What Campaign Setting for your Module?

[Uatu]

Ha ha... Wonder what caused the switch? Are you two eating the same stuff?

[manikus]

I can't think of any differences really between last summer and this. Thee are certainly differences in our diets, though. My wife is a pescitarian (vegetarian who eats fish), and I'm not.
You know, I take that back, my wife has been drinking wine pretty regularly this summer...and none for me. Ha! In your face, France! (Just kidding)

[Uatu]

Hmm - well, there ya go Maybe next summer you can prepare and eat the same diet she does to see if the bugs will bite more... (I don't think you will be able to persuade your wife to try your diet for a year, even in "the name of science," but... )

[manikus]

Well, our diets are the same like 80% of the time. I'm the main cook, so I generally eat meat (not counting fish) when we go out to eat, not counting the last couple of weeks where I've been eating a lot of ground turkey. If I eat meat, it's almost always poultry. I also have been skipping out on dairy the last year or so, not counting romano sprinkled on my pasta. When I do eat beef, which is about five or six times a year, it's in the form of a cheeseburger, so I have cheddar about five or six times a year with my beef and then another half dozen times in the form of grilled cheese sandwiches. I used to eat cheese pretty regularly, but I've become rather fond of the soy and tofu versions of a lot of dairy products.
Oh, and I don't drink, so she's always going to have 'seeter' blood with all else being equal.

[Uatu]

Cool - you can cook? (I can, uh, whip up eggs... sort of...)

Damn... I love cheese - parmigiano reggiano is the best (almost any hard cheese, really), but other cheeses like good ol' cheddar and pungent blues are also great. Cheeseburgers are always great, but switching the cheese to some other cheese is also exciting (semi-sweet Swiss? Provelone? Munster?) as it is for cheesesteaks as well (chicken cheesesteaks are also nice). Unfortunately, the one place that had cheesesteaks here in Japan was TGI Fridays, but they changed the recipe and now it is just crappy (they changed the bread and all... blech) so now I miss it...

Soy and tofu versions of dairy? Well, I know of soy milk, but are there soy cheeses, soy yogurts, or soy curds? They do have weird tofus like sesame tofu or egg tofu here, but...

[manikus]

I also love cheese. Well, my mouth loves it, but the rest of me, not so much. And all of the dietary aids I've tried were not only expensive but made me feel even worse. It's not a life-threatening type of thing (Uh, I guess that's obvious based on the fact that I still eat cheese), it's just a tummy-ache kinda thing.

Yum, soy milk. Soy cheese, also good. We get a cheddar substitute, that to me at least tastes just like the real thing. The fake-mozzarella is also good and actually melts decently. There's a great product, called "Better than Cream Cheese" that is soy and gives me the soft cheese I like to put on the occasional bagel or piece of toast. There are lots of other soy cheeses that I haven't tried b/c they can be on the expensive side. Though, in the last year, soy milk has gone from being 10-15% more expensive than milk to being 10-15% cheaper.
The reason I still eat romano (which I love) is b/c I've yet to find a good non-cheese substitute. I haven't seen any soy subs for it, only crappy chemical fake cheese.
There are some great soy custards that are good replacements for yoghurt and sour cream.
My favorite is a little treat called "Tofutti Cutey" that is a mini tofu-based ice cream sandwhich. There are lots of good soy ice creams, but unfortunately not any good soy gelatos (which I prefer to ice cream).

Cooking? Right out of my undergrad experience, I cooked at a cafe for a number of years. That's actually how I met my wife. She started as my prep cook.

[Uatu]

Really? Cheese does that to you? Hmm - milk makes my stomach (bowels?) unhappy if I drink more than a cup or so now (when I was a kid, I was fine - well, except for the more-than-occasional fart not and then), but I don't really have that problem with cheese. To cope with the milk problem, having a cup of yogurt with live (good) bacteria helps a lot.

I guess you have a lot more soy substitutes than the nation of Soyland that I am in now (ironically) - never saw those cheese-likes before. They do have tofu ice cream here, but that is really just tofu-flavored ice cream, which is different (but quite nice).

Gelatto - do they have that in the States now? What happened to Italian ice?

What is a prep cook? Does that mean she taught you your cooking skills, or was it the other way around?

[manikus]

Milk might be bad to my tummy too, I've just never really liked it. I know I was allergic to cow's milk as an infant, which I'm sure has something to do with all of this.

The Pacific Northwest is food heaven. We've got everything here. We can eat local veggies and produce year around and I guess we have so many alternatives to dairy b/c of all the ex-hippies or something.

A prep cook is to a cook, as a sous chef is to a chef. They make the basics so that the cook can make the more complicated dishes.

[Uatu]

Ooh, a sous chef, mmm, yeeep... Hay! I dontno French! (Hmm - oh I see now, no wonder you are the family cook now, then Over here in Modron-land, it seems that most (male) chefs NEVER cook at home on the other hand - instead, they have their wife cook (inferior) meals every night for them instead... Because, you know, it is the rule...)

Anyway, ah - milk allergy. My friend had that when I was young, but he gradually was working out of it (he could have a pizza now and then, but not a glass of milk). I don't suppose they have goat cheese or (insert favorite other mammal here) cheese in the Pacific NW, too?

[manikus]

They do have goat cheese, but it's kinda like feta. It's really soft and okay for certain situations, but not just to grab and eat.
I've seen, but never tried buffalo cheese and llama cheese.