Ricotta means “recooked” in Italian. It’s a fresh cheese made from cow, goat, sheep, or Italian water buffalo whey leftover from cheese making after curd gets strained out; most American ricottas are cow-based. Italian ricottas come in many varieties and some are even protected by law. Milk can be added during production or replace whey in some cases, but the recycled whey is what gives ricotta its name.
The Yakuza series! It’s a Japanese video game franchise that combines high melodrama and low-brow goofiness with lots of surprisingly sincere moments and I love it. My husband and I enjoy playing games together, especially RPGs, and Yakuza 0 was the first Yakuza game we played. This recipe is a tribute to that experience and a nod to the love of food, including ramen, you can find in the games.
Well surprise, surprise! Original latkes were actually made from cheese, and their inspiration comes from Judith’s murder of Holofernes, a story associated with Hanukkah in Medieval Mediterranean Europe.
Marnie the rancher LOVES pumpkin pie in Stardew Valley. It’s a favorite treat of hers, and after trying this recipe I can absolutely see why—with a sweet and spicy pumpkin custard surrounded by flaky pie dough, it’s hard to resist even in the real world.
Stardew Valley’s blackberry cobbler isn’t a very Halloween-esque recipe, but it is the recipe that won the October poll over on Patreon. The cobbler does show up on the feasting tables at Spirit’s Eve, a festival in the game that takes place at the end of fall and appears inspired by American Halloween (or certainly has similar spooky elements). In the real world it would be a perfect addition to upcoming holiday menus as it’s both delicious and incredibly easy to make.
Oh Dead by Daylight, you weird lovechild of slasher movie aesthetics and Lovecraftian horror tropes. You are a game of teamwork and survival of the fittest, of both fearing death and relishing murder, of trying to fight a system in which you are eternally bound and trapped. You are also a game of teabagging and “please stop touching my stuff.”
This is the only recipe you learn from Pierre the general store owner in Stardew Valley. It doesn’t take too long, either: you only need a 3-heart relationship before he sends it to you in the mail! Even more surprising, this is one of Linus’s favorite treats. I didn’t think a man living in the wild would love such a bakery style sweet.
Despite being a naughty, spoonable, almost fondue-like cheese, Jasper Hill’s Harbison has surprisingly wholesome origins. Originally named for Anne Harbison, a resident of Jasper Hill Farm’s hometown in Vermont and nicknamed the Grandmother of Greensboro, Harbison is a soft-ripened, bloomy-rinded cheese made from the farm’s own pasteurized Ayrshire cows’ milk and wrapped in spruce bark harvested from the local land.
It won Jodi first place in a cooking competition. It’s one of Demetrius’s favorite gifts to receive. It’s a treat that almost every character in the game enjoys (except for a few and we’re not naming names). It’s: ice cream! Who doesn’t love ice cream, really?
Geeks and Gouda
