Sunday Post: March 7, 2022

Hello, my lovelies.

Lord. It’s Monday, which makes this a weird day for a Sunday Post. But I spent the evening making cookies, like I do, and struggling with a new royal icing recipe, which never did turn out the way Alton Brown said it would, and when I sat down to write, I literally dozed off at my desk.

So. Here we are.

The cookies taste great, even if the icing never quite got to anything resembling stiff peaks. I am sure that it has something to do with how gradually I added the sugar, but short of adding four cups a tablespoon at a time, I am not sure what else I could have done differently.

I shall spend the week researching and watching videos and we will try again next week. The good thing is that there are always more cookies.

I learned a new game this week. It’s called Paper Dungeons, and it’s an old-fashioned dungeon-crawl, but as a roll-and-write. You have a bunch of treasure scattered about the dungeon, you have four level-one explorers, and you have monsters to encounter. You can level-up your characters to make it easier to fight the monsters, you can brew healing potions, find gems and artifacts, fight minions and big bads and just generally get up to mischief. I really wish it were available to pay online, as it’s a great solo game as well.

It’s beautifully-themed, and reminds me a little in its gameplay of Ganz Schön Clever, which is a game I adore. Highly recommend.

I read five bks this week (through yesterday), bringing my total this year to 41, which is 10 books ahead of schedule. I don’t expect to quite keep up this pace, but I do like the wiggle room.

This was a bit of a friends-to-more week, as three books featured that trope. The Deal is college-set, featuring a jock who needs to pass ethics and the girl who offers to tutor him in exchange for him helping to make the star quarterback jealous. Super-cute. Thick as Thieves is the story of life-long besties-without-boundaries, gay Julian and presumed-straight Parker, who ends up being less straight than previously thought. Also adorbs, and set against a gorgeous winter backdrop of a ski resort. In The Life Revamp, Mason is looking for forever when he meets Diego and they connect immediately. But Diego is married to Claris, and even though they are polyamorous and Claris thinks that Diego and Mason are adorable together, can Mason give up on his dreams of a conventional binary relationship for what could be a great love?

Dark Horse, OrphanX #7, was a solid addition to the franchise with tons of internal character development. It was a little slow to start, ended on a getting-to-be-normal for the franchise cliffhanger, and was maybe a little darker than I expect. But solid.

I already gushed about Hook, Line and Sinker in my weekly review, so I’ll just reiterate that it was…sigh. Super-charming and romantic and I loved every minute of it.

OK, that’s all from the 52 test kitchen, where we may make enough royal icing this week to frost the house.

Till next week, stay safe, read something that makes you swoon and cook something new!