An ongoing discussion we have at our house, is the American vs Japanese attitude in regards to technology. The Japanese have a particulary voluble relationship to robots -  59 metre mecha angels of soulless kickass vs pneumatic strawberry packing robots for the tedious household chore of moving sushi from the to-go box onto the dinner plate.  Part of the love/hate, I'm sure, is that...

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I'm barely into 20% of the content according to ingame stats, but already Dragon Age feels epic.  The scope of this strategy rpg is massive, with a well devised story and game structure.  The two interact with each other quite well, interspersing game travel, combat, puzzles and cutscenes to move plot yet still allowing the freedom to travel willy nilly.  While the game...

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Milkpail is something of a cheese mecca for me in the two states region (Northern and Southern Californias...)  They have walls of cold cases divided up by region and type, with an un-exaggeratedly vast, as well as deep, international selection of unusual and hard to find cheeses.  (Milkpail tops Whole Foods, Bi-rite, and dare I say it, the Cheeseboard Collective in Berkley in...

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Kin Dza Dza takes a Russian bent on the dark comedic satire, making the most of post-war Soviet social oppression and dissent in a really surprising way, by turning it into great science fiction.  Released a year after Terry Gilliam's Brazil, which is gleefully grotesque and whimsical by turn, Kin Dza Dza maintains a bleak and creaky attitude, the stoic characters slowly unpacking...

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For some reason, I have a fondness for those shrink wrapped crumb cakes you sometimes find while in line at the gas station, the kind with super sweet topping that looks just like rabbit pellets.  Appetizing, I know.... I've plugged away, baking coffee cakes with various streusel, but I could never quite reproduce what I was searching for.  Then, the Cook's Illustrated folk...

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The New Best Recipe Corned Beef and Cabbage came out stellar.  It was so simple I didn't even take pictures.  I used the dry rub method and plain water poach.  Meat was paper towel dried while the whole spice ingredients went into the coffee grinder for a quick blitz, and then pressed on by hand.  I left the meat in the fridge for...

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Posole is great comfort food for cooling nights and gets better with age. However... Big Surprise... The Cook's Illustrated version is a dud for me, crowded with surfeit of pork, as well as burdened with one-note flavor from a soup lacking any chili piquancy or smokiness. I followed the recipe to a T but 6 cups of water really doesn't seem to be...

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