Jennfier VanDerBeek

What to Feed Your Raiding Party Jennfier VanDerBeek

A gamer's gotta eat!

What to Feed Your Raiding Party is a comic book cookbook that challenges gamers to cook their way out of the fast-food dungeon! Written by a chef-turned-artist and a gamer herself, each chapter opens with a 16-page comic story following the adventures of gamers Ami, Jud, and their canine companion, Woodrow, through various times and spaces: parodies of favorite stories with a definite foodie twist.

Each of the over 75 recipes in the book is broken down into three different serving sizes, eliminating the need to make adjustments on the fly whether you're cooking for a big family, a small gaming group, or vice versa. The recipes include Skill Levels--level 1 recipes are great for the beginner cook, using simple techniques and ingredients, while level 5s are for those looking for something more advanced. Speaking of techniques, there are several illustrated techniques throughout the book-from how to boil water to how to debone a leg of lamb.

While this is certainly not a health food book, we do believe that making your own food helps you make better choices about what you eat instead of leaving it up to chance. To help with that, nutritional information is included with each of the recipes, but we've turned them into Culinary Stats: calories are Hit Points, carbohydrates are Constitution, protein is Strength, and fat is Dexterity (full explanations are included in the beginning of the book).

Finally, every recipe carries with it a certain amount of XP (experience points). As you cook, you earn points, leveling up your cooking skills. There's even a leveling system in the front of the book based on the classical French kitchen brigade of Escoffier. Challenge your friends or just compete against yourself to work your way up from Dishwasher to Executive Chef.

What to Feed Your Raiding Party makes a great gift for lovers of food, comics, gaming, or all three.