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The Mediterranean Diet and The Struggle Against Fat Culture

    Hi, I'm "Penguin" Pete Trbovich, and last I checked, I weigh about 260 pounds. Considering that I only stand about five foot ten, that puts me in the Body Mass Index bracket roughly equivalent to Jabba the Hutt, or just your typical American bucket of lard. News reports the world over agree that Americans as a nation are on average blubbery landwhales. Gosh, what could be the cause of it?  Well, in my case, exercise is a factor. I write for a living. That involves (a) typing, and (b) sitting still…
Score: 2.06

Complete Guide Magic: The Gathering EDH Commanders You Will Never Get Tired Of Playing

    Over and over again, the number one question you see in any MTG:EDH forum is "What commander should I build next?"  Commander, the most casual and fun format of Magic: The Gathering, is a bit more involved than other formats. You have to build a 100-card deck, and every card has to be unique except for basic lands. Plus it allows anything - barring a short ban list - from any expansion set over the years; the game is rapidly approaching its 30th anniversary. So it has one of the biggest available…
Score: 2.03

Chilean Lomito ~ Paleo Style

  Chilean Lomito Sandwich ~ PaleoSecond, only to a well made Bahn Mi, the traditional Chilean Lomito is my favorite sandwich. Pork and avocado is one of the great complimentary food pairings in the world, and nowhere is better evidenced than in the Chilean’s favorite street food. Considered the “unofficial” national dish of Chile, El Lomito is a massive pork sandwich served round-the-clock throughout the country.  In comparison, the popularity of the lomito can only be rivaled by the US's love of…
Score: 1.55

Home Cooking

The Problem with Farm to Table - health, finances, and education

by ChefPerry

  I know that this title is going to bring some folks here lookin’ for a fight, so before you start sharpening your pitchforks and hurling your organic, fair-trade rotten tomatoes, let’s be clear…  I love the farm-to-table concept.  I love my local farmer’s markets, and I take every opportunity to support my local artisan food purveyors; in part, because I believe it’s the healthy and more socially responsible choice, but also because the food just tastes better!  However, my love and support for the id…
Score: 3.95

Grilling Fish for Health and Flavor, Direct Grilling, Baskets, Foil Wrapping, and Plank Grilling

by ChefPerry

  Grilling Fish for Health and FlavorChef Perry P. Perkins  Many of us are looking for healthier grilling options without sacrificing great flavor.  When my readers contact me asking about great-tasting, guilt-free grilling, I always point them to one of my favorite food groups: fish and seafood. It's hard to beat a succulent, tender bite of firm salmon or tuna, with a crispy char on the outside and just a hint of smoke, fresh from the grill.  Fish and seafood are so simple to cook outdoors...and…
Score: 1.9

Good Food Starts with Good Food

by ChefPerry

    One of the biggest factors in cooking good food is using good food to cook. This is a point we stress over and over, with every kid that comes through our cooking program.  Not expensive food, not even "fancy" food (though that can be a lot of fun when you can swing it), but good, real, recognizable food. Start small, instead of buying that can of diced tomatoes, buy three Roma tomatoes (about the same price), dice them in a bowl, and sprinkle a little salt and sugar on them.  10 minutes later…
Score: 1.56
collectibe trading card games

How To Build An EDH Deck For Magic: The Gathering

      Ready For Commander?  Commander, also called "EDH" (stands for "Elder Dragon Highlander," an outdated in-joke), is the most popular format of the collectible trading card game Magic: The Gathering, counting over-all formats.  While EDH doesn't appear much in competitive formats when the tournament is over, and the last booster box handed out, look for the players to be huddled up in the corner over a Commander game.  It has every reason to be popular; it is the only MTG format created entirely by the…
Score: 34.08

Complete Guide Magic: The Gathering EDH Commanders You Will Never Get Tired Of Playing

    Over and over again, the number one question you see in any MTG:EDH forum is "What commander should I build next?"  Commander, the most casual and fun format of Magic: The Gathering, is a bit more involved than other formats. You have to build a 100-card deck, and every card has to be unique except for basic lands. Plus it allows anything - barring a short ban list - from any expansion set over the years; the game is rapidly approaching its 30th anniversary. So it has one of the biggest available…
Score: 2.03
Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet and The Struggle Against Fat Culture

    Hi, I'm "Penguin" Pete Trbovich, and last I checked, I weigh about 260 pounds. Considering that I only stand about five foot ten, that puts me in the Body Mass Index bracket roughly equivalent to Jabba the Hutt, or just your typical American bucket of lard. News reports the world over agree that Americans as a nation are on average blubbery landwhales. Gosh, what could be the cause of it?  Well, in my case, exercise is a factor. I write for a living. That involves (a) typing, and (b) sitting still…
Score: 2.06
Alternative Religions

Best Devotional Items For Alternative Religions

    > "Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen." -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Lord of Montaigne  What a strange topic for a product recommendation list, and yet what strange creatures we are. We do indeed invent gods by the dozen, so let's pour one out for Montaigne, arguably history's first "blogger." Not only do we invent gods and ways to worship them, we even do it for a goof, just to be silly. Even the joke deities tend to get taken seriously over time…
Score: 4.81
vTubers

VTubers (Virtual YouTubers): Is This The Future Of Entertainment?

       Pardon my round-eyed white idiot weeaboo indulgence, but your Present Author has been sent on a mission by the Editors That Be to explore vTubers(Virtual YouTubers, Japanese: Vユーチューバー, バーチャルユーチューバー). This is 21st century living at its most stereotyped: whole subcultures emerge and gain millions of followers within a couple of years, without most of the world quite knowing they exist.  But I'm a techie and media geek first, so even I can appreciate that there's something happening here. We all…
Score: 3.02
manga

Why A Death Note Adaptation Is So Hard

    Everybody's Mad At Netflix  If you have to ask "Why, what did Netflix do this time?" Consider yourself blessed, because the Internet storm that ensued in the wake of Netflix's adaptation of the classic manga series Death Note was deafening.  Some protests were over the white-washing of the series, where this award-winning, best-selling manga written by Japanese artists Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, filled with Japanese characters and set in Japan, was re-set in America and re-cast with white…
Score: 2.19

How Junji Ito Scares The Pants Off You

From Uzumaki (Japanese: うずまき）, Junji Ito (伊藤潤二)     Every now and then, an artist comes along who is so original, so defiant, that they break all conventions that came before and force us to invent a special new category just for them.  Comics existed before Rube Goldberg, but he alone invented the complicated machine gag. Thereafter every humorous complex contraption, be it in comics, cartoons, or even in film with Peewee Herman's "breakfast machine," is referred to as a Rube Goldberg machine.  …
Score: 1.93
BBQ & Grilling

Chef's Tips for Better Burgers

by ChefPerry

  Chef's Tips for Better Burgers  Burgers might just be my favorite food.  Now, there's not a thing wrong with the good old-fashioned American Cheeseburger, in fact, it's awesome, but if you feel like expanding your horizons just a bit, here are my three favorites "gourmet" burger styles, as well as some tips for cooking a better burger.  All the patties for these recipes are prepped and grilled the same way, so it's easy to make a big batch of one recipe, or set up a burger-bar and let your guests…
Score: 1.82

How to BBQ Brisket like the Pros

by ChefPerry

    In many parts of the country, beef brisket is BBQ. Indelibly tough and bland when cooked with conventional methods, brisket magically transforms, after a long bath in smoke, into a melt-in-your mouth, sweet, savory, smoky treat.   Starting with a full 10-12 pound brisket (called a "Packer.") A “packer” brisket is made up of two parts, the flat, and the point.        The "flat" runs the whole length of the brisket (slice this against the grain and serve as brisket) while the "point" is a cap that sits on…
Score: 1.31

Cambodian Grilled Chicken (Mann Oeng K’tem Sor) Recipe

by ChefPerry

     This ancient Cambodian grilled chicken recipe, called Mann Oeng K’tem Sor, may look complicated, but it’s really just a series of simple steps.       The stone walls of the Bayon temple in Cambodia, built at the end of the 12th A.D, includes an amazing series of bas-relief pictures of the army supply trains, encampments, field kitchens, and some of the earliest depictions of Asian barbecue.   Specifically, you'll see chicken skewered on split sticks and grilled over pyramid-shaped fires. Nine…
Score: 1.2
Kitchen Hacks

7 Cool Kitchen Gadgets You Didn't Know You Needed

   Penguin Pete here, and today I'm going to venture far astray from my usual topics. No horror movies or Linux distro geeking. Today, we're going to talk about cooking.  You must be asking, "By what authority do I have a license to lecture about cooking?" By having raised a household of four kids, that's how. During which time about 90% of our meals were all homemade, both Mrs. Penguin and I took turns cooking, and we weren't the richest household on the block so we mastered the art of cooking…
Score: 1.22
Amazon

Are You Ready For Amazon Prime Day?

  Amazon prime day 2019, July 15th and 16th  A mote back we put up our guide to US holidays for the benefit of people from other countries, so you can tell whether your American staff need the day off or not. But one day got left off the calendar because it's such a new concept that has yet to be fully recognized. That day is Amazon Prime Day. It's a new kind of "holiday" being pushed by Amazon as a kind of Internet shopping festival.  This year, they even decided to do a full blowout by having a…
Score: 1.66
US 2020 Primary Election

A Day At The Zoo: 2020 US Democratic Presidential Candidates

      Has it been 4 years already? My, how time flies when your country is held in the iron grip of the new Nazi reich! Why, just a few ICE roundups ("The goal is to terrorize"), concentration camps, and blatant systematic sex trafficking barons, and it's like the first term of "I still can't believe he's president" Trump just flew by! Yet oddly, we have all aged a couple centuries in four years.  Which makes my job here as a political prophet this election season that much more dismal.  Our only…
Score: 1.35