Inspired by our series “Crunchy Dishes” where each week we introduce a new in-game food to be used by players and Dungeon Masters alike, Castles and Cooks is proud to announce our first ever Crunchy Dishes contest. We are looking to you, our intrepid readers to create the next great Crunchy Dishes. While the application for these dishes are for tabletop RPGs and D&D in general, we welcome all entries using any source material or inspiration that you would like.

To enter the contest simply create a new Crunchy Dish inspired by an RPG or fantasy novel and be creative. If we get 50 entries for Lembas bread this is going to be a disaster.

Send your crunchy dish in an email to Castlesandcooks@gmail.com. We will post them all in a future edition of Crunchy Dishes and then declare a winner. So, even if you don’t win your work will still be visible for everyone on the Internets. You may create more than one dish if you want, but only one will be considered as your official entry so choose wisely. We recommend using Power2ool to create your dishes (it is free and easy) but you can write them up any way you feel.

Prizes:

• Penny Arcade “Move, Minor, Standard” t-shirt (Note: This a male’s size XL t-shirt in RED)
• Dungeons and Dragons Drawstring bag

We will have two winners. Because the t-shirt is only one size, we are giving the first place winner their choice of either prizes and the second place winner will receive the remaining prize. Winners will be announced on the site after the close of the contest, they will also be contacted via email.

We’ve decided to extend the contest which now ends on Friday April 22.

Rules of entry:

1. One entry per person.
2. Only eligible to residents in the United States. Sorry international readers!
3. Contest runs until April 15, 2011 11:59 PM EST.
4. All contributors to Castles and Cooks and immediate family are not eligible.
5. All decisions made by Castles and Cooks are final.

The food for nerds and geeks has been Mountain Dew and Doritos for far too long. Disgustingly sweet sugar water and chips coated in dust aren’t exactly the most appetizing options available. So a new company has come forward to try and make a geeky snack for gamers: Gamer Food!

Describing themselves as “Cirque du Soleil meets Lord of the Rings meets Cain and Abel… just without the whole fratricide part,” Gamer Food’s two founders, Christopher and Michael Davis, have launched a new product line of energy bars targeting the gamer demographic.

But these aren’t just your every day granola and Powerbars, these are specially made and inspired by some of Blizzard’s classic games: Warcraft and Starcraft. Chris was kind enough to send us some samples for a review – and we’re giving away two bars to one of our readers!

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A little while back, Castles and Cooks celebrated our 100,000th page view. So when Tom finally came up last weekend, we knew we had to celebrate this milestone with something a little different. Earlier I had been to the local pizza chain, the Upper Crust (which is excellent) and noticed something different on their menu: the Challenge.

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Looking to win from free soap? We’re giving away some extra geek-themed soap from Geeky Clean and this is your chance to win it! Two lucky readers will win.

First Prize: A Dungeon Crawler’s Pack which contains Health (nag’champa), Mana (coconut), Barbarian Scrub (orange), Cure Light Wounds (peppermint) and Zom-B-Gone (lilac). Plus you’ll get four new d20s, can you ever really have enough d20s? As of starting this contest, this pack is sold out on Geeky Clean!

Second Prize: An Extra Life 2-pack which includes Health (nag’champa) and Mana (coconut)!

Two ways to enter – become a fan of us on Facebook to automatically get an entry (yes, that means people who are already fans are automatically entered)! Or leave a comment answering the following question:

What monster would you least like to clean and why?

Two winners will be selected one will get a Dungeon Crawler’s Pack and another will get the Extra Life 2-pack!

Rules of entry:

1. Up to two entries per person, you must use a valid e-mail address when posting a comment.
2. Only eligible to residents in the United States. Sorry international readers!
3. Winners will be chosen randomly: first one picked gets 1st, second one picked gets 2nd.
4. Though highly unlikely, if you are picked first and entered twice, your second entry is voided for the second drawing.
5. Contest runs until January 21st, 2011 11:59 PM EST.
6. All contributors to Castles and Cooks and immediate family are not eligible.
7. All decisions made by Castles and Cooks are final.

From all of us here at Castles and Cooks, we’d like to wish you a happy Thanksgiving! May your day be full of resting, food, gaming, more food and getting ready for the epic battle that is known as the Black Friday!

Each week we scour the tubes of the Internet for portals to all the best cooking, gaming, and all around geeky realms.

Cooking:

The Grilled Cheese Academy -If you haven’t already stumbled upon this nirvana of sandwich sites, make room in your favorites folder. A dizzying plethora of delectable sandwiches with mouthwatering pictures and descriptions narrated by everyone’s favorite Office member Jenna Fischer. Pam seducing us with descriptions of gooey cheese, where do we sign up?

Top Chef Season 8: “All-star” cast announced – The new cast has been announced for the season that will return to New York City, featuring former cheftestants from each of the previous 7 seasons.

Chef Tom Colicchio talking about feeding the hungry - The head judge from Top Chef appeared on CNN recently to discuss solutions to feeding the hungry children of America, including discussing what happens to the leftovers at his restaurants.

Gaming:

Only one week left till NEW YORK COMIC CON- We’ve got our tickets ready, do you?

Minecraft+Star Trek- What happens when you mix the two? Terrible things, terrible terrible things.

Geek With Curves - A witty, well spoken blog written by an awesome girl geek. We like her, you should too.

As we continue to build out the features and content of the site, more reviews of various food and drink locales will be appearing. As such, here are the criteria under which CASTLES & COOKS reviews these destinations.

There are three categories to review: Food & beverage, atmosphere, and service. Each is scored on a 1-10 scale, which a total average score.

Additionally, we operate via the “Rule of Three” (as opposed to the Sith’s Rule of Two). Each destination will have been visited at least three times by the reviewer if not more. This is to establish a baseline average with regard to service and atmosphere most especially. Multiple visits allow us to remove outliers from the experience, such as a waiter having a bad evening. It also allows for more of the menu to be sampled and to gauge the atmosphere of the restaurant at various times during periods of the day or week. Exceptions to this rule may occur when bars, food trucks, or other similar venues are reviewed. With regard to bars, food is usually not really a big portion of the experience and with the exception of true micro-breweries, alcohol tends to be the same across the board. With food trucks and other establishments lacking in a permanent location, some of the necessities of repeat visits no longer apply.

As new reviews are posted they will be catalogued on our Review page.

Undoubtedly, if you’ve looked through any of our early recipe or class introductions you’ve seen various sections coded in various colors. These colors are part of our system to define equipment and ingredients based on attainability, price and ease of use. For gamers experienced with World of Warcraft or Diablo I & II, the system should appear familiar, for these colors are a handy guide to determining the rarity and scarcity of items without having to consult a glossary.

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Hail adventurers! Our journey begins here.

In the coming days and weeks our system for marrying the fantastic world of gaming with the vibrant culinary landscape will be unveiled and expanded.

While the balance of the site continues to undergo construction, for now, you can expect all manner of musings from us regarding the world of food and gaming.

Onward to victory!