Rachel Khoo’s Kitchen Notebook by Rachel Khoo

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the first time I’ve read a cookbook written by a European and it was interesting to see where they are similar and different. Some of them really intrigued me and some of them were a bit too far. But I look forward to making a few of them, particularly the tomato soup with chickpeas as croutons.

The Just City by Jo Walton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’d had this book on my To Read list since 2014 when I read about it on Boing-Boing. I don’t remember what they said about, but something piqued my interest. Of course, when you have a To Read list that’s hovering near 400 books, it takes a while to get to things. In his case, it was a good thing because eventually I nabbed it for free from the Tor eBook club. If you’re into SFF, I think it’s one the best deals you can get in exchanged to be emailed at from a company. So what about the book?

Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Holy Time-Skip, Batman! As is clear from the first chapter (and maybe the synopsis? I never read those once I know I’m going to read a book because they tend to spoil a bit or mess with my expectations) we’ve jumped 30 years into the future. I would have to say that is probably the second ot third best thing James S.A. Corey have done in this series. Yeah, earlier on there was a five year time-skip, but things for the crew of the Roci and the Solar System as a whole hadn’t changed much. But with this book we get something that I wish more authors (and the comic book industry) would do - show us what happens to the characters we have become attached to when they’ve grown old and had to deal with the consequences of their actions. (Or, in the case of the Mistborn series of trilogies - what happens 700 years after you massively change the world) I was constantly enjoying seeing the world that was the consequence of the actions of book 6 (and, to some extent, all of Holden’s life since the Protomolecule).

The fifth video game I made in Unity was another clone of a game I spent a lot of time playing, this time as an adult - Plants vs Zombies.

Glitch Garden during development

For comparison, here’s Plants vs Zombies:

https://youtu.be/H79ZjVVa4AU

Plants vs Zombies

and here’s my finished Glitch Garden:

https://youtu.be/eaK9t-BB-Ig

Glitch Garden

We learned a lot of techniques and reinforced even more, but the biggest thing I learned was how to do Sprite Sheet animation. Having done bone-based animation in Blender years ago, I have to say that in comparison, sprite sheet animation is easy-peasy. The tradeoff is less flexibility - you only have what your artist drew (or you bought or got for free online), but it essentially automates everything about animation.

Bread Illustrated: A Step-By-Step Guide to Achieving Bakery-Quality Results at Home by America’s Test Kitchen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though I started this book nearly a year ago, I haven’t made any of the recipes yet. This is mostly because I didn’t get a stand mixer until late last year. That said, I’m very confident I’m going to really enjoy this book. Why? Well, I’ve made recipes from Dinner Illustrated and the multiple pictures is VERY helpful when you’re trying to a new cooking skill. Second, I’ve made their bread recipes from their magazines and other books and they’ve often been really awesome (with only a few misfires - and those could have been chef error). Tonight, for example, I made their recipe for North Carolina Cheese Bread from Cook’s Country June/July 2017 and it was a huge hit with both myself and the wife (and she will NOT hesitate to tell me I’ve “ruined her dinner” if the food isn’t up to par for her). Like most of ATK’s topic-based cookbooks, the intro section is VERY comprehensive and has everything you need to know to start baking so that you have a one-stop shop to learning how to bake bread. Often the same cannot be said of most cookbooks which assume some domain knowledge. I’ve used some of the intro section from this book when baking bread and biscuits from other recipes.

Bowls!: Recipes and Inspirations for Healthful One-Dish Meals by Molly Watson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

BOWLS! They’re both a new phenomenon and one of the oldest ways to eat food. My younger brother recently suggested eating at one of those food-court style places that are really trendy right now and nearly all ten of the restaurants there had at lest one dish that was a bowl-based dish. The first 2/3s of this book are great for the cooks like my wife and mom who just need a suggestion and can use that to come up with wonderful food. The last third was for me, who needs recipes of an entire dish which I can then make small modifications to.

Vegetables on Fire: 50 Vegetable-Centered Meals from the Grill by Brooke Lewy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think the recipes in this book allow your veggies to be first-class citizens on the grill. Plus they provide some pretty awesome items for your vegetarian friends to eat instead of the usual mushrooms or tofu burgers. The dishes I’ve made have been pretty good and I hope to try many more of them.

First up is tldr. This something I’ve wanted ever since I started with Linux 16 years ago! Basically it gives you the examples part of a man page. For both of these I’m going to use a screenshot because copy/pasting it into the blog doesn’t do it justice.

This is just the first page of man dnf:

the output of man dnf

And this is tldr dnf:

Project Fire: Cutting-Edge Techniques and Sizzling Recipes from the Caveman Porterhouse to Salt Slab Brownie S’Mores by Steven Raichlen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Last summer I made the grilled breakfast quesadillas and just that item is worth the cost of this book. Also, grilled bacon turned out to be pretty awesome and way less messy than in a pan. That said, a good chunk of this book is going to have to wait for next summer, for while I BBQ and Smoke in the winter, grilling is a lot harder because it tends to involve opening the lid a lot more or even not using the lid at all. That said, Raichlen does have a few smoke-roasting recipes here, in other words, indirect grilling. I have less experience with Raichlen recipes than Meathead recipes, but the few times I made his recipes last year I was pretty happy. One I’m looking forward to trying is a hot and fast version of pulled pork. I love my low and slow 12 hour pulled pork sandwiches, but if the faster way can work some of the time, that’s a much faster route to some extremely delicious food.

Cook’s Country Magazine 2018 by America’s Test Kitchen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As per usual with these reviews - I’ve already made a couple recipes from this bundle of 2018 Cook’s Country issues. It was, of course, great! In 2018 Cook’s Country continued the tradition of recipes from around the USA with fun stories about the food origins along with the special sections at the end: 5 Ways to make a dish, Cooking for Two, Master Class, One-Pan meal, and slow cooker recipe. It continues to be a great resource for cooking although if you get America’s Test Kitchen’s various cookbooks you’ll inevitably end up with some duplicated recipes. Right now the recipe I’m most looking forward to trying is Amish Friendship Bread.