Ants Climbing Trees

Ah, I got your attention! Nope, I have not gone to new depths in 1/300 scenery and modeled some ants climbing up trees. Its just another Chinese recipe. You won't find Ants Climbing Trees (ACT, for short) at your typical Chinese restaurant. None the less, its a very good dish. Originally, my wife taught me how to cook it, but I have exceeded the Master!  My daughter loves it and I have gotten a thumb up from my mother-in-law.

It is a Szechuan dish using mung bean noodles, also known as bean thread noodles or Chinese vermicelli. These are very thin, almost transparent, dry noodles that are usually wrapped up into small bundles. They have no flavor to them, but soak up the flavors of whatever they are added to. They used to be dirt cheap at Asian grocery stores, but I've noticed a rather steep increase in price lately and a decrease in the amount of noodles that come in the package. Recently, I've seen them sold in the Asian section of Walmart, for a higher price, of course.

Nowadays, you can find this recipe on the internet, but closest who comes to the recipe I know is Emeril Lagasse's. Why is it called Ants Climbing Trees? Its because the meat will stick to the noodles, looking like ants on branches. Onto the ingredients...remember from the last food post, I don't really measure anything, particularly the spices, so, the numbers below are rough estimates.

• 1/2 pound of ground pork
• 3-4 packages of brean thread noodles [1]
• 3 green onions, well chopped
• 2 slices ginger root, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon Szechuan bean paste [2]
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 can of chicken stock
• 2 Tablespoons of cooking oil

[1] This is an estimate, as I said the amount you get lately in packages is smaller than in the past. I use as many packs as it takes to make about 2 1/2 cups wet.

[2] Szechuan bean paste can be sweet or hot. Sweet doesn't seem to be all that sweet, and I have not found the hot to be overly hot. As an interesting substitute, I often use Korean fermented soy bean paste. It gives a nice little sharp bite to the dish!

Soak your noodles in a large bowl of cold water.  As they start to soften, use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut them into smaller lengths. Soaking them for about 1/2 hour should be sufficient.

In a wok or a deep frying pan, heat up oil until its sizzling. Add the garlic, ginger, and about half the green onions. Quickly fry them, but avoid burning them, no more than a minute, Then add your ground pork to brown. Use a spatula or wooden spoon to break up the meat into small crumbs. You don't want fats ants on your branches!

As the meat is browning, add the the bean paste, soy sauce, sugar, and white pepper, mixing it in well with the meat. You will have mixed well if the meat gets darkened by the bean paste and soy sauce.

Lower the heat. Remove the noodles from the water and add to the wok. Be sure to constantly toss the mean and noodle mixture. The liquid from the noodles will evaporate quickly and if you don't keep turning them, they will burn to the bottom of the pan or wok. 

After a few stirs of the meat and noodles, add the can of chicken stock small amounts at a time. It will initially look very soupy, but the stock will quickly soak into the noodles. Again, keep tossing the mixture, or the noodles will stick to the bottom of the pan. It should only take about 2 to 3 minutes for the soup to evaporate. While it still looks slightly watery, remove it from the heat. The stock will continue to absorb and evaporate. You don't want it too dry. 

Give it one more toss and then put into a bowl or deep-sided serving plate. Before serving, I take two forks and pry apart the noodles. They seem to have more starch in them than what they look in the beginning and you may end up with this big blob of meat and noodles, but they will separate out very easily using the two forks. Add the remaining green onions as a garnish. 

I hope you enjoy this dish. It may seem complicated, but it really isn't. As I said in note 2, I use Korean bean paste, which has a sharper flavor than Chinese bean paste. My family seems to like it that way. I am not sure what you can use as a substitute for any of the bean pastes. You can always order bean paste on line. You don't use a whole lot, but if you refrigerate it in an air-tight container, it should keep for a long time. I suippose you can freeze it, too. The Korean stuff comes in a big tub. We've used it for over a year and it has not spoiled in the frig.

 

A Very Short Solo Dungeon Adventure

A few weeks ago, I went up to Chicago to drop off my mother-in-law at O’Hare airport. It was time for her to go back to China. We went up a few days early, so that the drive would not be so tiresome. Other than passing the time with my mother, going through more of my father’s work-working tools, there was much to do late at night.

I have been following Tabletop Diversions and Solo Nexus blogs. Both do a lot of solo role-playing games using several systems. Danjou's Hand (Tabletop Diversions) has his own home made dungeon generator. I decided to give a solo dungeon crawl a try. So, after my semi-annual pilgrimage to Games Plus in Mt. Prospect, IL to buy some dice (you can never have enough dice), I had me a game that night.

For this solo game, I used Basic Fantasy RPG (2nd Edition), and No Budget No Frills Pencil and Paper Dungeon Generator (version 4.1) from Tabletop Diversions blog. I really liked the characters I rolled up, especially the magic-user/thief. Unfortunately, they came to a short end.

The Adventure
At a border village of Turonia, three adventures meet in a small, dingy tavern:

Zor the Bastard (Str: 18 Int: 12 Wis: 14 Dex: 13 Con: 13 Crs: 11). The son of a Bruin warrior and a captured Turonian peasant woman, he was shunned by the Bruin tribe where he was born. None the less, Zor became a skilled fighter. When he was able to, he escaped his village. Since then,Zor roamed the northern lands seeking wealth and a way to escape the legacy of his upbringing. He wears a chain mail shirt (sleeveless, of course), and uses a long sword and dagger.

Syllabatar, the magic-user thief (Str: 16 Int: 17 Wis: 7 Dex: 16 Con: 15 Crs: 14). Syllabatar came from the cities of the far south. Expelled from a school of the magical arts because of his carousing and gambling, he turned to thievery for which he found quite profitable. Over time, however, he found himself in the northern wastes and nearly penniless. A winning hand in cards provided him a map to a long abandoned barrow of the dreaded and mysterious Gaels. Other than a cloak, he has no armor. He carries a short sword and two daggers.

Brother Murg (Str: 12 Int: 6 Wis: 15 Dex: 9 Con: 5 Crs: 8). A defrocked priest, Murg has joined with various mercenary bands as their chaplain and healer. He was expelled by his last mercenary company after having drunken brawl with the son of a wealthy employer. Down on his luck, he was desperate to find employment. Murg wears leather armor and has a shield. He uses a mace.

Syllabatar managed to recruit Zor and Murg after a few cheap drinks and tales of fabulous wealth. The next day they set out to find the barrow. Murg’s low constitution means he had a bad hangover. It was several hours of hiking, beyond the borders of the village, but no encounters occurred. They made camp outside of what looked like a small hill with a stone embankment on one side. The night passed uneventfully. The next morning they prepared to enter the barrow. The map had some ruins on it. Syllabatar speaks them and a door swings open from the face of the embankment. The three light torches and enter. They find themselves in a small room. The air is damp and musty. In the middle of it is a 6’ high stele of polished rock. Glowing ruins are engraved on it. Syllabatar reads them and finds it’s a spell of enfeeblement.  He immediately orders the others to avert their gaze. They do, and the spell fails to take hold of them. A single door is on the right side of the room. It is locked and Syllabatar finds that it is trapped. He fails to remove it, and it goes off! A flash of light goes off and they are temporarily blinded. In time they recover, fortunately without any incidents.

This second room longer than the previous one. There are four skeletons lying on the floor. In the middle of the room is a small chest. They look over the skeletons. They clearly have been dead for a long time. Little remains of them but some tattered rags that were their clothes.  Syllabatar inspects the chest. There are no traps but it is locked. He picks the lock. Inside is a large green emerald! They take the gem. There are two doors: one directly across the room another, to the right of them. They choose the door on the right.

The door opens and leads to a short hallway. There is a T-intersection, at which they decide to go left. That was their doom! The hall made a right turn where five Orcs jump them. With a single blow, the largest Orc takes down Zor before he can even react. Syllabatar is slightly wounded by the second largest Orc. Only Murg manages to fend off the first blows by the remaining Orcs. Syllabatar manages to caste a magic missile spell. It knocks out the second largest Orc. Merg smashes one of the smaller Orcs with his mace and tries to get at Zor to heal him, but is just not close enough. Syllabatar just manages to draw his short sword and wounds another Orc. However, his dexterity was not enough to avoid the large cleaver of a scimitar of the largest Orc. Syllabatar goes down in a pool of blood. Merge realizes that there is no way get can get to his companions. He could run and live to fight another day, but decided to fight on and leave his life in the hands of his god. Despite getting another hit in on an Orc, he is overwhelmed and goes down. His prayers were the last words he uttered.

 Post-mortem analysis
 I had hoped the game would last a little longer, but c’est la vie. My adventurers died a quick death despite the fact that I threw them two bones at the beginning. I gave them very generous saving throws on both the magic stele in the first room and the trap on the door leading to the second room. BTW, I made these two traps up on the spot. The random dungeon generator just determines if something you encounter is a monster, trap, something unusual, or empty. I rolled “something unusual” for the first room and a trap for the door. What lost it for the boys was the number of Orcs that attacked them and that they got the first blow. I sort of expected the party to survive the encounter, but they didn’t. Poor Zor didn’t have a chance!

Basic Fantasy RPG is essentially old Advanced D&D that you can download for free. It would seem that Labyrinth Lord is also old AD&D, also free. I have not compared these two systems, but something tells me there isn’t much difference between the two. One thing I will change for my games is how spells work. I've never liked how they worked in D&D, at least in earlier additions. Years ago, I played a computer game called Diablo, which was a dungeon crawl. I liked how they did magic. Both magic users and clerics had "mana" that acted as a magical energy pool. More powerful spells drained you of more mana than weaker spells.

The No Budget No Frills Pencil and Paper Dungeon Generator worked well, but I think I will make some modifications and detail it up, so to speak, especially regarding encounters. For more detail, I referred to one of the sections in Basic Fantasy, but it would be faster if its was all in the Dungeon Generator.

Holding the Line on Purchases

At New Years time, I made myself a pledge that I would not order anything new for at least two months. It really hit hard about two weeks ago, when I realized what a mound of unpainted lead I had accumulated. Based on the little time I have available, I would say that I have enough to keep me busy painting for a year, if not more. Plus, things are a little financially tight in my household since my wife started a new job that pays a lot less than her old one. The new job is a blessing; she could still be looking for one, but our health insurance has taken a big hit. This is not helpful when you have a one-year old.

So far, I have made good on my pledge. I have not ordered a single thing since the start of the new year. This is in spite of the fact that there is a whole lot of new stuff coming out, especially in the world of 15mm sci-fi. The last item I received was a game called "Arm Weapons and Climb Solo" by Assault Publishing, which has 1/600 aircraft in it. I had ordered it back in late December (it was on sale), got it in early January.

I have made a pledge to myself. I won't buy any more mini's or rules for that matter, until I get though about 15% of my total pile of unpainted miniatures. Currently, I am working on a bunch of Splintered Light orcs, and then plan on starting all of those really nice Copplestone Casting's barbarians and northmen. As far as microarmor, I think that I need for my Gambusian campaign is painted. For sci-fi, I just finished up some Rebel Mini's troopers that I had started awhile ago. I will hold off on any other sci-fi until I can figure out the various factions involved for that game.

Had to Change My E-mail Address

Kind of annoying, but I can sort of see why they wanted me to do so.

Tropical Volcano

Some pictures of my daughter's science project. Its the old paper-mache volcano with lava courtesy of vinegar and baking soda. We made it more interesting by adding a Polynesian village, complete with Tiki totem. My daughter really hoped that the lava would hit the village. However, it stopped just short of the buildings closest to volcano. A coincidence? Or maybe it was the protection of the Tiki god!

Volcano with unsuspecting village

Close up of village

Greetings From Gambusia

In the early 80s, Northern Chalupistan, Southern Chalupastan, and the Federal Republic of Gambusia formed a trilateral commission to promote tourism. It failed miserably due to infighting. The above is a vintage postcard from that time.

I Have a Plan...

No, I'm not going to build a large wooden rabbit with wheels. I do, however, have a new project for the new year.  I plan on  running some super-small test games, hopefully with Will but solo if I must, to compare the various modern combat rules that I've currently accumulated. To make a final call on what I am going to use for my fictional campaign.

You're probably saying, "well, duh...haven't you done that already?"

I will then answer, "Er-r-r...no, I haven't," and then proceed to whine to you that I have not had time to do so. 

I've probably read most if not all of them at least 100 times already, but that is not the same at play-testing them. Here is my revised list that I mentioned in a previous post. These are in no particular order of preference. Some were not on the original list, but are now back on the table, some are new contenders.

• Fist-Full-of-TOWs 3

• Cold War Commander

• Modern Spearhead

• Pz8 1975-2010

• AK-47

• BGMR

• Combat Cards

• Command Decision: Test of Battle

• Flames of War

I will start with the rules that are am most familiar with (FFT3 and CWC), and then go from there. I might skip AK-47 because I've already had a game with them and have formed somewhat of an initial opinion.

You may notice the last two are WW2 rules. A number of folks have made home rules and stats for a modern version of CD:ToB, and there is some modern stuff out there for FOW, mainly if I stick to their Vietnam gamebook. My plan is to post the results of these games on my blog.

Any comments or suggestions on the size and composition of the games would be greatly appreciated!