#Skewer Slinger

[theoutcastrogue]

MtG Art from Wilds of Eldraine

by Edgar Sánchez Hidalgo, Zara Alfonso, Nicholas Gregory, and Aldo Dominguez

[dailymtgflavortext]

One way or another, dwarven meals end up in someone's stomach.

-Skewer Slinger

[almostlookedhuman]

[captainkurosolaire]

Rumblin' & Tumblin'

 Coyotes within a pack cried, migrating Vulture’s overhead flew with a piercing yap across the savannah heat, both parties, stalking prey on wounded legs; laws of hunt. In a tumble world bound by nature. Couldn’t ever know what appeared like an ally today, was a looming enemy for tomorrow. Footprint’s cratered into desert soils, one feet lagging behind. Captain, found himself still suffering from wounds not fully healed. A traitor was amidst his safest space. Keeps any man up at night, even the wickedest. Prowlers, six steps like units, drew behind forming shadows behind him. Their pursuit dated back from the Saloon. Their indoor voices between each other. Their slightly drifting formation shown by their silhouette, they were of ambush, killers for hire, message senders. Whoever his traitor was, confirmed a hunch. They were out to take him out, and there wouldn’t be a second date. Defensively in silence, drew his posture while continuing his pace, feline ear’s canted back, his breathing still had a whistle pitch. There was no surviving this, hand’s attempt to clump together; for a fist, but a spasm had painful tear’s excruciating leaking from his eyes. Cackling heard between the pursuers. Before rocketing speed toward him from three directions, one came with a lunge from a hidden blade between sleeves. The Seeker prioritized and grabbed the wrist of the offender and twisted it but didn’t connect enough force to entirely disarm but gave a small body push. Outmatched and numbered he was lobbed with a clubbing blow from the forearms of a towering Roe in his backside. That pushed saliva from his lungs, with force.

Pushed into another offender, who sucker punched him on the come up, his head snapped back and wobbled, the hired-gun, Roegadyn, caught him like a dance partner, effortlessly. Hoisting by underarm, centering a free attack for the other two companions, ganging up, how flattering. Captain resisted with a kick from his good leg, serving an effortless inconvenience, who just staggered and regrouped, noticing his accomplice with blade, rushed forth again blinding. The Pirate’s tail in desperation unhooked his utility coeurl-tooth carved knife, and tactically stabbed it in the hip of the hulking mass who held him in a lock, causing a break, one moment before being skewered. The assailant tried stopping his momentum, but Captain slid and sprawled forth and acted like a launch pad in that fluid movement and had him incidentally puncturing the giant. Landing with a stumble before the third man, fed up, fetched his firearm, took aim for a head-shot. Before finger’s tapped his trigger, another went off and popped with precision to the executor's dismay. Causing a disarm and squeamish shout. A thick rugged voice shouted in the desolating sands, “Y’all best git ta steppin’.” The thorn intruder to the mercenaries they glared with daring orbitals, the behemoth of the mercenary, stupid, dumb and ugly, challenged and tried to quick-draw a holstered sidearm, before taking a cap into his chest, steam leaving the barrel. Sigh exhaled from the saver of Captain, “Typical vermin.” Although giant fell, he provided a distraction for the assailant with the knife to stealth past, trying to ambush, before the western slinger, grappled the wrist with his own tail, giving a harsh elbow, making the assailant’s neck crack, back from whiplash, then stuffing his barrel into the mouth of the groaning hooligan. Fear shown in eyes, before using his pistol to smack his daylights out. The last assassin ditched and ran off towards the horizon. Spurs of boots clanked to the side, the prone pirate, trying to stand, was given a hand. “Couldn’t help but notice em’ boys eyeing you at the crawl. What ya’ do ta’ earn their ire?” The sailor shaking cobwebs, “Told them, I don’t do anal.” He shot a witty response before giving a cough that smoke still wasn’t entirely out of him. The other Seeker laughed boisterously, “Hey, you seem awfully familiar, stranger… I can’t seem t’ pull thuh damnedest trigger.” His accent rooted deep under his tongue in his verbiage. Scoundrel, parted lips into smirk, before committing to his line earlier and turning a lie into his truth precautionary to evade his actual name that often led to trouble anymore. “Seemed like ye were quite a skilled trigger puller… Probably recognize me as a courtesan, I go by C’ock Nunh as my stage-name, I’m pretty incredible. Wasn’t kiddin’ about them rascals, they just displeased client’s tryna’ get me off-duty. As they say, 'don't take a free-load fer no toll’.”  The ruggish rogue, didn’t ever consider this not to be an authentic story, he was once formerly a courtesan, working in a place called the Pleasure Dome. But had an outlandish tinge to it. Studied faded-emerald orbs and studied the Blackguard. Before a chortle, “Ain’t that a way tuh say it, can’t say I recall it but I aren’t often sober. Well, fella need a ride somewhere?” Following through with a whistle between fingers, a galloping brown stallion over mountain hills gave blitz to the Gunslinger’s beckon. The Man of Seas contemplated thoughts momentarily. Unfortunately he couldn’t question the assailants, they wouldn’t confess who their employer was, knowing these types. But there were more connection’s forming, and Kuro was on the precipice of an epiphany, finding a solution to find the culprit now. “If isn’t a troubl –” His body locked up, pain tensing up viciously, suffering from the tumble’ world, he face-forward into the arms of this new stranger into a blackout, his wounds couldn’t handle the exerting rapid movements Captain used just trying to preserve survival.

🌊 ♫Dead to Rights♫ - Reference - Last Chapter 🌊

[crash-bump-bring-the-whump]

Whumptober 2021 - Day 3

I do love this prompt!

taunting | insults | “Who did this to you?”

TWs: mentions of death

"Who did that to you?" Bastian hadn't expected Mariano to return to the little cave they'd found so soon, a few birds in hand and gaze as unreadable as the stone that surrounded them.

Bastian stood still, shirt held in his hands and pearly scars glittering in the early afternoon sun. They snaked down his side from between his shoulder blades, thin and reaching like the hungry lightning of a storm. "A mage." Bastian answered simply, dropping his shirt and shucking his pants off next before starting to wade into the river nearby.

Mariano sat down next to their fire on the bank, tossing some more wood onto it as he started plucking the birds. "Can I ask what happened?"

"I ate him." Bastian relished the irritation that tensed Mariano's brow almost as much as he did the chill of the water that swallowed his shoulders when he sat down.

The warrior sighed, tossing feathers onto the slowly growing pile next to his foot with just a hint more force. "What happened to make the mage hurt you?"

Bastian laughed, dipping his hair into the water, combing grime from it with his fingers. "Didn't think you cared."

"You're my dragon now, and it looks fresh still." Mariano didn't look up from what he was doing. Bastian watched him keep working mechanically, as efficient as if he'd spent years in a butchery. "If someone wants to hurt you, it's my duty to protect you."

The brand pulsed, heat cutting through the cool water that Bastian sat in. "We had an argument." Bastian said, simply, starting to scrub at his skin with his rough hand rag. "They wanted me to be a weapon. There's no glory or honor in just being a hired bullet-slinger."

Mariano hummed and ripped the head off the bird with a twist of his wrist. "I see. None at all, then?"

"Nah. Seen what happens when people get too wrapped up in all that." Bastian said, washing his face. "Just winds up with a grave no one visits. But." He added, standing when he'd finished up. "Their magic also didn't taste like yours."

He sauntered over and sat across from Mariano. Bastian picked up one carcass and began skewering it to put over the fire. "They didn't have much of a brain at all, really. Just memory. Well, memory and a collection of cooking herbs they liked to carry around."

Mariano hummed. "I suppose I wouldn't be as pleasant to eat, anyway." Bastian couldn't look away from the flash of a grin sent towards him. "I'd take you down with me. Make you choke."

Bastian grinned back. "That's what they thought too."

[hatterstan-shameblog]

Just found your page and I have to say I am very impressed, love your work 💖

Alright, that’s it, you sent me the glittery heart emoji.......that means you’re getting the one where hatter and aguni go to COSTCO BABEYYYYY

💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

✨Scenes from a Japanese Costco: The Inherent Drama of the Free Sample Counter✨

(Bonus points if you get the song reference)

Concept: Aguni and Hatter (who we will be calling Takeru because it’s his actual name) share a Costco membership. Hilarity ensues.

Warnings: bad flirting, betrayal, untempered drama

Rating: ‼️PG-13‼️ for one line of suggestive dialogue (flops miserably, don’t worry)

(I’m a Netflix-live-action-only watcher and this follows a lot of my headcanons (since we didn’t get to see Hatter much #rip) so like if this feels ooc it probably is, I’m just tryna have fun here)

💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

Takeru is not a religious man—not even a little bit, not even by a long shot—but he considers visiting the free sample counters at Costco a holy experience. Queuing up, humbling oneself before the altar (or, in this case, a white plastic table)—it all feels like something Michael Corleone would do in The Godfather.

And, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Takeru is not immune to jealousy. Especially when Aguni is chatting to the lovely lady handing out small, toothpicked cubes of cheese.

She’s laughing.

She’s laughing and she’s giving him a second sample.

Betrayal stings like a slap. They have a system, dammit! Takeru flirts, Aguni swipes extra samples while the employee is distracted, and they reunite by the cases of bottled water to split the spoils.

It works.

(Sometimes.)

Apparently, whatever Aguni’s doing is working, too, because she’s—oh no! She’s writing something on a piece of paper. Something that could be a...a phone number?!

Well, that does it.

Takeru is declaring war.

He unbuttons another button on his shirt—the dreaded third button, reserved only for the most provocative and flirtatious situations—and channels every ounce of charm in his body into a dazzling smile.

The look on Aguni’s face as Takeru saunters (yes, saunters) over to the table is cautiously unimpressed—he must’ve noticed the third button and his friends furrows slightly at the thought of things to come.

“Well, well, well,” Takeru says, leaning a casual elbow on the edge of the table, “what a beautiful sight, indeed.”

“It’s cheese,” the woman at the counter says, voice false-cheery and smile forced, “Would you like a sample?”

“I wasn’t talking about the food, darling,” Takeru says, “but since you’re offering...”

It’s not that he’s expressly trying to be sexy, eating a cube of cheese off a toothpick in the middle of a decently-crowded Costco...but, well...

Maybe he always wraps his lips around skewered foods in a slow, appreciative manner. Maybe he simply can’t help the deep, contented hum that purrs itself from his chest. Maybe his eyelashes are fluttering because the fluorescents are just a smidge too bright.

“Delicious,” he says with a wink—and there is no ‘maybe’ to this part of the equation. Takeru’s eyes roll towards Aguni, whose unreadable expression elicits a flicker of glee in his heart.

Time to go in for the kill.

“So,” Takeru flirts, “what do you say? You give me another one of those delightful little samples, and I take you to dinner tonight? I do so enjoy eating out...”

He doesn’t have to see Aguni’s face to know the man is rolling his eyes—but, as they say, all is fair in love and war, and Takeru loves petty revenge.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we only allow one sample per customer! And besides,” She turns her gaze towards Aguni, smile growing noticeably wider, “I already have plans for tonight!”

“Oh.”

Takeru looks at her. And then at Aguni. And then at the cheese samples. Then back to Aguni. Then back to the cheese. He stares at the little toothpicks for a long time.

“Takeru?” Aguni asks, voice tinged with concern. Takeru grits his teeth.

“You know him?” The lady asks, sounding genuinely pleased at this turn of events, “I didn’t realize he was your friend!”

“Apparently that is debatable,” Takeru snips, ire rising red and hot behind his eyes. With a lightning-quick hand, he snatches up three of the cheese cubes and stuffs them angrily into his mouth.

Realizing that he can no longer speak, mouth so full of (mediocre) cheese as it is, he settles for a pointed glare thrown in Aguni’s direction before storming off to sulk in the processed snack aisle.

Aguni waits until Takeru has stormed out of sight before reaching into his pocket for his wallet.

“Excellent work,” Aguni mumbles, discretely holding out a thousand-yen bank note, “Implying we had a date was an especially nice touch.”

“Please,” the lovely sample lady says, waving his hand away, “Witnessing that was payment enough. And those gardening tips you gave me are top-notch, too.”

“Plants are often preferable to people, in my experience.”

“Agreed.” The sample-slinger leans leftwards, trying to catch a glimpse of Aguni’s melancholy companion, “You gonna tell him this was all a set-up?”

Aguni turns, peering down the aisle to see a slumping Takeru staring blankly at a bag of sour cream and onion chips. He chuckles to himself.

“Maybe on the way home.”

💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

y’all cannot tell me aguni wouldn’t fuck with takeru literally constantly just to set him off I mean COME ON

[jeannereames]

Love & War

A persistent, annoying, misogynistic delusion says women, and especially Romance readers (female or male, but especially female), can’t handle things like hard science fiction, political intrigue, and, especially, military matters. Our pretty little heads are incapable of understanding that “serious stuff.” All we care about are love affairs and fashion.

Hoo-boy, don’t get me started or I might skewer somebody. (Image at the bottom of the author with a sarissa.)

Funny story about SF author Catherine Asaro: she’s known for her hard-SF Romances, but what a lot of readers don’t know is she’s also Dr. Catherine Asaro, with a PhD in chemical physics from no less a school than Harvard. Some years back, on a now-defunct bulletin board, a male reader proceeded to try to mansplain how Asaro’s physics of space travel just wouldn’t work, and poor lady authors who want to write romance shouldn’t attempt a SERIOUS genre such as hard SF. Well, Dr. Asaro dropped into the convo, citing several of her own published articles in peer-reviewed journals, then proceeded to demolish fan-boy’s ignorant objections to her theories. It was a beautiful thing to behold.

Women do math and science, dammit—as demonstrated by my Kleopatra in the novels.

I don’t believe for one minute that women readers, as much as men readers wouldn't like to know a little about the military matters I describe in Dancing with the Lion, not just the hair and clothes (as I do detail in another blog).

When non-specialist modern readers imagine ancient Mediterranean armies, it’s usually the Roman legion that comes to mind. The Greek phalanx is similar…but not. A phalanx is a big rectangular block of infantry, usually 8-deep, that presented a “locked shields” front. Larger armies were made up of several phalanges (phalanxes) in a row. Armies were chiefly infantry as horses don’t do well in the rocky Greek south. So their armies had a lot of light troops, such as slingers, but little horse. Yet Greek infantry was legendary. These “Men of Bronze” were sought-after mercenaries in Ancient Near Eastern armies, and would famously rout the Persians at the Battle of Marathon despite being outnumbered. Southern Greek cities also had excellent navies, although Macedonia didn’t, so I won’t address navies here.

The infantryman, or “hoplite,” was armed with a big-ass round, convex shield covering him from chin to knee; a bronze helmet; and—depending on how much money his family had—a bronze breastplate or a cuirass of fused, tough, glued linen with girdle plates (as below); and maybe bronze greaves covering his shins. From the front, this presented a pretty solid defense. But if, in video-games, Greek soldiers all look alike, in truth, Greek armor varied a lot. Helmet styles differed vastly by region, and how much armor a soldier could afford also differed. Shield devices were personal (as in the image above). Put simply: THERE WAS NO ANCIENT GREEK UNIFORM. Individuality mattered. (Hoplite arming, image shows how the shield was held inside.)

Why the differences among real soldiers? They armed themselves; city-states didn’t provide equipment. So what they brought to the field was whatever they could afford. Also, the primary weapon of the Greek infantryman was the SPEAR, not a sword. Swords were secondary, used only after your spear broke. While Greek armies did have archers along with slingers and peltasts (javelin-men), Greek infantry viewed the bow as a coward’s weapon.

When Philip took over as king of Macedon, the army got a serious overhaul. First, Macedonia—unlike the south—had horses. In fact, prior Macedonian armies had been CAVALRY armies, with limited infantry. Philip reformed the infantry by lightening their armor and giving them the ultimate “pig-poker”: a 15-foot sarissa, or pike. It was about twice as long as a normal Greek spear, requiring one to wield it two-handed.

Then he shaped up the cavalry, arming them more heavily and deploying them in triangular “spear point” formations, which allowed them to shift direction quickly at a gallop. They carried the xyston, which wasn’t as long as a sarissa, but still formidable. Incidentally, ancient cavalry used neither saddles nor stirrups, only a saddlecloth.

This Macedonian sarissa phalanx became the ANVIL, while his heavy cavalry became the HAMMER. The Macedonian phalanx would engage the enemy, holding them in place on the battlefield, then Philip would send in his much more mobile cavalry to smash into the enemy flank or rear, tearing them to shreds. It worked. Over and over, it worked. Alexander took that formation strategy to Asia. It worked there too.

So when I describe military matters in Dancing with the Lion, now readers have a better visual image. And don’t let anybody tell you female readers can’t enjoy reading battle scenes, or that female novelists can’t write them.

The hell we can!

After all, the ancient Greeks paired the goddess of love, Aphrodite, with the god of war, Ares. And in the Ancient Near East? Innana/Ishtar was goddess of both, together.

(The modern image above belongs to Ryan Jones, a Calgary graduate under Waldemar Heckel. The sarissa I'm holding below is part of the on-going research of Dr. Graham Wrightson, USD, who kindly let me handle it, as I also teach an undergraduate capstone class as well as a graduate seminar on Greek military history. )

[easyfoodnetwork]

The New and Old Food-Adjacent Shows We’ve Been Streaming This Week

HBO/Curb Your Enthusiasm

Looking for something delicious to watch this weekend? We’ve got you.

Like most people living under shelter-in-place orders or voluntarily socially distancing because of COVID-19, Eater staffers are watching a lot of TV right now. Coming from series past and present, here are the best food-related scenes, episodes, and shows that we used to cope this week.

Party Down (Seasons 1 and 2 streaming on Hulu)

The gist: The failed dreams and enduring delusions of a Hollywood catering company’s employees are all on excruciating, glorious display in this criminally underwatched 2009 comedy series, which ran for two brief but glorious seasons on Starz. Each episode is set at a different function where the crew has been hired to sling hors d’oeuvres: a funeral, a college conservative union caucus, a preschool auction, a singles seminar, Steve Guttenberg’s birthday party, and one spectacularly unsuccessful orgy night.

While food and booze give the show its reason for existence, it’s the personal struggles of the caterers — and often their clients — that provide its brand of satirical, irreverent, and often very biting humor. Almost all of the company’s employees — the failed actor, the aspiring screenwriter, the stage mom, the struggling comedian — have been chewed up (or at least teethed on) by the Hollywood system, which lets the show examine and skewer the industry’s class struggles and pretensions with a hilarious lack of remorse. That said, Party Down wouldn’t be nearly as effective without its cast, which includes Jane Lynch and Megan Mullally, along with the then-relatively unknown Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, and Martin Starr. Watching them grimly work a room armed with cheese platters and shrimp puffs is one of life’s more specific pleasures, and also among its most reliable. —Rebecca Marx

The original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (available to purchase on Amazon Prime)

I’ve been getting real joy out of watching Ted Allen on the original run of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which upon second watch is hilariously antagonistic toward the straight guys. Unlike Antoni, who tries to meet these men on their level by having them make avocado toast or pancakes, Allen basically cooks everything himself and gives his subjects busywork. Men can assemble crudite, if they want, or whip egg whites while Allen has already infused cream with vanilla beans and has it melting with expensive chocolate on the stove. In one episode, Allen orders his subject $50 jars of kosher foie gras to make armagnac-infused mousse, to be served with shaved black truffle, because “people are pretty accustomed to” pâte (???). And then, when the guy’s girlfriend doesn’t seem to like it, he bemoans “that’s $150 of foie gras!” like it’s everyone else’s problem for having bad taste. This is not about teaching men a new skill. There is nothing practical about most of Allen’s cooking, and it’s thrilling to watch men who have never set foot in their kitchens pretend like this is the sort of entertaining they’ll be doing from now on. —Jaya Saxena

Project Runway (Season 10, Episode 2, available on Hulu)

I’m going to admit outright that I had embarked on a journey to rewatch all the Project Runway seasons available on Hulu even before this pandemic started, but now that a lot of us are confined at home for the indefinite future, there are few better background-television choices I can recommend than the original drama-filled fashion competition reality series. One standout episode is the second in Season 10. In “Candy Couture,” the designers raid boutique candy store and New York City staple Dylan’s Candy Bar, snagging licorices, gummies, and jelly beans to create outfits that range from “wow!” to “not bad” to “that?” To hear snatches of catty comments and catch glimpses of a lively, bustling NYC in between footage of designers burning their fingers with hot glue guns — ah, different times. —Jenny Zhang

ZeroZeroZero (Season 1, Episodes 7 and 8, available to stream on Amazon Prime)

ZeroZeroZero, an Amazon Prime series that follows a shipment of cocaine through four countries, has some predictable drug cartel narrative arcs — double crossing, violence and cruelty, me softly saying “it’s just not worth it” over and over again — but one nice change was the Calabrian mob’s dining table mainstays: a hunk of cheese, salami, bread, and wine. When the going gets tough for these guys, they just need a hit of carbs, cured meat, and some salty, creamy dairy, washed down with adult grape juice. Who among us can’t relate?

I wonder who out of the mob grunts makes sure they’re stocked. Are there wheels of cheese in the trunk of their car? Salami hanging from the coat hooks in the back seat? Are they kneading their own sourdough, letting it rest, firing up the wood oven that they just built after feeding some poor sod’s corpse to the pigs? Who cares! These guys are committed to the “simple ingredients, done well” philosophy, and for that, I commend them. — Pelin Keskin

Playtime (available to screen on the Criterion Collection)

I cannot say that I’ve ever experienced a true restaurant shitshow. The closest I’ve come is perhaps witnessing a bartender slip and fall at a restaurant where I received no service for an hour and then got up and left. I sometimes envy my colleagues in New York, who used to regale readers with tales of ninja servers and tunamatos during their annual Shitshow Week (may it rest in peace). But now I can safely say I’ve experienced a shitshow, thanks to the 1967 Jacques Tati film Playtime, currently streaming on the Criterion Collection. This movie is, on its surface, toying with sound editing (if you’re into that sort of thing) and poking fun at the strangeness of midcentury aesthetics and American tourists in Paris. But it’s the second half of the movie where Playtime really hits its comedic stride, at a restaurant opening where just about everything goes wrong. The kitchen runs out of food. The air conditioning stops working. The harsh metal chairs leave marks on the backs of the patrons and rip the pants of servers. The ceiling falls in. While it’s billed as a comedy, it’s the Criterion Collection, so we’ll file it under amusing. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this for anyone missing restaurants — even truly bad ones. What I wouldn’t give for an uncomfortable metal chair right now. — Brenna Houck

Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 10, available to stream on HBO GO)

Absurdist times call for the comedy of Larry David, so I’m particularly grateful that he brought back his HBO hit Curb Your Enthusiasm just in time for an election year and global pandemic. Season 10, which premiered in January after a two-year-plus hiatus, is a comedic buffet of food riffs: Larry reignites his rivalry with coffee-slinger Mocha Joe when he opens a “spite store” called Latte Larry’s directly next door to Mocha Joe’s cafe; Larry realizes he’s consistently seated in the “ugly section” of a trendy Italian spot with a condescending host (played to smarmy perfection by Nick Kroll); Larry and Jon Hamm fight with Richard Lewis about the appropriate allotment of appetizers; Larry wears a MAGA hat to lunch so that his dining mate will cut the meal short; Larry gets a sweaty server (Abbi Jacobson) fired after she shamelessly declares that she’s suffering from diarrhea, then gets diarrhea himself from his favorite licorice; Larry offends the staff of a Catalonian restaurant when he knocks out his tooth and pronounces everything with an unnecessary “th” sound. Then, of course, there’s the season-long debate: What makes a good scone?

If you worry that Curb Your Enthusiasm would seem particularly trite while the world is figuratively on fire — well, it is trite. And it always has been. Nitpicking on life’s small annoyances to the point of embarrassment is kind of the point. — Madeleine Davies

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (available to stream on Netflix)

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch is a very tender and funny one-hour comedy special on Netflix lightly satirizing Sesame Street, and everyone with a soul should let it gently touch them. Mulaney stars alongside a cast of impossibly cute child actors and guests like David Byrne, and it’s all built around musical numbers like “Grandma’s Boyfriend Paul,” which will probably make you cry, and “Sacha’s Dad Does Drag (and the Act Needs Work!),” which might also make you cry. There are two great food tie-ins, not including the sack lunch of the title. There’s a brief stub of a song called “Let’s Play Restaurant,” in which — when Mulaney plays along — the restaurant is closed for a private event, sorry, you should have checked their website. And then there’s an instant classic of a song that’s near and dear to my heart as a once-upon-a-time very plain-eating child, called a “Plain Plate of Noodles,” in which Orson Hong, a little boy, explains his gastronomic limitations in song and dance. The lyrics! The choreography! Thirty out of 10. — Caleb Pershan

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3aIhVEC https://ift.tt/3dT5esI

HBO/Curb Your Enthusiasm

Looking for something delicious to watch this weekend? We’ve got you.

Like most people living under shelter-in-place orders or voluntarily socially distancing because of COVID-19, Eater staffers are watching a lot of TV right now. Coming from series past and present, here are the best food-related scenes, episodes, and shows that we used to cope this week.

Party Down (Seasons 1 and 2 streaming on Hulu)

The gist: The failed dreams and enduring delusions of a Hollywood catering company’s employees are all on excruciating, glorious display in this criminally underwatched 2009 comedy series, which ran for two brief but glorious seasons on Starz. Each episode is set at a different function where the crew has been hired to sling hors d’oeuvres: a funeral, a college conservative union caucus, a preschool auction, a singles seminar, Steve Guttenberg’s birthday party, and one spectacularly unsuccessful orgy night.

While food and booze give the show its reason for existence, it’s the personal struggles of the caterers — and often their clients — that provide its brand of satirical, irreverent, and often very biting humor. Almost all of the company’s employees — the failed actor, the aspiring screenwriter, the stage mom, the struggling comedian — have been chewed up (or at least teethed on) by the Hollywood system, which lets the show examine and skewer the industry’s class struggles and pretensions with a hilarious lack of remorse. That said, Party Down wouldn’t be nearly as effective without its cast, which includes Jane Lynch and Megan Mullally, along with the then-relatively unknown Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, and Martin Starr. Watching them grimly work a room armed with cheese platters and shrimp puffs is one of life’s more specific pleasures, and also among its most reliable. —Rebecca Marx

The original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (available to purchase on Amazon Prime)

I’ve been getting real joy out of watching Ted Allen on the original run of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which upon second watch is hilariously antagonistic toward the straight guys. Unlike Antoni, who tries to meet these men on their level by having them make avocado toast or pancakes, Allen basically cooks everything himself and gives his subjects busywork. Men can assemble crudite, if they want, or whip egg whites while Allen has already infused cream with vanilla beans and has it melting with expensive chocolate on the stove. In one episode, Allen orders his subject $50 jars of kosher foie gras to make armagnac-infused mousse, to be served with shaved black truffle, because “people are pretty accustomed to” pâte (???). And then, when the guy’s girlfriend doesn’t seem to like it, he bemoans “that’s $150 of foie gras!” like it’s everyone else’s problem for having bad taste. This is not about teaching men a new skill. There is nothing practical about most of Allen’s cooking, and it’s thrilling to watch men who have never set foot in their kitchens pretend like this is the sort of entertaining they’ll be doing from now on. —Jaya Saxena

Project Runway (Season 10, Episode 2, available on Hulu)

I’m going to admit outright that I had embarked on a journey to rewatch all the Project Runway seasons available on Hulu even before this pandemic started, but now that a lot of us are confined at home for the indefinite future, there are few better background-television choices I can recommend than the original drama-filled fashion competition reality series. One standout episode is the second in Season 10. In “Candy Couture,” the designers raid boutique candy store and New York City staple Dylan’s Candy Bar, snagging licorices, gummies, and jelly beans to create outfits that range from “wow!” to “not bad” to “that?” To hear snatches of catty comments and catch glimpses of a lively, bustling NYC in between footage of designers burning their fingers with hot glue guns — ah, different times. —Jenny Zhang

ZeroZeroZero (Season 1, Episodes 7 and 8, available to stream on Amazon Prime)

ZeroZeroZero, an Amazon Prime series that follows a shipment of cocaine through four countries, has some predictable drug cartel narrative arcs — double crossing, violence and cruelty, me softly saying “it’s just not worth it” over and over again — but one nice change was the Calabrian mob’s dining table mainstays: a hunk of cheese, salami, bread, and wine. When the going gets tough for these guys, they just need a hit of carbs, cured meat, and some salty, creamy dairy, washed down with adult grape juice. Who among us can’t relate?

I wonder who out of the mob grunts makes sure they’re stocked. Are there wheels of cheese in the trunk of their car? Salami hanging from the coat hooks in the back seat? Are they kneading their own sourdough, letting it rest, firing up the wood oven that they just built after feeding some poor sod’s corpse to the pigs? Who cares! These guys are committed to the “simple ingredients, done well” philosophy, and for that, I commend them. — Pelin Keskin

Playtime (available to screen on the Criterion Collection)

I cannot say that I’ve ever experienced a true restaurant shitshow. The closest I’ve come is perhaps witnessing a bartender slip and fall at a restaurant where I received no service for an hour and then got up and left. I sometimes envy my colleagues in New York, who used to regale readers with tales of ninja servers and tunamatos during their annual Shitshow Week (may it rest in peace). But now I can safely say I’ve experienced a shitshow, thanks to the 1967 Jacques Tati film Playtime, currently streaming on the Criterion Collection. This movie is, on its surface, toying with sound editing (if you’re into that sort of thing) and poking fun at the strangeness of midcentury aesthetics and American tourists in Paris. But it’s the second half of the movie where Playtime really hits its comedic stride, at a restaurant opening where just about everything goes wrong. The kitchen runs out of food. The air conditioning stops working. The harsh metal chairs leave marks on the backs of the patrons and rip the pants of servers. The ceiling falls in. While it’s billed as a comedy, it’s the Criterion Collection, so we’ll file it under amusing. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this for anyone missing restaurants — even truly bad ones. What I wouldn’t give for an uncomfortable metal chair right now. — Brenna Houck

Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 10, available to stream on HBO GO)

Absurdist times call for the comedy of Larry David, so I’m particularly grateful that he brought back his HBO hit Curb Your Enthusiasm just in time for an election year and global pandemic. Season 10, which premiered in January after a two-year-plus hiatus, is a comedic buffet of food riffs: Larry reignites his rivalry with coffee-slinger Mocha Joe when he opens a “spite store” called Latte Larry’s directly next door to Mocha Joe’s cafe; Larry realizes he’s consistently seated in the “ugly section” of a trendy Italian spot with a condescending host (played to smarmy perfection by Nick Kroll); Larry and Jon Hamm fight with Richard Lewis about the appropriate allotment of appetizers; Larry wears a MAGA hat to lunch so that his dining mate will cut the meal short; Larry gets a sweaty server (Abbi Jacobson) fired after she shamelessly declares that she’s suffering from diarrhea, then gets diarrhea himself from his favorite licorice; Larry offends the staff of a Catalonian restaurant when he knocks out his tooth and pronounces everything with an unnecessary “th” sound. Then, of course, there’s the season-long debate: What makes a good scone?

If you worry that Curb Your Enthusiasm would seem particularly trite while the world is figuratively on fire — well, it is trite. And it always has been. Nitpicking on life’s small annoyances to the point of embarrassment is kind of the point. — Madeleine Davies

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (available to stream on Netflix)

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch is a very tender and funny one-hour comedy special on Netflix lightly satirizing Sesame Street, and everyone with a soul should let it gently touch them. Mulaney stars alongside a cast of impossibly cute child actors and guests like David Byrne, and it’s all built around musical numbers like “Grandma’s Boyfriend Paul,” which will probably make you cry, and “Sacha’s Dad Does Drag (and the Act Needs Work!),” which might also make you cry. There are two great food tie-ins, not including the sack lunch of the title. There’s a brief stub of a song called “Let’s Play Restaurant,” in which — when Mulaney plays along — the restaurant is closed for a private event, sorry, you should have checked their website. And then there’s an instant classic of a song that’s near and dear to my heart as a once-upon-a-time very plain-eating child, called a “Plain Plate of Noodles,” in which Orson Hong, a little boy, explains his gastronomic limitations in song and dance. The lyrics! The choreography! Thirty out of 10. — Caleb Pershan

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3aIhVEC via Blogger https://ift.tt/2R85sCc

[kingofincoherencymtg]

Friday Night Magic

Pulled a Rhythm of the Wild early on so I made a good push for Gruul. Also had a small spectacle theme mixed in which worked well.

First round was 2-0 against Orzhov

Then a 2-1 against 5 color gates

and finally a 2-1 against a Simic

Decklist for those interested

//Main 1 Amplifire 1 Bolrac-Clan Crusher 1 Burning-Tree Vandal 1 Clan Guildmage 1 Collision // Colossus 8 Forest 1 Frenzied Arynx 1 Gift of Strength 2 Gravel-Hide Goblin 1 Gruul Locket 1 Incubation // Incongruity 1 Incubation Druid 1 Light Up the Stage 9 Mountain 1 Rampaging Rendhorn 1 Rhythm of the Wild 1 Rubble Slinger 2 Skewer the Critics 1 Spear Spewer 2 Spikewheel Acrobat 2 Wrecking Beast

[easyfoodnetwork]

HBO/Curb Your Enthusiasm Looking for something delicious to watch this weekend? We’ve got you. Like most people living under shelter-in-place orders or voluntarily socially distancing because of COVID-19, Eater staffers are watching a lot of TV right now. Coming from series past and present, here are the best food-related scenes, episodes, and shows that we used to cope this week. Party Down (Seasons 1 and 2 streaming on Hulu) The gist: The failed dreams and enduring delusions of a Hollywood catering company’s employees are all on excruciating, glorious display in this criminally underwatched 2009 comedy series, which ran for two brief but glorious seasons on Starz. Each episode is set at a different function where the crew has been hired to sling hors d’oeuvres: a funeral, a college conservative union caucus, a preschool auction, a singles seminar, Steve Guttenberg’s birthday party, and one spectacularly unsuccessful orgy night. While food and booze give the show its reason for existence, it’s the personal struggles of the caterers — and often their clients — that provide its brand of satirical, irreverent, and often very biting humor. Almost all of the company’s employees — the failed actor, the aspiring screenwriter, the stage mom, the struggling comedian — have been chewed up (or at least teethed on) by the Hollywood system, which lets the show examine and skewer the industry’s class struggles and pretensions with a hilarious lack of remorse. That said, Party Down wouldn’t be nearly as effective without its cast, which includes Jane Lynch and Megan Mullally, along with the then-relatively unknown Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, and Martin Starr. Watching them grimly work a room armed with cheese platters and shrimp puffs is one of life’s more specific pleasures, and also among its most reliable. —Rebecca Marx The original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (available to purchase on Amazon Prime) I’ve been getting real joy out of watching Ted Allen on the original run of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which upon second watch is hilariously antagonistic toward the straight guys. Unlike Antoni, who tries to meet these men on their level by having them make avocado toast or pancakes, Allen basically cooks everything himself and gives his subjects busywork. Men can assemble crudite, if they want, or whip egg whites while Allen has already infused cream with vanilla beans and has it melting with expensive chocolate on the stove. In one episode, Allen orders his subject $50 jars of kosher foie gras to make armagnac-infused mousse, to be served with shaved black truffle, because “people are pretty accustomed to” pâte (???). And then, when the guy’s girlfriend doesn’t seem to like it, he bemoans “that’s $150 of foie gras!” like it’s everyone else’s problem for having bad taste. This is not about teaching men a new skill. There is nothing practical about most of Allen’s cooking, and it’s thrilling to watch men who have never set foot in their kitchens pretend like this is the sort of entertaining they’ll be doing from now on. —Jaya Saxena Project Runway (Season 10, Episode 2, available on Hulu) I’m going to admit outright that I had embarked on a journey to rewatch all the Project Runway seasons available on Hulu even before this pandemic started, but now that a lot of us are confined at home for the indefinite future, there are few better background-television choices I can recommend than the original drama-filled fashion competition reality series. One standout episode is the second in Season 10. In “Candy Couture,” the designers raid boutique candy store and New York City staple Dylan’s Candy Bar, snagging licorices, gummies, and jelly beans to create outfits that range from “wow!” to “not bad” to “that?” To hear snatches of catty comments and catch glimpses of a lively, bustling NYC in between footage of designers burning their fingers with hot glue guns — ah, different times. —Jenny Zhang ZeroZeroZero (Season 1, Episodes 7 and 8, available to stream on Amazon Prime) ZeroZeroZero, an Amazon Prime series that follows a shipment of cocaine through four countries, has some predictable drug cartel narrative arcs — double crossing, violence and cruelty, me softly saying “it’s just not worth it” over and over again — but one nice change was the Calabrian mob’s dining table mainstays: a hunk of cheese, salami, bread, and wine. When the going gets tough for these guys, they just need a hit of carbs, cured meat, and some salty, creamy dairy, washed down with adult grape juice. Who among us can’t relate? I wonder who out of the mob grunts makes sure they’re stocked. Are there wheels of cheese in the trunk of their car? Salami hanging from the coat hooks in the back seat? Are they kneading their own sourdough, letting it rest, firing up the wood oven that they just built after feeding some poor sod’s corpse to the pigs? Who cares! These guys are committed to the “simple ingredients, done well” philosophy, and for that, I commend them. — Pelin Keskin Playtime (available to screen on the Criterion Collection) I cannot say that I’ve ever experienced a true restaurant shitshow. The closest I’ve come is perhaps witnessing a bartender slip and fall at a restaurant where I received no service for an hour and then got up and left. I sometimes envy my colleagues in New York, who used to regale readers with tales of ninja servers and tunamatos during their annual Shitshow Week (may it rest in peace). But now I can safely say I’ve experienced a shitshow, thanks to the 1967 Jacques Tati film Playtime, currently streaming on the Criterion Collection. This movie is, on its surface, toying with sound editing (if you’re into that sort of thing) and poking fun at the strangeness of midcentury aesthetics and American tourists in Paris. But it’s the second half of the movie where Playtime really hits its comedic stride, at a restaurant opening where just about everything goes wrong. The kitchen runs out of food. The air conditioning stops working. The harsh metal chairs leave marks on the backs of the patrons and rip the pants of servers. The ceiling falls in. While it’s billed as a comedy, it’s the Criterion Collection, so we’ll file it under amusing. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this for anyone missing restaurants — even truly bad ones. What I wouldn’t give for an uncomfortable metal chair right now. — Brenna Houck Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 10, available to stream on HBO GO) Absurdist times call for the comedy of Larry David, so I’m particularly grateful that he brought back his HBO hit Curb Your Enthusiasm just in time for an election year and global pandemic. Season 10, which premiered in January after a two-year-plus hiatus, is a comedic buffet of food riffs: Larry reignites his rivalry with coffee-slinger Mocha Joe when he opens a “spite store” called Latte Larry’s directly next door to Mocha Joe’s cafe; Larry realizes he’s consistently seated in the “ugly section” of a trendy Italian spot with a condescending host (played to smarmy perfection by Nick Kroll); Larry and Jon Hamm fight with Richard Lewis about the appropriate allotment of appetizers; Larry wears a MAGA hat to lunch so that his dining mate will cut the meal short; Larry gets a sweaty server (Abbi Jacobson) fired after she shamelessly declares that she’s suffering from diarrhea, then gets diarrhea himself from his favorite licorice; Larry offends the staff of a Catalonian restaurant when he knocks out his tooth and pronounces everything with an unnecessary “th” sound. Then, of course, there’s the season-long debate: What makes a good scone? If you worry that Curb Your Enthusiasm would seem particularly trite while the world is figuratively on fire — well, it is trite. And it always has been. Nitpicking on life’s small annoyances to the point of embarrassment is kind of the point. — Madeleine Davies John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch (available to stream on Netflix) John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch is a very tender and funny one-hour comedy special on Netflix lightly satirizing Sesame Street, and everyone with a soul should let it gently touch them. Mulaney stars alongside a cast of impossibly cute child actors and guests like David Byrne, and it’s all built around musical numbers like “Grandma’s Boyfriend Paul,” which will probably make you cry, and “Sacha’s Dad Does Drag (and the Act Needs Work!),” which might also make you cry. There are two great food tie-ins, not including the sack lunch of the title. There’s a brief stub of a song called “Let’s Play Restaurant,” in which — when Mulaney plays along — the restaurant is closed for a private event, sorry, you should have checked their website. And then there’s an instant classic of a song that’s near and dear to my heart as a once-upon-a-time very plain-eating child, called a “Plain Plate of Noodles,” in which Orson Hong, a little boy, explains his gastronomic limitations in song and dance. The lyrics! The choreography! Thirty out of 10. — Caleb Pershan from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3aIhVEC

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