Session 39 Menu: Little Whore and Spoiled Grandfather

Thine Spawn of Endra recaps the latest foodal offerings in the campaign:

That's one way to translate last session's dishes -- Pasta Puttanesca and Baba Ganooj. I've been meaning to post on what we eat on game night for a while. We have a multi-timezone game over Skype every other week, with me hosting the bulk of the crew at my place on the West Coast, and Hazel in the MidWest, and Carter DMing from New York state. Works pretty well, but since we start at 5pm Pacific I've mostly tried to come up with something substantial during the dinner hour, and everybody brings in some delightful treats of food and beverages. (The downside of this is that we get called scum and a bunch of rotten bastards by Carter and Hazel who have to watch us having a food orgy during the game.)

Part of the challenge for me is accommodating Yor's player, who's largely vegetarian, but does eat fish, so that helps. I have nothing against vegetarian cuisine per se, it's just that I don't cook it much and so my repertoire of top-of-the-head recipes is weak. I want my guests to feel taken care of, I don't like serving a dish to one person where I've merely removed the meat. Defeats the whole purpose of eating together since we're not eating the same food. And you know, when you've got a player that has such fun at the sessions and asks the mind-shattering question "Can I get my crowbar enchanted to become a +1 Crowbar?" that player deserves the best.

With summer finally here in the PNW I've been grilling and Baba Ganooj comes into my life. Typically you grill your food, and there are still coals in the grill for an hour or more, so I get one or two extra whole eggplants and put them on there to bake/smoke, turning them occasionally so they cook evenly-ish. This goes for an hour or more 'til they're well gushy. Takes no effort and makes use of the otherwise wasted heat.

Then you strip the charred skins off and scoop out the gooey innards and retain the juices. For one ~1lb eggplant mix it with:

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)

1/4 cup tahini

1 1/2 tsp cumin

3 cloves garlic pressed or minced

You can food-process this, but if you've really cooked those eggplant you should be able to mash it with a fork. Plus I like a certain amount of texture in this. Serve it with flat bread warmed in the oven. We had 4 folks eat through double this recipe with about 16 full pieces of bread. (I can't remember where I found this recipe; it's on a well-worn scrap of paper from about 10 years.)

Puttanesca. This version I modified from America's Test Kitchen ca. 2005. I didn't follow it precisely last session because I had the wrong pasta and the wrong tomatoes, but it still was really good. Cook 1lb of rotini (or similar short pasta; note that my favorite Italian brand DeCecco calls this fusilli) in plenty of well-salted water. Meanwhile, in a skillet/saute pan, heat olive oil to cover the bottom on medium to med high heat. Saute:

~6" anchovy paste or 4-5 minced fillets

1/2 tsp red chili flakes (or more to taste)

3-4 cloves pressed garlic

Saute these, but mind that you don't burn the garlic. That sucks. Don't be an asshole. Strain 28oz of diced tomatoes, reserving the liquid for later. Add the tomatoes and simmer while stirring for 5-7 min. The idea is to blend the flavors, but don't overcook the sauce and destroy the fresh tomato flavor. In the meantime:

Chop: (1) 14oz can of black olives

Mince: a handful of fresh Italian parsley

Sequester from their brine: 2-3 Tbsp of capers

(Yes, that's Tbsp folks. Tsp are a waste of time here.)

Finally, mix the drained pasta (al dente) in its pot with the cooked sauce, the olives, parsley and capers, AND the reserved uncooked tomato juice. The last adds another layer of freshness to the proceedings. Toss and serve immediately.

The four of us ate almost all of this minus perhaps one bowl of pasta. After a bit of a rest we ate through a Party Size Bag of Tom's Salt and Vinegar Chips, apparently adventuring party size. Overall, it's a pretty quick prep: if you're already grilling, you do the Baba Ganooj the night before; if you're doing the Puttanesca this takes 35 min once you're familiar with it. And this gives you good flavors and happy folks for not too much money. These are relatively inexpensive dishes to feed a bunch of folks, especially if they're expecting or used to Cheetos, chips, sour gummi worms, etc.

But it's definitely a morale boost to have food there if the session is cutting into normal feeding time, and sometimes folks worked the whole day, skipped lunch, and biked across town at top speed to get here, and are fucking ravenous. As a friend of mine in Belize often says, "A hungry man is an angry man." And as for angry people ... well, nothing more needs to be said on that score.