"For we are (not) to utter sweet breath": Cozy/Comfortable
Welcome to a series of blog posts that will include a meal, a drink to pair with said meal, and some games that you can play that are at least a loose thematic fit for the evening. Not everything is for everyone, and you should take what you like and leave what you don't. But I hope you use these posts to try something new (whether it be a meal, a game, or a drink!) and perhaps discover something you like.
I haven't posted one of these in quite a while because I was having difficulty unifying everything under a theme. I have had lots of ideas, but nothing that felt like it fit correctly. But I really wanted to get more of these up, so I've sort of given myself a little slack to tie everything together perhaps a bit more loosely. For this one, I asked my wife what one of her favorite meals is. I do the majority of cooking in our household, so I sort of asked her to answer the question with recipes I make. She said plum chicken, so that was the one with which I decided to run! So I started with that meal and built the blog post around that.
Drink: Suigei Tokubetsu Junmai ("Drunken Whale")
I cannot recommend TippsySake highly enough, y'all. My wife bought me a subscription one year for either my birthday or our anniversary and I absolutely love it and have kept it continuing for the past several years. I know nothing about sake. Prior to TippsySake, I'd only tried sake once. It was something like fifteen years ago while I was visiting NYC for New Year's Eve and I met some friends at a sushi restaurant. I adored the sushi, but didn't enjoy the sake that much. But I can also say that, looking back, I simply didn't understand how to enjoy it. I read a lovely sentiment somewhere that instead of saying, "I don't like that" after eating or drinking something (particularly when considering food or drink from a culture different from my own), it makes more sense to say, "I don't know how to consume this." I really like this notion. Because not only do our tastes change with age, but our experiences also diversify and inform our tastes.
To that end, I now really enjoy drinking sake when I do! TippsySake has taught me more about what I'm drinking and how to drink it, and that's been helpful. And to that end, so far, this sake is my favorite of everything I've tried so far. Some notes on the nose include rose, wood, and grape. And though the sake is fairly dry with a clean taste, I still find it to be a kind of cozy drink. That might partially be because, in the past, I've often sipped on some of this while preparing the marinade for my Hawaiian butterfish (read a little bit about that recipe here), which meant that I was sipping on it at night while doing meal prep before going to bed. There's a warm feeling that goes with preparing food for loved ones. But the clean taste works well for me with the recipe Imma suggest pairing with it for your evening.
Food: Plum chicken, fried green beans, and a salad
The recipe here is close enough to what I use for my own meal prep. I just replaced the raspberry jam with plum jam. Originally, this was because I was making the meal with my mother-in-law as a guest and she's allergic to raspberries. But since making it with plum jam, I don't really make the recipe any other way! It's easy to make, so meal prep moves quickly. But the sauce is so warm and just absolutely makes the meal that I think of it as sort of a comfortable meal. Also, I'd only lightly season the chicken; I tend to use some black pepper and garlic powder before cooking it. So to add to the comfort, I thought that the fried green beans with a wasabi sauce worked well (also easy enough if you have an air fryer!) and then a salad with sliced cucumber and red bell pepper to round out the meal.
Game: Codenames
I'll be honest: Codenames is a game that hasn't hit my table in quite some time. But when I think of games that are comfortable, Codenames comes to mind. I say that for a couple of reasons. The first is that I only ever play this game with friends and family, which means that I'm always on the same side as folks who I know well. Which means that whenever we're communicating, there's something very familiar about how we do it, and familiar (for me) often translates to comfortable. The other reason is that I find the stakes of the game very low. Don't mistake me - I still want to win! But the setup is so simple and there are only so many cards in any given version of Codenames that it becomes easy enough to recognize patterns and so there's a comfort there that I appreciate.
Game: Everdell
I've written up a Game Introduction for Everdell here, but I truly owe this game a fully fledged review. It's one of my favorite worker placement games because it's fun, there's lots of variety, and I love the components. But I'll also say that it feels low stress to me. The theme is cozy: animals in a forest building a tableau and it's all done on a very small scale (for example, just two or three berries can go a long way in terms of resources! We don't use lumber; we use twigs!). It's possible other players can get to a space before you, thus blocking you, but there's always a way to progress your game, so I've never felt as though the competition is cutthroat. It's a really fun game, but it also feels to me like a really *nice* game, too.
I hope at least one of these recommendations has piqued your interest; I send you off to eat good food and play good games with good people!
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