2007.11.29
Posted in Food at 8:41 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
OK, so it may not be perfect, but here’s my recipe for Tuna Casserole. It’s based on mom’s recipe, but it’s not the same.
Ingredients:
- 3-6 potatoes of whatever type you want (quantity dependent on size), sliced 1/8 in. (4 mm) thick. You need enough potatoes to make 2 layers in the dish when sliced.
- 1 medium white onion, sliced 1/8 in. (4mm) thick, and quartered
- 1 medium red onion, sliced 1/8 in (4mm) thick, and quartered
- 2 cans of condensed cream of mushroom soup
- 2 cans of tuna packed in water (drained)
- 1-2 tbsp. canola oil
- 1/4 cup grated aged cheddar (24 months or older)
- Salt and pepper
Method:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Coat the bottom and sides of a 2.8L baking dish with the oil. Place 1/2 of the potatoes in a single layer at the bottom of the pan. Season with salt and pepper as desired. Layer the white onion on top, followed by 1 can of tuna. Mix 1 can of mushroom soup with 1/2 can of water, and pour over the three layers in the dish.
Repeat the layering process with the rest of the potatoes, the red onion, and the other cans of tuna and soup.
Cover and bake for 90 minutes or until the potatoes are completely cooked.
Remove dish from the oven, and sprinkle with the cheese. Replace the lid and let stand for 5 minutes until the cheese has completely melted. Remove lid and let stand for 5 more minutes before serving.
Serves 4.
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2007.11.23
Posted in Twilight: A Short Story Collection at 6:20 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
This concludes my short story “The Howl From Beyond”. It’s also the last recording I will be posting in the near future. I do have some more stories to tell, but they aren’t written yet. I am going to take a break from recording and get back to writing. I expect to have at least one more story done sometime next year, but it will probably be a while coming.
In the meantime, there may be another podcast in my future. Stay tuned…
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2007.11.16
Posted in Twilight: A Short Story Collection at 7:09 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
When I started posting the audio for the Howl from Beyond, I hadn’t finished recording the entire story. I originally planned to post the audio in three parts, each 20 – 30 minutes in length.
While recording part three, I discovered that I had more audio than I had expected. So, I will post the fourth (and final) part to the Howl from Beyond next Friday. I also have to aplogize for ending part three on a bit of a cliffhanger, but there was really no other place to cut it. So you’ll just have to wait another week to hear the end of the story.
This was my favorite part of the story to record. The story darkens, and the pace quickens. Violence becomes unavoidable, and things start going terribly wrong.
I hope you enjoy listening as much as I’ve enjoyed presenting the story.
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2007.11.11
Posted in Board Games at 5:44 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I grew up playing card games. As a result, I am sometimes surprised when I start explaining the rules to a card game to someone new. There are a large number of concepts common to many card games that I take for granted, and people who haven’t had the same experience playing games don’t always know what I’m talking about.
Consider one of my favorite games, Die Sieben Siegel. It is not played using a standard poker deck, but If I had to teach the game to my sister (who also grew up playing cards), I could describe the game as follows:
- You bid for the number of tricks you believe you will take in each suit.
- Trumped tricks can either be counted as the suit lead or as trump.
- If trump is lead, the trick can only be counted as trump.
- You must follow suit; you cannot trump if you can follow.
- Each person deals once; if there are 4 players, then the game is 4 hands long.
Excepting the finer points of the scoring and bidding, that would be enough to teach her the game, since she would automatically assume all of the other rules as being the same as many other trick-taking games. But consider what I didn’t have to say:
- I didn’t have to tell her what a trick was.
- I didn’t have to tell her what trump was.
- The only clarifications I needed to provide about trump was how a trumped trick counts relative to the bidding, and the fact that you cannot trump if you can follow (some games allow you to trump any trick, even one you could follow).
- I didn’t have to tell her that whoever takes the trick leads the next trick.
- I didn’t have to tell her about the concept of a hand was.
- I didn’t have to explain that the playing of cards progresses clockwise during a trick.
- I didn’t have to explain that the deal passes clockwise after each hand.
- I didn’t have to explain that you cannot look at a trick after it has been taken, and that the taken cards are placed face down.
Card-playing is a lost art among my generation, and that’s why these concepts aren’t universally known. There are literally hundreds of interesting card games that require nothing more than a standard poker deck and a way to keep score, and they seem to be getting lost. Even classics like Bridge might be in danger of disappearing. Already the game seems to be out of fashion with anyone under the age of 40, and this is the kind of game that literally takes a lifetime to master.
What a shame.
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2007.11.09
Posted in Twilight: A Short Story Collection at 7:00 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
This is the second part of my short story, “The Howl From Beyond.”
As I’ve already mentioned, The Howl From Beyond is the genesis of the entire collection of short stories I’ve titled Twilight. When I started thinking about publishing the Howl from Beyond as an audiobook, I realized that it would be nice to have a bit of music to use for the introduction and so on. My friend Phreak Gawd had provided me with a pre-release version of an as-yet-still-unpublished album he’s working on. The working title is the Dark Album, but it may be retitled at some point.
While researching and writing the Howl from Beyond, I often wound up listening to the Dark Album since it got me in the right frame of mind for the subject matter. Because of this, the Dark Album and The Howl from Beyond are now inseparable in my mind. Each immediately invokes thoughts of the other. So, I was delighted when he agreed to let me use it for this podcast.
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2007.11.02
Posted in Twilight: A Short Story Collection at 6:00 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Back in January, Chris, Jason, and I played a game of Once Upon a Time. In this particular game we developed a werewolf mythos that I found quite interesting. I remarked at the time that there was another story there, and I set out to write it.
The Howl From Beyond is that story. It was also the genesis of what turned into Twilight, the collection of short stories in which it appears.
This is part one of three. The story is divided such that you can listen it in three different ways. Listening to all the parts in order gives you the entire story; listening to only parts two and three gives you a shorter version of the same story; listening to only part three gives you an even shorter version.
Enjoy!
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