In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, this month, USA Today’s pop-culture blog, Pop Candy, is featuring pop-culture love stories. If you didn’t know, the way Jeff and I met is like something out of a sappy movie, and it’s all because of a David Sedaris book. So, I wrote up our story, and it’s currently on the Pop Candy site. Check it out here!
I’m going to reveal the secret to the world’s best sugar cookies. Forget everything else you’ve been told. Ready? Buy some bourbon smoked sugar. Do it. It will be the best decision you’ve made all year. Mouth Foods offers a nice one that we’ve been using in everything from sweet barbecue sauces to hot drinks, and it also happens to be the key to making the sugar cookie that makes all other sugar cookies ashamed of themselves.
What’s more, the secret to using the bourbon smoked sugar is easy. It may sound like an intimidating ingredient, but all you need to do is sprinkle some of this bad boy on top of your cookies (along with a dash of cinnamon) before popping them in the oven. And your cookies will transcend to a new level of delicious.
This holiday season, show some love for the geeks in your life with a personal gift that says, “Hey, I get you.” The Internet is a magical place with an abundance of geeky gifts for gamers, gear-heads, and comic book aficionados. We’ve scoured the Internet to bring you some of the best geeky gift ideas in one place:
For Gamers
Whether you look on Etsy for a Triforce necklace or Think Geek for Portal 2 bookends, there are so many great gifts for gamers.
(Triforce necklace- $15)
(Portal 2 bookends- $29.99)
For us, December means slowly adding more ornaments to a geeky and eclectic Christmas tree. Last year, we collected skulls, Star Wars ornaments, and a few Halloween-themed ornaments for our first tree together. This year we’ve added some super cool Star Wars stockings, a Raphael ninja turtle, and a nostalgic movie theater. I’m sure we won’t be able to resist adding more as the season progresses. And if any of you have suggestions for geeky tree toppers, we’re all ears!
(Star Wars stockings— we had a hard time choosing– there’s also a cool Chewy one)
At Salt Lake Comic-Con, we had the fortune of finding some of the coolest chocolates ever, made by The Truffle Cottage. We loved them so much, we bought beautifully molded chocolates in the shape of zombie body parts, a companion cube, and a Death Star. And those were so good that when Halloween rolled around, we giddily bought even more unique chocolates from the talented chocolate crafters.
This place is the real deal. Not only are the chocolates lovingly crafted with striking detail, but they are absolutely delicious and come in unique flavors like strawberries and cream and pumpkin pie. As the holidays approach, keep an eye out for gems from The Truffle Cottage. They’re sure to come up with new creations that will make perfect gifts from the holidays. As examples of their awe-inspiring work, here are some of the chocolates they showcased at Salt Lake Comic-Con (now available on their website).
(Star Wars and Walking Dead goodness)
(The Falcon and Han in carbonite)
Every October, we save up all our time and energy to expend on an all-out Halloween party. This year, we made taco soup, mini chimichangas, and cake pops. Plus, we ordered some crazy-awesome chocolates from The Truffle Cottage with homages to Ghostbusters, Scream, and Nightmare Before Christmas. We thought we’d share some of our decorations with you, along with a snapshot of our costumes. Happy Halloween!
(from The Truffle Cottage)
(plates , napkins, and bloody tablecloth from Target)
With my favorite holiday fast approaching, some of you may be scrambling to throw together an easy costume. Not everyone can obsessively plan out Halloween months in advance (like I do), and maybe you just want a clever costume for a Halloween party. Here are some easy costume options that can all be donned by women and gents alike.
1. Dr. Who
What You Need:
With a few easy-to-find and inexpensive items, you’re in business as Dr. Who. Think Geek even offers a Dr. Who quick costume set with a fez and bow tie. It doesn’t get any easier.
2. Shaun
What You Need:
Muss up your shirt and tie so you look nice and disheveled from running for your life. Don’t forget to put a red ink stain on the shirt pocket. Bonus points for adding a cricket bat to the ensemble.
Over the weekend, Salt Lake City had its first comic convention, with record-breaking attendance for an inaugural geek fest. At Salt Lake Comic-Con, Stan Lee and William Shatner showed up, along with some lesser-known celebrities, but the highlight of the con was the fans. Because so many fans purchased tickets, the event had to move to a larger convention center– tallying about 70,000 tickets sold and turning away thousands more after the event sold out. The fan energy and enthusiasm was contagious– there were so many costumed individuals happily crammed together and swooning over the booths. We’ll post on some cool stuff we got from the Con in a later post, but here are some of our favorite pictures from the con. Enjoy!
If you follow me on Instagram (@AshleyGeekGirl), you’ll find I un-apologetically snap photos of all the delicious morsels we eat– both that we make ourselves and that we find dining out. Whether I use our fancy camera (bought for the sole purpose of photographing food) or my phone, I love documenting our culinary adventures. Well, today it has finally paid off. One of my photos is featured on a Utah news site, KSL, along with a shout-out to Geek Appetite and a quote from me, gushing about the perfect happiness that is a steak from Avenues Proper. Check out the article here.
People are angry about Pacific Rim. Maybe “angry” is too strong of a word, but there’s definitely a fair amount of disappointment going around. At the risk of sounding block-headed and completely naïve, I was shocked (yes, jaw-droppingly so) when I read the Internet rants, disapproving of the way women were portrayed in the film. Usually my feminist radar is fine-tuned and rearing to go off at the slightest hint of dehumanizing or anti-feminist tropes. Even my favorite films will usually trigger my radar enough for a laundry list of gripes. So why didn’t my radar alert me when I saw Pacific Rim?
The film takes place in the not-too-distant future, where the world has banded together to fight giant monsters (kaiju) with giant robots (jaegers). Each jaeger must be piloted by a team of two, and in order to successfully control the man-made wonder, the pilots essentially meld their minds to act as a single unit, letting the other pilot peek into all their thoughts and memories. It’s pretty intense, to say the least. Our two main characters are Raleigh Becket, famed kaiju killer, and Mako Mori, novice but enthusiastic pilot, whose adoptive father has only just recently and reluctantly encouraged her to take the jaeger helm with Raleigh.
In this high-concept, action-packed film, the biggest complaint from my fellow feminists is that there’s a lack of female characters and lines. One of the main characters is a woman (Mako) and there’s a nameless Russian woman who pilots another jaeger, but that’s not to say that these complaints aren’t well-founded. It’s easy to see that the film definitely fails the Bechdel Test. “Only three lines are spoken by a woman in the entire first half-hour of Pacific Rim,” says an article from Vulture. An article from Kulture Keeper adds, “The only two actresses… barely register as characters. They’re more like plot-objects in the shape of female bodies.” Ouch. The women in this film are products of a writer and director who brought us full-fledged and interesting female heroes in films such as Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, so there must be more going on here.
Editor. Tetris master. Beatrix Kiddo cosplayer. Adjunct English instructor. Kid Robot collector. Whedon trivia queen.
Geek Appetite: Serving up geek goodies & good eats 