Marinade = Olive Oil + Garlic + acidic liquid + fresh herb

I've been grilling a lot lately since I finally got a gas grill a few days ago. I noticed a pattern for marinades: blend in some olive oil, something acidic (lemon juice or balsamic vinegar for instance), a fresh herb and some garlic and you can't go wrong.

Olive Oil + garlic + ...

1) lemon juice + cilantro : made for a delicious shrimp marinade (got it from a middle eastern cookbook).

2) lemon juice + basil : made for a great Tuna steak marinade (from a grilling cookbook

3) balsamic vinegar + basil : was awesome on portobello mushrooms (same grilling book)

How much of each you ask? Start with about a half cup of olive oil, mix in the acidic ingredient, about two tablespoons (half lemon or pour of vinegar) at a time tasting it until the balance tastes right. How much garlic depends on how spicy you want it; it could range from 2 to 10 cloves. Herbs? A handful or two of freshly chopped.

Karl

Pirates Cove: fun board game!

My neighbor Judd bought Pirate's Cove today, and the four of us (him, his wife, me and my wife) played this evening. It's TBD whether or not it will be a classic like Settlers of Catan or Axis and Allies, but it was definitely a lot of fun.

The basic idea is that each player is a pirate, aiming to be the most famous and fearsome pirate of all the high seas (arrrr!). There are four Islands that at the beginning of each turn each player silently decides where they would like to go, and each Island has a certain type of resource used to build up specific part of your ship (hull, guns, deck hands or sails). The fun part is that if you happen to pick the same island as another player, you have to battle it out to see who gets to go to the island to get the resources there (the other pirate goes home empty handed).

I don't feel like explaining the whole game, but I will say that the game is a success for the following reasons:
- it doesn't take that long to pick up (20 minutes)
- it doesn't take too long to play (~1 hour)
- there is a reasonable amount of strategy involved
- it has a creative plot / gameplay (not another dwarfs vs goblins or military simulation game)

If you are looking for something new, try it out!

Karl

Pandora for new music that fits your taste

Now that I'm out of school and can no longer rely on the buzz from the "cool kids" for suggestions of new music to try, and I don't go to concerts around campus etc, I've found it tough to find new music that I like. Pandora attempts to help out in this area, and seems to work really well (after 30 minutes of using it). I started with Alison Krauss, Beck, Jurassic 5, Neil Young, and Dire Straits, and have already found new artists I would have never thought to check out such as:
- The Greencards (on Alison Krauss station)
- Daniel Lanois (on the Neil Young station)

The stations keep separate content separate; so it doesn't do something stupid like try to combine Jurassic 5 and Alison Krauss to return a rappin' fiddler. You get to listen to the entire songs as they are queued up on your radio stations, and get to rate them as they go by (thumbs up or thumbs down). When you give it the thumbs down, it skips to the next song. Apparently they've managed to get licenses to do this by restricting the number of songs you can skip per hour, and not letting you pick exactly what you're going to listen to. Whatever the case, this is the coolest site I've come by in a while.


Read more at www.pandora.com/

first post: veggies vs pills

I was about to send out an email to a few people linking to an article, and thought, "hey, this is what a blog is for, and that way I won't have to bug anybody!"

There is an article in the LA times today about how eating more vegetables can lower your cholesterol. That in itself isn't blog-worthy, but what I find interesting is in the article it is stated that:

"Researchers said people who cannot tolerate the statin drugs because of side effects could turn to the diet, which they said their volunteers could easily follow."

It seems that eating lots of vegetables is a last resort, only to be attempted in extreme cases :)

Karl