Seasonal Favorites aka the best time of the year | #1

Hello! Today is part one of a three part series I’m going to do. Basically ‘monthly favorites’ but focusing on fall, because, as the title says, it’s the best time of the year. Fight me on it.

So there will be one now, one in November, and one in December. Each will talk about the things I’m currently hooked on, fall-related and otherwise. So if this is the type of thing you think will float your boat, read on, homeslice.

Food

Starbucks’s Pumpkin Cream Cold Brews – I’ve been getting at least one of these a week, sometimes two or three. I’ve basically been getting nothing else from them for the last month or two. They’re so damn good.

Peanut butter banana bread – Made by moi. I had bananas that I forgot to eat and went ‘welp, bread it is’. I found a recipe online, which is here, and it turned out to be the bees knees. I’m definitely going to make this again.

Apricot wheat beer – from the brewery that opened up across the street from me. I won’t say which one because… that’d be doxxing myself, now wouldn’t it. But man, I never knew apricot could flow so seemlessly with beer.

Leinenkugel’s Vanilla Snowdrift Porter – Technically a winter beer, I look forward to this release every year. Man, it’s so gooood.

Wedding Cookie Table Cookies – So I learned a thing recently. Apparently, giant tables full of cookies at weddings isn’t a thing in most places. Where I live, it’s standard. You get married, you have food, you have a cake, and you have a giant eff-off table full of cookies. Like, your entire family makes you cookies for this table when you get hitched. Tiers and tiers of the stuff, enough that you bring take out boxes for all the guests, because they’ll eat 20 each and take 20 home on top of it. The cookie table is the star of the Pittsburgh wedding. The picture above is from the wedding of a friend I went to this past weekend. Hell, I got married two years ago with maybe 40 people, technically wasn’t even a wedding so much as a JP showing up and declaring us married, and we still had a sizeable cookie table.

For example, a quick google:

Personally I think they should be like… a global thing. Cookie tables, people. Make it happen.

 

Games

Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm – I’ve been hooked on the Civilization series for almost a decade now, and this one – Gathering Storm – is the latest expansion released for Civ VI. To the already super-involved gameplay, it adds natural disasters, global warming, and everything like that. So now, on top of you dealing with all the other civilizations in your world, and competing in scientific discovery, warfare, culture and religion, now you have to deal with polar ice caps melting and tornadoes ripping through your capital. It’s. So. Awesome.

Television

My Hero Academia – Above is the season 1 trailer, but season 4 just started streaming on Crunchyroll two weeks ago and MAN WAS I READY FOR IT. My Hero Academia I think is one of the best anime to come out in a while, and if you haven’t picked it up yet, I really suggest doing so. It’s. Amazing. It follows a young man named Midoriya, living in a super-powered world, where most people have abilities called quirks. Because of this, ‘heroes’ have become a thing in society. Midoriya wants to be a hero more than anything, but unfortunately he’s quirkless. This anime tells the story of how he becomes the greatest hero.

Demon Slayer – this one is a recent find for me. I’m only four or five episodes in so far but I am definitely hooked. It follows a young man named Tanjiro, who lives in a world of humans and demons alike, as he strives to save his sister after his family is slain and his sister turned into a demon. I really, really like this one – the visuals are gorgeous, the music is eerie, and weirdly there’s a bit of humor – it’s just perfect.

Music

Recently I’ve fallen into a uh.. rocky-poppy-indy-ish mood. Usually I’m all heavy metal. Who knows what’s goin on. This is what I’m currently hooked on. Definitely recommend giving them a listen:

• Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves) by the Wombats

• Hunter by Ken Ashcorp

• Can’t Go to Hell by Sin Shake Sin

There are…. a lot more songs I’ve discovered this month, but those stand out as my faves. Give ’em a listen and lemme know what you think!

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And that’s it! For the next two posts, if I come up with more categories, I’ll add’em in, but I figured this was a solid start. If you’d tried or like any of the above, lemme know! If my post inspires you to try them, lemme know that too!