Hossenfeffer

Glorantha was first introduced to the wider world than Greg Stafford's circle of friends with the publication of the board game White Bear and Red Moon in 1975. The game featured a war between the Sartorites and the Lunar Empire in a region of Glorantha known as Dragon Pass.

Now Chasosium has taken us back to Dragon Pass (some of us never left) with the publication of the first book in the Lands of Runequest series. No doubt others will follow, and I'd guess Prax will be next.

The book has a history of the region and provides a gazeteer of Dragon Pass and some neighbouring regions including Tarsh and The Grazelands. There are regional maps and streetplans of some of the larger settlements, some sample 'typical' NPCs, details of some local cults, rules for creating additional types of PCs (newtlings anyone?), and additional bestiary entries providing details of creatures and other encounterable beings.

Different people would want different things from a book like this, but for me the level of detail feels about right. There's enough meat on the bones to give GMs plenty of ideas for adventures while leaving enough blank space for them to flesh out their own games.

The art and production values are glorious as is the norm with the current line of Runequest publications. Nice.

Because they don't have windows.

The salted egg yolk flavour does sound pretty good.

I did (not authentic 'cos I don't like fennel seeds) porcetta at the weekend for my lot and my wife's brother's family. A couple of notes: 1. that skin/crackling was an absolute flavour bomb, 2. the leftovers were disappointingly scant.

Album of progress.

Because they just love to arrrrrrrgue!

The RuneQuest Starter Set contains everything you need to play RuneQuest, the world’s best roleplaying game of gods, cults, magic, family, and fantasy!

The RuneQuest Starter Set contains everything you need to play RuneQuest, the world’s best roleplaying game of gods, cults, magic, family, and fantasy!

Score! Found some guancale so naturally I made carbonara. Hands down one of my favourite pasta dishes.

The recipe is pretty simple (for which, read there’s nowhere to hide).

Serves 4 people.

Cooking time: about half an hour.

Ingredients:

• some guancale. I like it sliced thin so you get slivers of flavour, but some like it cubed. How much? I used about 100g.

• 500g of pasta. Spaghetti works well here, but bucatini is better.

• Egg. I like to do 1 egg yolk per person plus one whole egg per two people. So, for four, four yolks and two whole eggs.

• Black pepper. Freshly ground. More than you think.

Now some people will tell you that’s all you need (and all you’re allowed for an ‘authentic’ carbonara) but I also salt the pasta water and use some of it in the final saucing.

1. Boil a lot of salted water. Add the pasta. Cook it.

2. Meanwhile, in a heavy based pan, fry the sliced guancale (or pancetta, or if all else fails some unsmoked streaky bacon). You need something like a cast iron or enamelled Le Creuset because we need heat retention later.

3. Also meanwhile separate the eggs, loosely whisk and then start grinding black pepper and grating cheese. Grind slightly more black pepper than seems sensible and add it to the eggs. For the cheese I like to use a 50/50 mix of parmesan and pecorino. I don’t know amounts but if your pasta takes about 8 minutes then grate, stir pasta, grate, stir guancale, grate, repeat, until there’s about one minute left on your timer.

4. With one minute to go scoop up a cup of the pasta water. Then make sure your eggy cheesy peppery mixture is nicely combined.

5. When the pasta is done, turn of the heat on the guancale. Drain the pasta and then add to the guancale, tossing it until all the pasta is coated in the oil.

6. Add half the reserved pasta water to your cheeggy mixture and stir well to temper the it. Then pour into the pan with the guancale and pasta. Stir it! You want the egg to gently cook in the heat of the pan, but not scramble! So stir it, keep it moving until it’s barely saucy. Then add the rest of the reserved pasta water again and stir again until it hits a creamy but not wet consistency.

7. Serve with some more freshly ground black pepper.

No photos because you want to eat this while it’s still hot! Maybe next time.