I love doing this in my TRPGs. Nine out of ten times an event was memorable was because of a horrible failure rather than a successful win. My table eats it up. I wish more games did this too

I’ve read through quite a few cookbooks and these are my favorites per use-case:

General Purpose: The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America
Culinary Basics: Basics with Babish by Andrew Rea
Food Science & Ingredients: On Food & Cooking by Harold McGee
Equipment: Gear by Alton Brown
Baking: Professional Baking by Wayne Gilssen
Flavor Combinations: The Flavor Matrix by Nik Sharma
Grilling: Arnie Tex by Arnie Segovia
Chinese: The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young
Indian: The Best Ever Indian Cookbook by Mridula Baljekar and others
Thai: Sabai by Pailin Chongchitnant
Vintage: The Settlemennt Cook Book
YouTuber Cookbook: Binging with Babish by Andrew Rea
Celebrity Cookbook: From Crook to Cook by Snoop Dogg (it actually has really good recipes believe it or not)

Same, 80% of my gaming was on older releases. The only game I played released in 2025 was an indie TD game called Dungeon Warfare III, mostly because I played and loved I and II.

Of course! If you cut it very thin it’s crunchy but not hard to chew through. A julienne cut (1/8in or 3mm) with a knife gets it to look pretty but shredding would work too taste-wise

I usually do avocado, carrot, and cucumber with a sprinkling of sesame seed. The avocado is soft while the others are crunchy and they offer a nice texture dinamic when balanced. They also have a nice fresh taste that compliments the sharpness of wasabi and the savory/salt of soy sauce

Vegetarian sushi comes to mind. Sometimes I even prefer it to sushi with fish when I’m in the mood; it’s crisp and refreshing when done right. If you use good quality nori and rice vinegar you’ll get that oceanic flavor you’re looking for without any fish.

I mainly get them from YouTube and their resppective websites. My favorites are:

Babish Culinary Universe (Everything)
Pailin’s Kitchen (Thai)
Sheldo’s Kitchen (Sotheast Asian)
Brian Lagerstrom (Baking and American)
Curries with Bumbi (Indian)
Hanbit Cho (Baking)

Second for Half Baked Harvest. I love how cozy the site looks and the recipes are great

I’ve been a Steam only buyer for a long time. There are so many cool features and extra stuff, most games work out of the box, and they’ve been putting in a lot of effort on the linux scene with proton and the deck. But even despite all that, I’m starting to move to GOG. The sad truth is that you don’t own any of your games on Steam. I’ve been having more and more games be removed from my library, and games that either just don’t work or are “updated” into something worse. Not Steam’s fault really, but GOG is much more consumer friendly and I actually get files I can use and keep forever, no required updates or DRM. I really like Steam, and am having a hard time leaving it, but GOG is just the better choice from a long term and consumer ethics perspective.

Ironically, lots of food actually has wood in it. Any time you see “cellulose” or “cellulose powder” on the ingredient list it’s actually just wood pulp. It’s used as a thickening agent

Garbage plates sound horrible in theory but they are litterally so good. They hit hard after a night out or if you have the night munchies. I’m not sure if they’re popular elsewhere but they are a staple of upstate New York

Lol I was half asleep when I read that ngl

Fun fact, Ramen was originally Chinese, derived from a dish called la mian

These three from Babish are my favorite, especially the chili garlic one.

If you wanna go really cheap you can just add colby jack cheese, curry powder and onion powder to chicken ramen, which was my go to in college

Highly underrated, but a good thermometer can help a lot with cooking meats. Getting the right temp is much more accurate than cooking by sight or feel, and having one that reads in under a second is super convenient.Typhur makes some quality ones that I like to use

Hard agree. I feel like you can cook almost anything with just a cast iron pan and a chef’s knife. It’s the essentialist’s gadget of choice

Canned chipotles in adobo are really good additions to anything savory. Add it to mayo or mac n cheese for a smoky & tangy depth of flavor. Plus where I live it’s like 70¢ a can, which is a great price for how much it upgrades the dish.

Lemmy and their hatred for beans…

I love homemade refried beans. The haters are definitely missing out

Looks delicious! There are a couple of techniques to get good pics of food; here are a couple I can think of off the top of my head:

Take the picture in an area void of distractions like an empty table
Center the item of interest in the middle of the plate and make sure it’s clean of crumbs or fingerprints
Use garnish to make colors pop (e.g. like green chives on white mashed potatoes)
Take the pic in good lighting, sunlight from a window is best
Get close enough to the food to fill the whole frame, leaving a little space on the edges . Get even closer to get good food textures

Chili powder is a good one to have. I make mine from arbol, guajilo, and ancho chilis. Adjust arbol for spice, ancho for richness and flavor, and guajilo for tang and smoke.

Edit: typo