Recipe: Oyster Beef with Vegetables

Oyster beef with vegetables

Oyster beef is one of my favorite "generic" chinese dishes growing up, but one that my mother never made.  Until fairly recently I've never been very satisfied with the versions I've made at home, using a variety of recipes.  Tonight, however, I threw one together that was a big hit with the wife and about as good as I recall having at a good Chinese restaurant.   Here goes:

Ingredients:

8oz boneless cut of beef, e.g. Sirloin, New York strip, tri tip, flank, top round
1/2 red bell pepper
2 jalapeno peppers
1/2 onion
4 Baby Bella mushrooms
1 teaspoon of diced ginger
1 teaspoon of diced/crushed garlic
1/2 cup of chicken broth
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
3 tablespoos oyster sauce
1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 tablespoon of water
Marinate mixture of 1 tablespoon light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sherry, 1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoon veg oil
1 green onion, chopped
2 tablespoon of diced cilantro
Salt and msg to taste

1. Slice beef into 1/8 inch slices.  Mix 1 teaspoon of baking soda with 1 tablespoon of water and mix into the beef.  Refrigerate for one hour.  Rinse the beef in cold water to remove the baking soda mixture.  Add marinate and mix well.  Blend in 1 tablespoon of oil and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

2. Cut bell pepper into quarter size pieces.  Slice jalapenos and remove seeds if desired.  Cut onion into 1/4 inch size pieces.  Slice mushrooms.

3. Add 1 tablespoon of oil into pan and wait until it is hot.  Stir fry beef for around 2 minutes and remove.

4. Add remaining tablespoon of oil.  Add garlic and ginger, followed by the onions.  Stir fry for around 30 seconds.  Add peppers and mushrooms and stir fry and an additional 2 minutes.

5. Return beef to pan.  Add oyster sauce.  Mix corn starch into chicken broth, then add to pan.  Stir until well mixed and bubbling.  Sprinkle in some salt and/or msg to taste.

6. Top with chopped green onion and cilantro.

This goes well with white rice and serves around 2-3 people.  The secret step, btw, is the baking soda marinate.  This is a Chinese restaurant trick that turns relatively inexpensive cuts of beef into incredibly tender pieces of meat.  Can be skipped if you use, say, rib eye steak, but why would you?

The Results are In

About four and a half months have now elapsed since I began a new diet regime using intermittent fasting and lowering my carb intake.  See my previous post for the details on my motivation and some of the theory/evidence behind it.

For the first two month or so of the diet, I fasted for 3 days every week, usually on Thu/Sat/Mon.  On the days that I ate, I had two meals, lunch and dinner, between noon and 6PM.  Snacking, mostly nuts and dried fruit, were confined to the period between the two meals, but I did indulge in a little candy (mostly gummy stuff) and chips periodically.  I did not deliberately try to control my portions and we even went to a few all you can eat buffets during this time.  In general, though, I think my portions were smaller than what I had before starting the diet.  This implied that each of my fasting intervals lasted roughly 42 hours.  In addition, I mostly eliminated diet sodas and sugar free drinks due to their known effects on insulin.

After the first two months, as I approached my initial wight goal, I cut back the fasting to 2 days a week, usually on Thu/Sun.  I was also somewhat less strict about not snacking after 6PM.  For the most part, however, I stuck to the same regimen.

As for the composition of my diet, I chose not to go the keto route on the carb front since, well, I love rice and pasta so going without was not something I was interested in doing, at least at first.  However I did try to cut back, e.g., one bowl of rice instead of my habitual 2 or 3, etc.  All in all, I would say I simply changed my proportion of carbs from one that was highly elevated to one that was more normal or typical.  

As you'll recall, my main objective was doing something about my diabetes.  Last Friday (4/13/2018), I had my blood tested again and the results are in.

Here are the key metabolic measurements before* and after:

	Before	After
	12/11/2017	4/13/2018
Fasting Glucose	114	98
Hemoglobin A1C	6.6	5.3
ALT	67	18
AST	39	24
ALP	43	48
Albumin	4.9	4.9
Bilirubin	0.8	0.9

* Technically not before since the reference blood test was done 2 weeks after I began the diet, but close enough.

For the first time since I began getting tested on a regular basis, all of my glucose and liver function numbers are in the normal range.  At peak, before I started taking metformin, my A1C was 7.7.  Eventually I was taking 2000mg of metformin per day.  It helped but my A1C was still around 7.0 or so.  My old doctor proceeded to prescribe glimepiride, though I was very reluctant to take it, and only did so with very large meals.  After I started fasting, I stopped glimepiride all together and gradually ratcheted down my dosage of metformin.  On fasting days I skip it, but tried to take 1000 mg with most meals.  On average I am probably taking about 1000 mg per day, since I did not always remember to take it with a meal.  An interesting question which I am not ready to try yet is whether my numbers will go up much if I stopped all together.  Because there is some evidence that metformin may have positive effects on longevity, above and beyond its ability to control blood sugar, I may continue with roughly this dosage indefinitely.  Unlike glimepiride, it does not have the negative side effect of worsening insulin resistance.

My test results were not a surprise, though I had hoped that my fasting glucose would be better than 98.  Overall the results pretty much matched what I had anticipated.  The chart below shows why:

Basically, since starting fasting in late November, I've gone from 213 lbs to a low of 167 after my most recent day of fasting, a total of 46 lbs.  The decline began with an initial loss of 10 lbs during the first week and eventually settled at a pretty steady 2 lbs a week until I cut the fasting to 2 days a week.  Fasting 2 days a week seems to keep me at a stable steady state, though if you squint, I may be losing a pound or two per month.  It did not happen right away, but my blood pressure has also improved a great deal, from an average of 125/85 to around 105/70, all while reducing my BP meds from 2 to 1.

An interesting question is whether I could have accomplished the same thing simply by cutting my intake by the same amount, but on a daily basis.  The medical literature on that seems a bit unclear.  There are claims that fasting works better because it helps you maintain your metabolism, but I don't think the evidence on that is very strong.  What is true is that for me, fasting was much easier to stick with than traditional dieting.  Part of that is the fact that I don't find it difficult to skip meals.  I love to eat, but I've often skipped breakfast and lunch in the past without difficulty.  (In grad school I had concocted a plan to save money/time on food/meal prep by going to a $3 Chinese lunch buffet in Central Square in Cambridge for my one meal every day!  Didn't actually go through with it however.)  Psychologically I also find it easier to just not eat anything at all rather than trying control how much I eat.  Mechanically it is also much simpler to just skip meals as opposed to keeping track of my calorie intake.

Having now been in this steady state period for 2 months, I feel as if I am finally in control of my health.  Though I don't look forward to fasting, I am pretty certain I can sustain this indefinitely.  I will probably stick to this schedule for a few more months before trying a longer water fast, say for 7 days.  There is some anecdotal evidence (and animal studies, e.g., mice) that suggest that fasting can help autophagy kick in, allowing your body to breakdown and recycle damaged cells.  One tantalizing hypothesis is that this may have cancer prevention properties.

One final note on exercise.  I've never been particularly fond of physical exercise, but I've tried to be a bit more active.  My standard routine these days consists of a morning and early evening walk with the dog for a total of 2 to 3 miles.  About 4 days a week I also do a short routine consisting of 3 sets of 15 reps on an ab roller mixed with 3 sets of 15 push ups.  That seems to keep my upper body and stomach reasonably toned.  No 6 pack but not bad for a 53 year old.  I might start jogging again some time.  I had stopped about 10 years ago when my knees started to hurt.  I suspect that with the weight loss, this should be less of an issue.

A Dog's Life

It's been a less than a week since Bodie has passed away, and we are beyond sad.  Though we had a fair bit of warning, (he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure last March) the end came suddenly.  Until late Thursday night, he was basically himself for the most part.  Perhaps a bit more fatigued and breathing somewhat more heavily than usual, but he was 11 years old after all.  Intellectually, we knew the day would come but it all happened so quickly.

From day to day, he was the joy of our lives and we miss him dearly.  I cannot look around the house without seeing the reminders of him everywhere.  As you'll see, this is not something I would have ever imagined was possible, well into adulthood.

In memory of him, I thought I'd scribble down some thoughts I've been entertaining for a while.  It's by design a bit rambling but I hope it provides a sense of how my thinking has changed over the years.  I don't particularly like to dwell on emotions, but despite the sorrow, it is the great gift Bodie has given me, and I hope it will serve as a tribute to great dog whose life enriched mine beyond measure.

I think it must have been one of those late night bull sessions with my housemates in college when the subject first came up.  Probably a guy thing.  Though I lived in a coed fraternity as an undergrad, those sessions were invariably all male.  Anyway, it was about whether each of us were "car" guys or not.  Anyway, the conjecture was that terms of one's view regarding cars, there was a bi-modal distribution, either you were as "car" guy, for whom the automobile was almost an extension of yourself, or you were not, and a car was simply a mode of transportation; a way of getting from point A to point B, and not much more than that.  I've always been in the second camp.  Though I've needed (and owned) a vehicle since leaving grad school, my relationship with automobiles has always been transactional in nature.  So long as vehicle was reliable and safe, I really didn't care too much about anything else other than cost of ownership/operation.  If I lived in a city, I would be perfectly happy to rely on public transit and Uber.  Interestingly this view never evolved much through nearly 30 years as an automobile owner.  I've had several great vehicles (i.e, didn't leave me stranded anywhere or incurred unexpected, large, repair bills) and a couple of lemons, my view of them never really changed from those days when I neither owned nor drove much.  And I can't wait for autonomous driving to become a reality.

This is in contrast to my relationship with pets.  I never had a real pet growing up.  I vaguely recall having a turtle when we lived in an apartment in Taipei when I was 7-8 and I convinced Dad to buy and let me raise some silkworms when I was 9, but my memories of them are rather sketchy.  For whatever reason, unlike many of my friends growing up, after we immigrated to the US when I was 10, I never had any particular desire to have a dog or a cat.  I didn't dislike them or anything, but I never really understood the need for them.  Some of that may simply be my introverted nature.   In the abstract, compared to a car, you could argue that I had even less attachment to pets.  At least a car was useful.  A pet was a potentially costly hobby that entailed considerable responsibility with little to no utility whatsoever.

Diana, on the other hand, grew up with pets.  One of the things we did as a couple after moving in together was to acquire a guinea pig, Chewy  Chewy was a cute little thing and I learned a bit more about the satisfactions of owning a pet, but truth be told, a lot of it was just the fact that this was what Diana wanted, and entailed little sacrifice from me to go along.  Chewy lived for four years before developing a tumor in his leg and while I enjoyed having him around, it had little impact on my life before, during, or since, other than the need to arrange for care when we went on vacation.  I may have been a little sad when he passed, but it was no big deal.

A few years later, Diana decided to adopt a kitten from a colleague at work.  Even an idiot regarding pets like me knew that this was a lot more serious than a guinea pig.  Though I put up some objections, she was determined to save the little guy, and that's how Stinky joined our household.  Stinky was a very cute and playful kitten.  He used to sleep on our bed curled up around Diana's head.  But as Stinky grew up, for whatever reason, he became rather disagreeable, and down right mean at times.  Sometimes, I kind of wished he would just run away or something, but, the few times he strayed out the door, he never ventured more than 10 feet from the house.  I cared about him, I suppose, but after a while, he was almost like a piece of the furniture.  Once in a long while, he would show up to get some strokes, but for the most part, he did his own thing, and we did ours.  He, too, did little to change my view of pet ownership: a minor sacrifice and burden to keep your spouse happy!

10 years later, Diana had an elderly patient that was about to pass away.  The patient owned a cat that he was gravely concerned about since he had no one that was able to take care of her.  Diana agreed to take her in.  As usual, I tried to put up some objections, but it was to no avail.  I can't recall precisely, but we thought that perhaps Stinky might like having a companion.  Well, that turned out be more than a little mistaken.

Princess was a beautiful black Persian, perhaps 5 lbs or so, and by far, the cutest cat I've ever personally encountered.  She was very social; loved hanging around us.  Unprompted she would hop into my lap whenever I am at my desk and purred continuously looking for strokes.  Unfortunately, she and Stinky hated each other from the very beginning.  Though they reached a truce of sorts after a few months, they were not friends and would never be friends.  Stinky became even more aloof than before, and basically abandoned the upstairs sleeping area of the house to Princess.  There were a whole series of other problems that arose from their issues with one another.  I won't bother with the details, but suffice it to say that we eventually had to replace every piece of wall to wall carpeting in the house with laminate and hard wood floors.

A few years later, we had our first experience with traumatic illness with one of our pets.  Princess had what turned out to be a stroke.  By the time we got her to the vet and got a proper diagnosis and treatment, she had suffered considerable damage and was unable to eat and drink.  To save her, we had a surgical procedure to insert a feeding tube.  This managed to save her life but in addition to being very expensive, was touch and go for a while.  Nonetheless, she was never the same after that.  She seemed not to remember who we were and no longer showed the same affection to us that had mad her so endearing.  About a year or so later, she had another stroke and this time the prognosis was much more dire and we chose to put her to sleep.  Despite the trouble she cause to our household, she was an beautiful animal, inside and out.  We mourned her passing, but my thoughts about her passing faded quickly with time.  Though she behaved, in some ways, more like a dog than a cat, in the end, my attachment to her was fairly ephemeral, and though it seems a bit unfair, my memories of her have always been shadowed by her illness.

As if needing to fill the vacuum, Diana then decided that she wanted to get a dog.  I fought vigorously to convince her that we were not ready to do that.  At the time, we both had full time positions, at jobs that we enjoyed and had no intentions of stopping anytime soon.  I knew that owning a dog was a step up in responsibility and, frankly, was not something I was looking forward to.  We would have to arrange for a walker, and now that we've gone through the heartache and expense of a serious illness for a pet, I was convinced that it was not worth the disruptions to my routine.

Nonetheless, Diana was determined, and after a few visits to shelters and dog rescue groups, we found a small Chihuahua - Miniature Pinscher mix.  Like all of our pets since Chewy, he too had black hair and seemed rather shy and reserved when we first met him.  He was about 6 at the time and was rescued from a Kill shelter in South Carolina.  He was very cute and well behaved.  I found it hard to believe that the previous owner and/or the shelter was not able to arrange some sort of adoption before hand.  As if I actually had a say in the matter, I reluctantly agreed to go along with it, though I insisted at the time that since this is her decision, Bodie was her dog and she would be responsible for taking care of him.

It took Bodie a little while to adjust to us, but before long, he became the center of our lives.  Because he was so well-behaved, we never felt the need to train him.  Unlike many small dogs, he was not yippy or aggressive, though he was always wary of strangers that approached the house.  He had a mature bark, one more more fitting for a medium sized dog rather than one of his size.  He had a very even and relaxed temperment, always content to to sit or lie next to one of us.  He had a couple of accidents shortly after we got him, but we settled into a good routine.  He got along well with most dogs one on one and always seemed eager to meet a new friend.  Unfortunately he never took to dog parks.  Being approached simultaneously by a bunch of much larger animals frightened him, even though all the other dogs seemed friendly and playful to us.

He quickly settled into our routine, including the standard 4 mile hikes every weekend around Lake Accotink, Lake Mercer, or Burke Lake.  Initially, he was able to keep up, but as the years passed, his short legs just couldn't keep up and we would need to carry him at least a part of the way.  In hindsight this was a harbinger of things to come, but at first we often thought he was just getting a little lazy.

Quickly, our routines began to center around whether he could join us.  Any engagement that would require us to leave him at the house alone for more than 4 or 5 hours became out of the question.  We stopped taking trips that required us to fly.  Visits to the beach are entertained only if dogs were allowed.

No matter how tired and weary I was, after coming home from an exhausting business trip, he was always excited to welcome me home.  He loved running through the tall grass with me at my parent's place, chasing squirrels.  Diana would dress him up every Halloween to entertain the kids that came to the door.  I still remember the three year old that showed up one year, took one look at Bodie in his hot dog custom, became scared, turned and ran.  Before I could stop him, Bodie went out the door and start chasing the crying kid half way across the front lawn!

Last March, we took Bodie with us to a funeral for a member of Diana's family in Massachusetts.  During the long drive home, Bodie seemed a bit more quiet than usual.  Shortly after we returned, he had what looked like a seizure of sorts.  Suddenly, he arched his back, made a sharp cry, then collapsed right in front of us.  We discovered later that this was most likely an episode of syncope, a symptom of congestive heart failure where the blood supply to the brain is temporarily disrupted.  We were of course quite dismayed as to what to do next, but he slowly began to recover and after a few hours seemed back to normal.  A visit to the vet and some x-rays confirmed that he had congestive hear failure and we put him on the standard therapy of Vedmidin, Lisinopril, and Lasix.  At first he seemed to respond quite well, but over time, his coughing worsened, and the syncope events occurred with greater frequency.  On his last night, he had an episode late at night, recovered, but then had another one a couple of hours later.  This time, he did not return to normal and we took him to the vet the next morning.  Testing did not reveal anything new or different, but he seemed to be getting more and more distressed as the day went on.  He stopped eating or drinking and was having a lot of trouble breathing.  Eventually we decided that he was suffering too much and that we needed to let him go though it was breaking our hearts.

Before he entered our lives, I, frankly, never thought I would develop such an emotional attachment to any animal.  In many ways, outside of my immediate family, he became the most important part of my life.  I'm sure the sadness will fade, but Bodie has changed me more than I could have imagined. I will always cherish the memories of this faithful and gracious companion.

A New Diet

Since my undergraduate days, I have had issues with my weight.  At 5'7", the ideal max weight for someone with a large frame like myself is no more than 160 lbs, and maybe 170 lbs.  The last time I weighted that little was when I was 20.  Things really started to deteriorate after I left grad school and began work full time in Northern Virginia.  

Eventually, I plateaued at around 210 lbs.  The exact number will vary up and down by 10 lbs depending on how careful I am about my diet/exercise.   My general health has similarly deteriorated over time.  The first problem was snoring and sleep apnea, now controlled via CPAP therapy for the past 20 years or so.  Before I went on the machine, I would literally fall asleep at the wheel while waiting at a red light on my commute home!

The second was cholestrol and high blood pressure that began a little over 10 years ago.  I am now on a statin and 2 BP medications.  Thankfully that has been under control for the past 5 years or so and my numbers have not changed too much.  Cholestrol has been good since I went on the statin.  BP is on the high side of normal, though that may not be case any more with the most recent changes in guidance from AHA.

However, a third problem has reared its ugly head in the past 2 years: diabetes.  I am now on 2000mg of metformin.  In a way, it is probably a miracle that I have not had issue with this sooner given my weight and the fact that I was diagnosed as having impaired glucose tolerance as a teenager.  Given the progressive nature of this disease, I am concerned that relying on medication is only addressing the symptom of the problem, i.e., merely delaying the execution date of my death sentence.  

Somehow, I need to figure out how to lose at least 20, and ideally up to 40 lb; something I have never managed to do, and stay there.

Thanks to Miles Kimball's blog, I've recently become acquainted with the work of Jason Fung and the role of fasting in losing weight.  Read Jason's book for the details, but he makes, supported by both academic research and his clinical practice, several key insights about diabetes and obesity.

1.  The calories in and calories out model of weight control is, while not technically incorrect, extremely misleading.  The reason is that our metabolism (calories out) is not exogenous.  The body behaves like a thermostat set to a particular temperature.  For example, if you cut your daily intake of calories but change nothing else, you will lose a little weight at first, but the body will begin to compensate by reducing your metabolism.  Over time, the weight loss will stop and reverse itself. Eventually, you will end up more or less where you started.  The exact same logic applies when you increase the amount of exercise. 

2.  The question is then how do you move the set point i.e., how do I reduce calorie intake in a way that will not cause my metabolism to slow down to compensate?   (I first came across the notion of a set point, via the late Seth Robert's Shangri-La diet.  His formula was to ingest a light flavorless oil or sugar water.  It actually helped me a bit a few years ago to lose about 10 lbs.  My weight fell to around 200 but I was not able to lose any more and after awhile lost the discipline to stick with it.)

3.  When the body burns energy, it first uses the glucose in your blood stream, followed by glycogen, which is fat stored in your liver, and finally triglycerides, which is the fat stores in the rest of your body.   

4.  When you eat, the body converts the carbohydrates into glucose in your blood stream, as glucose rises, the body uses insulin to convert some of that excess glucose into stored fat.  If you have diabetes, your natural secretion of insulin is unable to cope with the excess glucose, manifesting itself as extremely elevated levels of sugar in your blood.  In other words, insulin resistance.  The key here is to recognize that the elevated levels of sugar is a symptom of diabetes and not the disease itself.  The cause of the disease is insulin resistance.

5.  Therein lies the rub in traditional drug treatments for diabetes.  As a rule, without changes in your diet, the disease progresses to the point where you need to inject insulin to keep blood glucose levels in a safe range.  Unfortunately, this means that you are now treating the symptom rather than the disease and your insulin resistance will begin to accelerate.  

What this basically boils down to is that the traditional remedies: dieting, exercise, and medication will at best merely slow down the progression of diabetes, leaving you, in the long run, no better off and likely more miserable.  So what does work?

Jason Fung argues that there two key techniques that will make a difference:

1.  Low carb diet
2.  Intermittent fasting

For the past month and a half, I have been experimenting with 2. and to a limited degree, 1.  In my next post I will share some of my results.  Jury is still out, obviously, but suffice it to say, for the first time in a long, long, while, I think I may finally have control over my problem.

A

My Recipe for Salisbury Steak

It's been nearly 10 years since I last posted, but I think I'm going to do it more regularly.  Of course, that is what I said when I started!

Those of you who know me know that I am a pretty decent cook for someone who never had any professional training.  My mother was a great cook and though she never really let us do anything in the kitchen growing up, some of it did manage to rub off.  One thing that I like to do is to experiment with new ingredients and techniques on traditional recipes.   On occasion this can lead to diaster, but my instincts are pretty good, and over time you develop a feel for what is and is not important in a recipe.   I'm also a big fan of America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated school of cooking, though they can be a bit pedantic.

Today's recipe is my variation on salisbury steak.  Now this probably brings up bad memories for most people of frozen TV dinners and bad school cafeteria lunches, but I've always loved it.  Heck, I even like the 99 cent Banquet specials from your local supermarket.

Nothing terrible unusual about my recipe expect for the marinating with baking soda.  This is a trick I read about that tenderizes and changes the texture of beef/pork.  For example if you have ever ordered steamed spare ribs or beef balls at dim sum and wondered how it never seems to come out the same when you try to replicate it at home.  The addition baking soda is the secret.

Here is simply augments the bread crumb and milk and creates a spongy texture that I like.  Feel free to omit it if that is not to your liking.

Ingredients:

2 lbs of ground beef

3/4 tsp baking soda mixed with 1 tbs water

1 cup of fresh white bread crumbs

1/2 cup milk

1 large onion

12 oz mushrooms
2 tbl olive oil

3/4 cup dry brown gravy mix

2.5 cups of water

1/2 cup of red wine

1/2 tsp msg

Step 1: Mix ground beef with baking soda mixture and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Step 2: Add bread crumbs and milk to ground beef.

Step 3: Form 6 to 8 patties from ground beef mixture.

Step 4: Slice onions and mushrooms. Heat olive oil in Dutch Oven or large fry pan on medium high.  Add onions and mushrooms and saute for a couple of minutes.

Step 5: Push onions and mushrooms to edge of pan, then add beef patties.  Fry them on both sides for a total of around 6 minutes.

Step 6: While beef is frying, start heating water in saucepan and add gravy mix.  Be sure to stir it regularly so it doesn't get lumpy.

Step 7: After the beef finishes browning, add gravy, red wine, and msg.  Bring to a boil, turn heat down to a slow simmer, and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes.

Step 8: Serve with mashed potatoes or egg noodles.

Election Day

For the first time ever, I voted for a Democrat for president. To the extent I have any political tendencies, I lean libertarian on most issues. However, I am deeply concerned about our macro-economy and a proper analysis of our current predicament suggests that the Federal government must dramatically increase spending over the next year to prevent aggregate demand from collapsing, and the nation from entering a deep recession. As much as I admire John McCain's well-documented service to the nation, I believe that an Obama administration is far more likely to adopt the correct policies to navigate this crisis. After W, Barack's eloquence and thoughtfulness will be a breath of fresh air.

Though it does concern me a fair bit that he has never held a real job in his adult life, and that he is by most accounts the most liberal member of the US Senate, the brilliant campaign he has run suggests to me that he knows how to surround himself with people who know what the hell they are doing, and that he has a firm grasp of reality. We need to put some competent people in charge, regardless of their political leanings. The Bush administration has been an utter disgrace in this regard. Frankly, if it were not for Bob Gates and David Petreus, I would be hard pressed to name a single initiative of substance by this administration that has left the nation better off.

Nonetheless, this has been a historic election, and, I hope, we will elect a man with the character and intellect to led the nation through the difficult days to come. And we will have many difficult days ahead .....

Race for the Galaxy

My long delayed order from Boulder Games came in early this week, so I finally have a copy of Race for the Galaxy in my hands! Race for the Galaxy is a card game that came out in 2007 and promptly sold out. It's similar in some respects to San Juan in terms of the mechanics, but I've been told that it is a much richer game. I played it at Dan's game night with Andrew, Eric, and Matt, all of whom have played it before, though only Eric has had really extensive experience with it. One aspect of the game that takes some getting used to is the symbology. Rather than using word descriptions only, these are used to convey the powers of specific cards. It definitely takes some getting used to, and I can see how a bunch of novices would completely botch their first game. But once you get used to it, it becomes a very elegant way of conveying a lot of complicated information without cluttering the display.

After a single play, this has become my favorite card game, and I think it will be a while before I am tired of it. The neat thing about it, which it shares to some degree with San Juan and Puerto Rico is the fact that there are both tactical and strategic elements to good play. It's strategic because you have to develop a long term plan that allow you to build combination of cards with powers that complement each other. At the same time there are tactical aspects that dictate what roles to choose at a particular time, and to a limited degree, how you might anticipate the roles selected by the other players. Conflict is very muted in this game, and some have argued that it is basically multi-player solitaire. I can definitely see how one might feel that way, though I think a very important aspect of good play is paying attention to what the other players are doing and leveraging off of that. There's also a much more diverse mix of cards than San Juan, so I think it will be awhile before I figure out all of the paths to victory, if ever. Regardless, the key, as in San Juan, are the 6 point bonus cards. When I have some time, I need to sit down and analyze what each of them do and the combinations that work well together.

Oh, and I came in second. I drew New Sparta as my starting world and went with a military conquest strategy pretty much from the beginning, though I didn't really get going until almost the end of the game. More importantly, I think I have the mechanics down pretty well, unlike, say, the first time I played Puerto Rico, when I was nearly as confused at the end of the game as I was at the start. Looking forward to playing this into the ground!