Overcooked Kitchen

 

So my spouse and I just finished playing Overcooked 2 and it was a journey. It was rather frustrating at times but overall very fun to play. You do need to be on the same wavelength and cooperate smoothly to get through it all. And there are a lot of bonus levels! The graphics are cute and the music is nice.

Explanation: in the game "Overcooked 2" (and also the original "Overcooked!"), you are set in a kitchen and have a bunch of orders to cook and fulfill. However, the kitchen is working against you in your endeavors. It's not how you would want a kitchen to be. But you do have specific tools on any given level, like a rotisserie cooker or massive wok, to cook the ingredients so you can assemble the final product. There are many points of failure, which do complicate things. 

Text:
M: We could get a rotisserie cooker for our kitchen.
L: And then! Sliding counters that move on an unknown timer! Conveyer belts that end in a trash can! Cutting boards totally unreachable from where you get ingredients!
M: No more "Overcooked!" for you!

Raw Egg

 

Happy Birthday Eve to my brother-in-law! I have a complicated comic combining his birthdate and my graduation date to make my birthdate, but I don't think it'll make sense without giving away a little too much personal info. I'll save it for his birthday card. It'll be a limited edition (meaning only one made, unless I make it his default birthday comic and put it on his card every year). 

The first hurdle is understanding what your kid is saying. The next hurdle is extrapolating what they're meaning from what they're saying. It's a multi-layered process. Actually the first step is getting your kid to verbally say what they want rather than just crying. Then the understanding followed by the extrapolating. 

Text:
L: We're having noodles with fried eggs for dinner.
R: I don't like when you cook the eggs. Can I have mine uncooked? I like them that way.
L: *translating* ... You want a hardboiled egg? 
R: Yes please.

Another Tall Order

 

Last month I made some short-order / tall-order comics and here's another for that segment.

Explanation: A tall order is a complicated or difficult thing. A giraffe is tall. Giving the giraffe toy to my son is not difficult, but it is pun-worthy (as most things are). 

Text:
O: I want the giraffe!
L: That's a tall order.
O: *confusion*

Tall Order Cook

I would love for this to happen in real life. You would probably lose your job but you would gain the admiration of all those in line. 

Explanation: A short-order cook has been explained in a previous comic (look back if you need to). A tall order is when something is going to be difficult or hard to accomplish. I do not want to be a tall-order cook.

Text:
P: I want *super complicated order*
S: We're gonna need the tall-order cook.

Not Short Order Cook

This may have been inspired by a sign about being "short staffed" and someone complaining that they should hire taller people.

Explanation: A "short-order cook" is not referring to their size, it's referring to the time it takes to make meals (they make things that are quick like sandwiches or eggs apparently). 

Text:
A: Are you a short-order cook?
B: I'm a slightly-above-average-order cook. 

Rouxing Dinner

 

Roux is "a mixture of fat (especially butter) and flour used in making sauces" per Google’s English dictionary, which is provided by Oxford Languages. It's pronounced /ro͞o/ so therefore "rouxining" would be pronounced like "ruining." And "oui oui" is "yes yes" in French, pronounced like "we we." 

Text:
L: Why did you add flour to the melting butter?!? You're roux-ining dinner!!!
M: Oui oui.

Season with Grace and Salt

"Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." - Colossians 4:6, ESV

Text:

H: Could we branch out and try some new seasonings? *holding a carton of Old Bay*
W: *gasp* We season with salt and grace in this house!

Strainers vs Stressors

 

It's always a hunt to find kitchen utensils in someone else's kitchen. This comic was spawned over Christmas at my parents' place. So many cooks, but it's a nice open kitchen. 

Text:
D: I can't find the strainer!
A: We only have stressors here.

Help from Apolo

And now to draw a speed skater:

True Story, if I were to be an Olympian I would like to be a speed skater. I just think that'd be fun, skating super fast. Due to this, Apolo Ohno is probably my favorite Olympian.

So for Thanksgiving I was making a Colossal Coconut Cream Pie which has a huge meringue on top and it was a little stressful to get that correct. It was a super good pie though, let me include a photo:

I'm not sure if that picture does it justice but it was tall and toasty (my spouse bought a kitchen torch for me and it was a little tricky to start but works great and I've made two meringues and a 6-pack of crème brûlée). As for calling on Apolo, I was stressing and started rhyming. And for some reason I was thinking about the Hershey Gold commercials from the last winter Olympics (Apolo starred in them and set me off on a quest to find the candy which is what commercials are supposed to do). 

Text:
Title: Separating eggs for a meringue

L: Oh no - oh no - calling on Apolo...
M: How is a speed skater going to help with this?
Bonus:
AO: You rang?

Cooking Disturbed

 

Happy Birthday to my niece!
This is a continuation from last week's comic. And now, I really want to write a recipe where this is a step. I mean, if "cook undisturbed" is valid, then the opposite should be, too! And who doesn't want a little disturbance - never mind, disturbances in the kitchen usually means something gets burnt due to chasing after a toddler or trying to clean up a mess or whatnot.  

Text:
L: So that needs to cook undisturbed for 3 minutes, then add this and cook disturbed for 1-2 minutes.
M: I'm pretty sure the recipe says "stir frequently" for that last part.

Cooking Undisturbed

 It sounds better to say "stir frequently" rather than "cook disturbed" but now I want to insert that into a recipe somehow. I'm also realized there could be a comic about a mom telling her toddler to leave because the recipe says "cook undisturbed" and that means no children clamoring for attention. 

Text:
L1: Cook undisturbed for five minutes.
L2: Nothing in this house is undisturbed.

Hot Honey

 

So we were making a recipe and it called for hot honey, which was just honey mixed with some hot sauce, and I don't like spicy food (hurts my stomach) whereas my husband does like spicy food so we used to split what we were cooking into spicy vs unspicy and just make two portions in parallel but now with our little one we tend to just leave out the spicy since she eats what we eat and we don't want to traumatize her mouth. 

IIIIIIIITTTTTTTT'SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS SSEEPPTTEEMMBBEERR the best of the months!!! 

Text:
M: Next, add the hot honey.
L: I don't want my honey to be hot.
M: ... I'm insulted.
L2: *just vibing in her dad's arms*

Grill Power

I don't recall what interesting tidbit my husband was going to tell me about the charcoal grill, some new feature most likely? But I do recall how I derailed the conversation. He probably got the conversation back on his tracks but my mind had already wandered away. That's how it goes sometimes. How would a hybrid grill work? It could have a gas tank but also charcoals? Now I want to know if that's a thing. It is! 

Text:
M: Did you know that they now make charcoal grills that are - 
L: Gas-powered?!
M: No.

Busy at the Moment

I find it humorous to say a quote with a different tone than the actor. It really changes the feel. Yes, this a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean. Alas, my little one has been getting insistent during meal prep that she wants the food NOW and we are like, it's raw. You can't have it raw. The food will be ready in a short amount of time but for you that will be like forever since you want instant gratification. But such is life. It is surprising what she will eat when she is just too hungry - I have given her some veggies that she normally rejects and she'll chow down during meal prep time. Or she'll try something (arugula), make a face and dig the offending item out of her mouth to give back to me, then request said item again when she sees me eating it, and repeat. 

Text:
L: Darling, to quote Captain Barbossa: *spoken softly* "I'm a little busy at the moment."
L2: WHAAAAAAAAaaaAA

Leeky Soup

 

So first off - leeks are tasty. They look like giant chives (green onions) and are perfect for adding to soups. But secondly, they are quite large and chopping the white and light green portions of one leek gives you way more than one cup of goods. I had too many ingredients to add to my pressure cooker, so we had to split it between that and a Dutch oven. It all worked out in the end, only a little panic in the middle, and now I know to measure as I chop and save off the excess instead of just mixing it all in (but then I had plenty of leftovers and that's always a good plan). Also I did this when my parents and brothers were visiting so my mom is guest starring in this comic. Hi Mom!

Text:
L2: Well, it wanted two cups of chopped leeks but I chopped up two whole leeks.
L1: It's gonna be a leeky soup!

Sound Mixers

 

I thought this up in our church's sound booth. Sound mixers and kitchen mixers are vastly different tools. Now I'm wondering what a kitchen tool that mixed sounds would look like - how to give it input, get the mixer mixing, and get the output. I feel that could be a cool picture but I'm not up for drawing it - maybe someone else will be inspired to do so. 

Text:
A: Where are your sound mixers? Do you carry analog ones?
W: Sir, this is a KitchenAidⓇ store. 

Thanksgiving Preparations

 

Thanksgiving is this week! Whaaaaat that means I really need to finish up my Christmas gifts that I plan on making and also start ordering things that are gonna take a longer time to ship. 

I was up visiting family a week or two ago and my mom made a turkey and it was in the salt soak and I thought up this comic. Also, I have a salad to prepare for Thursday. Totally not connected to this comic - Mark and I make a really good salad. And desserts too! And we've hosted plenty of dinners at our abode and, to our knowledge, nobody has gotten sick or anything. We actually are both rather good chefs. It's not that hard to know your limits and select straight-forward recipes and just follow the directions. We are responsible for introducing our previous neighborhood to tater-tachos. They are super good - it's just like a taco salad but you use tater tots as the base layer instead of chips. 

Text:
A: Are you ready for Thursday?
L: Yep, I have the bath salts for the turkey brine.
A: Actually, can you bring a salad?

Instant Pot

I got an Instant Pot for Christmas from my grandparents and I like using it but it does not work this way and it'd be kinda cool if it did but it is excellent for many meals. Getting back home from Christmas was interesting because I wasn't sure how TSA would handle it being in my checked in luggage but they were fine with it and all was well. And now I can cook rice and hard boiled eggs and so many thing so easily. But actually we put the Instant Pot out in our POD because we're trying to keep the kitchen clear and open but it's easily accessible so that's nice. 

Text:
A: How are you going to make the soup?

B: I got one of those fancy pressure cookers - it should just... appear.

A: ... That's not how the Instant Pot works. 

Out of Thyme

Baking Up a Romance