOIF: New GNOIF On The Block

by A.J. Coltrane

GNOIF #16 Recap — New GNOIF On The Block (Games that have only been played a few times at GNOIF.)

Games That Got Played — Castle Panic, Dead Fellas, Fluxx, Forbidden Desert, Get Dr. Lucky, Run For Your Life Candyman, Star Realms, Ultimate Werewolf, We Didn’t Playtest This At All.

Games That Didn’t Get Played — Batt’l Kha’os, Carcassonne, Medina, Pirates Cove, Power Grid, Seven Wonders, Small World.

GNOIF turned sweet sixteen, and we celebrated by offering games that hadn’t been seen much in past events. Not too surprisingly, everyone gravitated to stuff that at least a few people knew how to play… and almost all the games played could be categorized as “light”. It seems starting from scratch by reading a big rulebook and then teaching is too slow when there are games that need little introduction. (I started to type “introducation”. That word doesn’t exist, but I think it should. It’s perfect for what I’m trying to describe.)

Which sort of makes it funny that the big hit of the evening was new to everyone. Ultimate Werewolf. One person went into the other room, read the (tiny) rulebook, then taught it to the group of ten players. It has some similarities to Resistance or Mafia, which helped the learning curve.

The concept is that some of the players are Werewolves, some are Villagers, and some are “special” roles such as “Seer”, the “Hunter”, or “The Village Idiot”. Each player’s role is a secret. The Werewolves try to eat the Villagers, and the Villagers try not to get eaten… there’s more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it. Suitable for 5 to 30 players, and best at 10-15 players, it made a good substitute for some of the other “late in the evening” games we’ve been playing, such as Bang! or The Worst Card Game Ever. It was loud, boisterous, and not too heavy on the thinking.

Bonus boy cat pic:

He’s long. That’s a dog bed.

The Best And Worst In Board Games

by A.J. Coltrane

Links to three articles about board games at FiveThirtyEight.com, all of them based around BoardGameGeek ratings:

“Designing The Best Board Game On The Planet”

and

“Stop Playing Monopoly With Your Kids (And Play These Games Instead)”

and

“The Worst Board Games Ever Invented”

To quote Sid Meier — I’m of the opinion that “A [good] game is a series of interesting choices.” Overall the voters on BoardGameGeek tend to agree, and will rank games based around that type of idea. I like to check the BoardGameGeek rating when we’re considering purchasing a game. If the rating is below 7.00 we’ll be hesitant about buying it — a 7.00 rating represents the #275th ranked game on the site.

And we don’t have room in the house for 275 games anyway.