A Girl's Adventure into "Serious" Board Games

I learned something recently. It turns out that when I said I liked board games, I had a very narrow view of actual board games. Apparently, what I was really saying was that I liked party games. You know, Catch Phrase, Cranium, Apples to Apples. Little did I know there was a whole other world of games in existence, ones that sound hokey but are actually a lot of fun, ones that challenge you to figure out who among your fellow game players are working against you, and ones that are so complicated the first time you play them, somehow hours have gone by and they're still not over.

It's a brave new world. One where you go to organized game gatherings and have guys spit in your eye (true story).

Some highlights from my foray, in no particular order...

Love Letter

The first time you see this game, you're going to think it looks kinda dumb, possibly cornball. There's a whole story about how the princess is distraught over her mother's betrayal of the kingdom, and the only way to make her feel better is by delivering love letters to her. Through the game play, you're basically figuring out who delivers your letter via points, and if you win, you've won her favor for that day, in the form of a little red block. This game is actually a lot of fun, you're basically trying to have the card with the highest point value at the end of each round. What makes it so entertaining is that while there aren't that many cards, no round is the same. There's some guesswork, some strategy and some mind gaming too. Plus, it's super portable and cheap, most uncommon! 

The Castles of Burgundy

What a sad, boring box this game has. A shame, really, because I like this one a lot. I haven't played Settlers of Catan, but I have played the Rivals version, and was sort of reminded of that when playing this game. Basically you're trying to build up a city around a central castle, whether that be with buildings, pastures for animals, silver mining areas, rivers or other special yellow sections, perhaps you could term them industry? Mostly they just give you bonuses for your other sections. You have silver, workers, and goods to help you, as some of the game is based on the chance of dice rolling. You have to use your brain a lot in this one, as it requires a lot of forethought and planning based on what comes available in each round and your strategy to get the most points, which are earned in a variety of ways. I will say, this game could get slightly dry after a while, but there are different boards to choose from to mix things up.

Galaxy Trucker

Technically I haven't played the full anniversary version of this game, as pictured, but moreso the base game, but I'll get there, because this one is a lot of fun. It satisfies the puzzle-lover and space-lover inside of me, because basically you're figuring out how to build the best spaceship possible with a limited number of pieces that can only connect in certain ways - guns, engines, crew areas, cargo holds, the like. After you build your ship, a series of cards come into play, whether picking up cargo from planets, or getting blasted with meteors, or being attacked by pirates. You're trying to survive and end up with the most money. It's actually really simple, and moves pretty quick. You have to use your brain but not to the extent where you're pre-planning every minute detail. The ships get bigger and more complicated with each round as well, to keep things interesting.

Ticket to Ride

The version pictured here is the Nordic Countries one, which I've played, but I've also done the app, which is the USA. Anyway, same basic concept for both. I got a little too obsessed with the app version when I first downloaded it, actually, because the games would move so quickly. It sounds kind of lame, because all you're doing is connecting trains across the country (or countries) to complete routes you've picked up. The more routes you complete, the more points you get. The longer those routes are, the more points you get. Depending on who you're playing with and whether you like to be vindictive and only concerned about winning winning winning!, you can block each other. Again, pretty simple, even though it seems slightly complicated if it's the first non-party game you've ever played. What, am I talking about myself? Psh.

The Resistance: Avalon

Whereas the other games you can play with a smaller number of players, this one benefits from having at least six. I haven't played the original Resistance game, but I gather it's a similar concept, though this has the whole Merlin theme going on. This one is entirely about mind games, and reverse mind games if you've played with the same people a number of times. You're basically either a good guy or a bad guy, and you're trying to figure out who everyone else is with very little information. It requires some deceptiveness and cleverness, and can honestly get kind of stressful if everyone's accusing you of being a bad guy when you're not. I can only handle this one in small amounts anymore. If I had to choose a game like this, I would actually probably rather play this other one that's similar but with more to do, which is called Shadow Hunters. Similar theme of bad versus good and you don't know who is who, but there's a bit more to it, and some neutral players thrown in as well. But Avalon would be good in a party setting, particularly for people who like to argue.

Merchants and Marauders

This game is probably one of the coolest looking ones you'll find. A pretty board, boats, lots of little cards with missions and captains and all sorts of things, treasure chests and money, your own individual game board thing to keep track of your stuff. Pretty much, you look at it and you want to play it. And generally, the game doesn't disappoint. Based on what captain you get and his abilities, you can be a merchant or a marauder. Merchants generally go around collecting goods and selling them. Marauders tend to attack either other players or the non-player characters that are floating around as well. Let's just be honest, this game is pretty complicated. Definitely the most complicated of the ones I've listed here. You basically go from port to port, collecting missions and rumors or doing stuff with the goods, all with the end goal of getting victory points, which can be done in a variety of ways that I'm not going to go into detail explaining, because hell, you can look at the rules for that. It's a pretty fun game that can go really quickly or really slowly depending somewhat on what cards come up and somewhat on what the other players decide to do. But if you like pirates at all, you'll probably enjoy it.

Supernatural 8x20 "Pac-Man Fever"

Welcome back from the mini hiatus, peeps. Only a few more episodes to go until season eight is over, if you can believe it. I suspect we'll get two more seasons and go full decade style, though sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to keep doing these posts. They take time, man!

I suspect Dean hugs are pretty great.

Anyway, this episode featured the return of new guest star favorite Felicia Day as Charlie. The opening was interesting, actually, because you're sort of like wait, are we in the past? Is this another time travel thing? But no, spoiler alert, it's not. Also different from the norm in that it wasn't some rando getting killed but rather featured Dean.

Back in the Men of Letters bunker, the boys are trying to figure out where Kevin is, without much luck. Sam is looking like shit, the second trial having taken more out of him than he expected. So much so that he can barely stand up straight and certainly can't shoot straight. Which means that when they get an email from Charlie saying she's got a case for them, Dean is in no mood to let him come along on the case. I'm sure we all know just about how long that lasts. Charlie, however, does tag along to investigate the weirdness (basically some people's insides have been jelly-fied, with a weird blue hand print left on them, and no one knows why, etc), and we have some similar upside down FBI badge shenanigans that always seem to plague Dean whenever he's with a hunting newbie.

Sam shows up despite being told to stay behind, which turns out to be rather helpful later on. Working together, they figure out that the thing that's been killing the poor hapless people is something related to a djinn, which means they know how to kill it, but they aren't quite sure who it is since they can pass for people.

Charlie decides to take a leave of absence at this point while the boys do some more research, but they are rather concerned about her, because she's been acting a bit fishy since she arrived. Good thing they've been paying attention, too, because she ends up getting captured by the djinn-abe in question. They split up to try to find her, and Dean discovers that she's been in town to visit her mother, who's been in a coma in the nearby hospital for 16 years. Sam, meanwhile, is able to track down the djinn-abe, and therefore Charlie, only to find that the djinn has already dosed Charlie with the blue voodoo. And even after killing the djinn and giving Charlie the antidote, she's not waking up.

Since it's not a regular djinn, the antidote doesn't apparently work the same. So, Dean ends up having to drink some African dream root to go inside Charlie's head to help her get out. Inside, she's battling super vampires, video game style, but every time she beats the level, she just gets sent back to the beginning. As we learned with Dean's foray into djinn land, the only way you can get out is if you stop the dream. In this case, stop fighting. It ends up being a somewhat sappy moment involving Charlie having to let go of her mom and such to get out.

On the outside, Sam has to fight off another djinn, and despite his weakened state, he is able to do so rather easily since said djinn is just a teenager without much skill. He still looks like crap, though.

In the end, Charlie decides she has to say goodbye to her mom for real, while Dean decides to give Sam a hug and hunker down to find Kevin and get this trial business done with already.

Random Thoughts:

- Pretty enjoyable episode overall, always fun to get geeky references in Charlie episodes. Found out more background information about her, though I'm not sure everyone was especially clamoring for that? Sure.

- What exactly are these trials doing to Sam? In the preview for next week's he said something like they're changing him. Changing him how? Hmm.

- Charlie read all of the Carver Edlund books and seemed to gain a new respect for the brothers through them. She also called them her boys at the end, so I mean, she's definitely kind of representative of the fandom in a less gross way than Becky.

- Do you ever wonder where your djinn would send you - for either your happy place or your fear place? I really have no idea!

Quotes:

Dean, saying what many of us have been thinking about Sam's hair: I'm telling you, give me five minutes with some clippers...

Dean: That's why we don't have nice things, Sam.

Charlie, to Sam: Sorry you have zero luck with the ladies.

Charlie: Son of a pantsuit.

Dean: Don't quote me to me.

Sam, later Charlie: I hate that thing. And I want one.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

You know, I'm surprised I don't make biscuits more often. I love bread, I love butter, I love bread and butter. Hand-sized bits of buttery bread? Come on. I mean, look at them!

Oh wait. I remember. The kneading! The using of my own hands in with the dough! The way it sticks to my fingers like glue, near impossible to get off! The way I forgot the trick of getting my hands wet first to try to prevent said stickiness! Okay, enough exclamation points. The point is, obvs, that I don't like sticky dough all over my hands. Does anyone? I mean, all up in your nails and stuff? Please to the no.

That said, every now and then? Totally worth it. These biscuits are especially flaky, so if you love a flaky biscuit, get on it. They're not fancy with random weird ingredients or anything, just your basic buttermilk biscuit to start a morning. Why not?

Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

Ingredients

• DRY:
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 scant teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cups) unsalted butter, cold
• WET:
• 1/2 cup buttermilk, cold and shaken
• 1 large egg, cold
• EGG WASH:
• 1 large egg
• 1 Tablespoon milk or water

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside for now.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. (If you're using powdered buttermilk, add in 2 tablespoons of the powder here.) Grate your butter into the flour mixture, then transfer the bowl to the freezer while you get the wet ingredients ready, about 5 minutes.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk (or water if you're using powdered buttermilk) and egg. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the egg wash egg and milk or water. Put both in the fridge.
4. Take your dry ingredients out of the freezer and gently break up the butter and combine with the flour using your hands, until it looks like small peas of butter. Add in the buttermilk wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Lightly knead the dough until it forms one mass. Sprinkle your counter or whatever you use (I use a cutting board) with some flour and dump your dough onto it. If it's still super sticky, you can knead some more flour into it until you can press it down to about 3/4 inch thickness. Cut out the biscuits using a 2-inch cutter. Make sure you press hard and don't turn your cutter to get them out. Recombine and press down the dough scraps to get some more biscuits, about 8 in all. Put them on your baking sheet about 1-2 inches apart.
5. If you haven't been doing this too quickly, put them in the freezer for about 5 minutes to get the butter cold again. After that, brush the tops of your biscuits with your egg wash (don't let it go down the sides of the biscuits if you can help it, they don't rise as well if that happens). Bake for 15-17 minutes, until medium golden brown. Serve warm with butter or jam or whatever you like!

Recipe via A Cozy Kitchen


In Photos:

Mix the dry ingredients together. My butter started to get a bit warm so it's not super shredded in this photo.

 Mix up your egg and buttermilk. (This is egg and water, as I used powdered buttermilk in with the dry ingredients!)

Wait a minute, there are lots of missing photos here! Sorry, my hands got covered in sticky dough! Combine the dry with the wet and mix, then knead and put on your flowered work surface.

Press that out to 3/4 inch thickness and cut some biscuits (2 inch work best).

Stick those on your parchment-covered sheet. As you can see, I use salt and pepper shakers to keep that parchment down until I have stuff on there. Work with what you've got!

Brush the tops with your egg wash, then bake in your 400F oven for 15-17 minutes. Yours may rise more than mine did, as my egg wash went down the sides of some of these, and that prevents some rising action.

Supernatural 8x19 "Taxi Driver"

Well, I must say, I was really not spoiled much at all for this episode, and apparently did not pay attention during the guest star names either, so whoa! Surprise for me! After last week's run of the mill episode, we return back to the season arc in full force, and with only a few episodes left to go, no wonder.

Things never end well when a crossroad is involved.

Kevin, ye olde dirty prophet, has started to believe he's hearing Crowley speak to him. Whether this is true or just in his mind, one cannot be sure. Nonetheless, it turns out he has also figured out what the second demon tablet trial is, so we've got a mission for this episode. Turns out, trial in question involves taking an innocent soul from Hell and releasing it to Heaven. Wait a minute. We can just travel to Hell now all willy nilly?

Apparently so, as it turns out! There are so rogue reapers about, who are basically ferrying souls in and out of Hell. The purpose, not sure, other than to help fit the plot of the episode. The boys go in search of one of these reapers, find one toot suite and get him to agree to take Sam down under. And the soul he's going to rescue? Why, it's Bobby! Wait, Bobby's in Hell? But he's a good guy. Yeah, it turns out apparently souls can be bargained with, and Crowley decided he wanted Bobby in Hell. O-kay. Dean, of course, thinks he should go too, but Sam is having none of that talk, so he heads off with the reaper to... Purgatory! Wait a minute, I thought we were going to Hell? Well, no, Sam now has to find the secret back door entrance to Hell within Purgatory.

It's hard knock life for vamps named Benny.

Meanwhile, topside, Dean is trying to reassure a distraught Kevin that despite the general badness of their lives, they must keep on living them. Kev really doesn't look so good, though Dean tries to give him some food other than hot dogs. But Dean, burgers and fries aren't much better. Neither are eggs and ham or whatever that was. Just saying. Anyway, while Kevin is having a sulk, Dean gets a visit from none other than Naomi. She tries to tell Dean that she's on their side, but Dean is rather reluctant to believe such nonsense as he's pretty sure she commanded Cas to kill him. Naomi tries to sweet talk him, but for the time being, it doesn't seem to work, though she does give Dean a tip about the reaper helping them. You know, that Crowley killed him, so he won't be able to bring Sam back.

Sam manages to find the entrance to Hell, and even manages to find Bobby incredibly, incredibly easily once in there. They only have to fight a few demons in order to get out of there and back up to Purgatory, only the reaper isn't there waiting to take them back to Earth like he said he would be, but as we know, he dead, yo. He dead. So now they're stuck in Purgatory, and Sam gets berated for not looking for Dean there during his lost year, much to probably all viewers' delight.

"Oh no. My hand!"

Back topside, Dean is understandably distraught knowing his brother is stuck in Purgatory. As soon as Purgatory got involved, you had to know we'd be seeing Benny again, and of course we do, because he's the only one Dean knows that can get into Purgatory, and also knows where the exit back to Earth is. It's all very melodramatic between them as they say their farewells, even though Dean thinks Benny will come back out with Sam. Dude, I think we all figured out that wasn't going to happen by this point. So, Dean has to cut off his head.

Down in Purgatory, Benny helps Sam and Bobby get to the portal. Sam does some mumbo jumbo to get Bobby's soul into his arm like Dean did for Benny, but when he goes to do it for Benny, he refuses. He has to go distract a pack of vamps who have found them, but also he wasn't fitting in on Earth anyway, and when Sam has to tell Dean he thinks he would've stayed, I think I agree with him.

Dean and Bobby make it back out and Sam speaks some, perhaps, Latin to release his soul. Only Crowley shows up, wanting to take it back down to Hell with him again. Things don't look so promising, but then Naomi shows up and scares off Crowley, then sends Bobby's soul up to Heaven, clearly trying to get on the good side of the Winchesters so that they'll find Cas for her. We all know she just wants that tablet.

Sam's like bzzzah who the heck is that? No time for explanations now, kid, just finish that trial ritual. He speaks some other stuff and gets the glowy hand of pain again, though he tries to say he's okay, telling himself that as much as he's telling Dean now, yeah.

They go back to find Kevin, only he's flown the coop. Whether because he had another hallucination of Crowley telling him he'd killed his mother, or because Crowley has actually found him and spirited him away, not sure, though the windows from when Crowley exploded them were perfectly fine, so it would seem we're on the side of hallucination. So, he's hidden the tablet somewhere unknown, and is now somewhere unknown himself. Gulp.

Random Thoughts:

- What did you think of the return of Bobby? I was just happy he wasn't magically brought to life again, though they certainly left that door open enough, despite his soul going to Heaven and having no body to return to on Earth.

- It seemed super easy to get into Hell and Purgatory. Like, why did we go through all of the previous seasons if it was so easy? And how quickly Sam found Bobby once he was in there was ridiculous. One corridor of cells and he's like the third one he looks in? Come on, son.

- Has this rule always existed that souls meant for Heaven could get sent to Hell instead simply because Crowley desired it? Then how did the Winchesters end up in Heaven apparently so many times previously, as was mentioned back in season five? Can Crowley only do that now that he's ruling Hell?

- Is Kevin actually hearing Crowley or is he losing it? Does it matter? What could the final trial be? What if closing the gates to Hell closes the gates to Heaven at the same time? I know there are two tablets, but that would be interesting.

- The next episode looks kind of silly. Shouldn't we be in full on end of season arc mode now?

Quotes:

Reaper: Gate crashing a Winchester into Hell seriously blows.

Dean: That's my pie.

Sam: The rabbit hole. This is nuts.

Sam: You knew somehow, right?
Bobby: Took a chance. 50-50.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Caramel Apple Bread

I know apple season is pretty much over. Spring is springing and everyone is getting excited about strawberries. But what happens when you have a couple leftover lonely apples wasting away in your fridge? You don't particularly want to eat them just straight up, so you know what you can do? Bake them! Yes!

I had two such apples wasting away, and when I saw this really delicious looking caramel apple bread online, knew I had to use them for it. It was a good decision, apart from the fact that I was sort of an idiot and forgot to do a crucial step when making this bread.

Don't be like me.

What did I forget? I forgot to layer the crumb mixture in with the batter. In fact, I stuck the bread in the oven without any crumb mixture at all for at least five minutes before I realized I was making a colossal mistake! By that point I couldn't really go back in and re-layer the thing, so I just made half the crumb mixture and stuck it all on top. Not as good as it would have been, I suspect, but still pretty dang good.

Caramel Apple Bread
(via The Domestic Rebel)

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp lemon or lime juice
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups coarsely chopped apples
Caramel sundae sauce

For Crumb Mixture:
1 tsp cinnamon
4 Tbsp flour
4 Tbsp brown sugar
4 Tbsp cold butter

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray your loaf pan with cooking spray. You don't want the bread to stick!

In a large bowl, cream together your softened butter and sugar until creamy. In a separate bowl, dissolve the baking soda into the lemon juice. It will foam up; don't worry, that's normal. Once dissolved, mix in that mixture, the vanilla and the eggs to the butter/sugar combo. I recommend adding in the eggs one at a time and beating well between each.

Mix in the salt and flour until a thick batter is formed. Stir in the chopped apples (they can be skinless if you want, but I just left mine with the peel).

In a small bowl, combine the crumb ingredients. You can use your fingers or a fork or a pastry cutter, or even a small food processor if you're really lazy.

Now, place a layer of your batter in your bread pan. Sprinkle some of the crumb mixture on top, then drizzle some caramel. Add another layer of batter, then the crumbs and caramel. You can do this just twice or you can do it four times, depending on how much you want the crumb/caramel stuff mixed in. Basically you just want to end up with the crumb/caramel stuff on top at least.

Bake in the center of your oven for 45-60 minutes. When you insert a tester or toothpick in the center and it comes out mostly clean (remember, there's some caramel in there), it's done, so take it out of the oven! Let it cool in the pan for 20 minutes or so, then place on a wire rack to cool completely before cutting into it.

Enjoy by itself, or slather in butter. Yum!

In photos:

 Beat together your butter and sugar.

Separately, dissolve your baking soda in the lemon juice. After that's dissolved, add it, the vanilla, and your eggs (recommended you do this one at a time with the eggs), and beat until incorporated.

Mix in the flour and salt until a thick batter is formed. Yep, it's pretty dang thick.

Fold in your chopped apples. I used Gala, but if you want more tartness, use Granny Smith.

Layer your batter alternately with your crumb mixture and a drizzle of caramel sauce. So, layer of batter, layer of crumb & drizzle, layer of batter, layer of crumb & drizzle. You want to end up with crumb on top.

See? Crumb and drizzle on top. The best part.

Bake for 45-60 minutes at 375F until a toothpick/tester comes out mostly clean. This is a little overdone, which is my fault.

Let it cool in the pan for 20 minutes or so, then place on a wire rack to cool completely. Once cool, cut into that baby and enjoy! You can add more caramel on top too, if you like.