Category: Personal

This is my personal blog category, it has less to do with releases and more to do with general notes. This can be admiration of other books, games, or art.

Double Patty Softburger (Stovetop)

My recipe for making very soft double patty burgers on the stovetop in a cast iron pan. Each pound of ground beef creates 3 servings (3 burgers). The goal of this recipe was to make a very soft burger that is warm and very easy to chew, which is some of my favorite qualities in a good fast food burger.

Servings: 3

Ingredients

Burger

  • 1 lb ground burger meat (85% lean / 15% fat)
  • Sesame Seed White Hamburger Buns
  • 6 slices of Kraft American Cheese Singles
  • 2 tablespoons of Butter
  • Olive Oil
  • Paprika
  • Salt
  • Black Pepper

Notes:

  • Any bun that is substantial and not flimsy should work, I have found success with Pepperidge Farm Heart White Hamburger Buns
  • What I use for beef: Thomas Farms Beef Ground Organic Grass Fed. It comes in a 1 lb. pack and is pretty good!

Toppings

  • White Onion (medium)
  • Dill pickle slices (Vlasic)
  • Ketchup
  • Mustard
  • Lettuce
  • Anything you want honestly.

Step 1

Turn cast iron on the stovetop to high, add a bit of olive oil into the pan, and spread it using a small scrap of paper towel to coat the surface. Then add the butter to the pan.

Step 2

Mix together ground meat, adding a light/medium dusting of Paprika, Salt, and Black Pepper. Mix the spices into the meat with your hands. Separate the burger meat into 6 balls of equal size, and gently coat each ball with a small amount of olive oil.

Wearing gloves (or not), flatten each ball into about a 4-4.5 inch diameter circle. About as spread as you can get without tearing the meat or risking it falling apart, but not any larger than the size of your burger buns.

As a note, the patties will shrink as they cook so don’t worry about that occurring when they start to cook and you are getting ready to flip them.

Step 3

With the pan nice and hot, butter melted, add your patties to the pan. It is okay if they gently touch but don’t let them overlap. After about 2 minutes of cooking, flip each patty. Then squish each of them.

They will have shrunk a bit from cooking, so it is important to smush them here using a spatula or bacon press, or the flat side of a circular Meat Pounder. Squish them.

Let patties each cook for another 2 minutes of until even in color. Add a slice of cheese to each patty at this point, let the cheese melt until gooey.

Step 4

While cooking the patties, grab a microwave-safe plate and heat up the buns in the microwave for 15 seconds. Or until the buns are soft and warm.

Step 5

On a plate, lay down paper towels. Take the patties off the pan and arrange them on the paper towel to soak up any excess grease off the burgers. Doing this will help reduce the chances that the burgers will have soggy buns or buns that fall apart when held in your hands.

Step 6

Plate up the burgers! Stack two patties while hot onto a warm bun. Assemble your toppings of choice and you’re all done. Ready to eat!

Topping Notes:

  • Arrange toppings in such a way so that the bun is less likely to fall apart from being damp. For me, this means using onion or lettuce as a buffer between wet toppings and the top or bottom bun. Wet toppings being sauces, pickles, etc.
  • I only recommend this because I have long held the belief that the best burgers don’t have a soggy bottom. Especially if the difference between a soggy bottom or not is just a dab with a paper towel.

Downswings are Hard Feelin’

This is a personal blog post, that means it is just me talking about talking, and writing using writing. I feel a funk in me the last few days, but also an increase in my appreciation of stillness and quiet air. This comes from my walks outdoors around Burlington and along the lake’s shores.

On the Burlington side there is a walking trail that follows the beach and leads to (surprise) North Beach. This trail is parallel for a bit with train tracks, a fence keeps you from crossing over from the park’s greens to the tracks. This doesn’t stop the eye from seeing what’s painted along the stones wall.

Graffiti that says Caked in big blocky letters, by the trail along Lake Champlain.

Graffiti in different styles and colors are there. Some old and some pretty clean looking. There are some walls along the lake that are also painted, it requires stepping away from the trail and through the old skatepark. Getting close to the rail at the water’s edge. Looking down, the small waves slapped against the steel flat that held the dirt sturdy and straight against the lake’s waters.

The trail leading to the beach is next to the long beach, but higher. A dog and its owner play, throwing to the water and bringing things back. Splashing and kicking up big wet clumps high into the air with each jump and racing step. Whole body dropping back into the chilly water then bouncing right back out and out along the sand.

The leaves obscure their play, bright reds and oranges fluttering by as I keep walking. I move towards the green building out at North Beach that I saw back a bit ago. The views are great. The clouds are nice. The sunlight washing through and over the tops and curling under, but only enough to chase the shadows to the edges of their bottoms. It was a good light that makes you think, and your eyes bounce through their billows.

The beach at the end of the public property was empty. Chairs stacked under a roof, and a car lot without any cars. But there was a tree posing for me near the sand. Just standing tall by itself like it wanted to go swimming in Lake Champlain.

Bars, a railing, and the water. Clouds and a lighthouse nearby.

This is how I walk. But I do it with hums and crashes, massive sounds of waves and wind twisting through the form of music and books blurring through my head. Massiveness and sound blare between my ears and make my eyes flare and spin each way. I listen to audiobooks when I walk. I listen to podcasts. I listen to those and everything behind them as I walk by.

Why would I do this? Because it creates an incredible contrast. Silence is amazing, and peace and calm are great. I can’t do it all the time, but on my walk I unplugged when I made it to North Beach. So I could absorb and soak up the sky and sand whole.

A tree wanting to swim on a cloudy day. Alone on the beach.

This isn’t the only reason that this comes up. Sometimes you blare sound when you hit a slump (don’t be worried, I am good and okay).

When I talk about a slump, I don’t mean a rut or depression in the sense that I usually have either of those. I am just talking about having a funky week where work is a little harder. Where you need to sleep because a migraine pops up, and it isn’t an interruption, the migraine is a logical next step in the weeks agenda.

This isn’t bad. It just happens sometimes when you’re working hard and need a break longer than two days long at the end of the week. This means that I had to take a lighter week when it came to homework, which my good grades allowed to happen. Only because I worked so hard to keep good grades meant that I got to have a week where I could breathe a bit and tend my guts being so sensitive.

My desk while finishing up this blog post. Books nearby, drafts of stories on a pile, and a notepad ready for note taking and idea springing.

I just hope that people with similar feelings on week nine of classes have the ability to slow down a bit and let their funk air out. I understand the frustration of being overwhelmed and stressed to the point of anxiety attacks (last semester gave me that). When that happened I had the benefit of seeing a doctor, getting medicated, and having the support system that makes it possible to take a multiple week-long rest. With a month until residents head back home from campus, and a little longer until winter break, I hope that everyone makes it their successfully. I hope they make it there and get the rest they deserve for all of the work they have put in this Fall.

What does resting mean? It is different for everyone. I like a mix of creative short projects and sleeping. This includes enjoying movies in marathons and reading stacks of books while taking in the outdoors. Doing the work of refuelling my brain creatively, and giving myself the time with my partner and quiet without any work to untwist my heart and shoulders. Sometimes I do these in different weird percentages. The summary is that it is different for everyone, and it can be different every time you find yourself in it and needing to get out.

That is what comes before upswings!

Content Consumer 2020 Report

Life is constantly consuming content at this point, whether it be books, movies, or games (analog or digital). The only alternative to consuming the content on this earth is staring at the sun, but even that is consuming. The glorious eye sweat and black spots across my vision inducing beautiful ball of fire in the distance.

What is this post then you ask? Don’t shake your fist at me! This is where I am going to list all of the content that I consumed (games, books, and movies). I will just update this post each time I finish something or consume enough of something to consider my hunger quenched for it.

I will try to put a one sentence review for each. They may not be reviews at all, but more like my favorite bits or a quote. I’ll return to this post and figure out my favorites at the end of the year. 🙂

Video Games

  1. Quake 3 Arena (5 hours, finished on 1/14); fun game. The single player is just a ladder of bot matches but it was a fun game to play through.
  2. Quake Champions (2 hours so far); this is just my bread and butter multiplayer game at the moment (Jan 16th). It’s a lot of fun even if I suck at it.
  3. Thief Gold (2 hours 25 minutes so far); so far so good. I suck at stealth though so I will need to take extra care going forward, also need to loot more to be able to buy mission supplies.
  4. Jazzpunk (0.25 hours so far); what even is?
  5. Doom 1 (5 hours 45 minutes, finished on 1/18); played on Kill Me Plenty. Fun game overall, it feels like I should have been at a higher difficulty though as the boss fights were easy when you hoarded BFG ammo and rockets leading up to them. I’ll have to try again on Ultra-Violence at some point. For this I played from Knee Deep in the Dead – Inferno.
  6. Doom 2016 (1 hour 30 minutes so far); This game is so much metal all the time. Trash cans banging against one another.
  7. DIRT Rally 2.0 (3 hours); this game has race-cars and is me against the clock which is pretty fun. Which is weirdly lower stress than if I were to be playing Forza Motorsports.
  8. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (7.5 hours); Got a SNES and a cartridge to play this game on for my Game’s History class. The music is jamming and the secrets are a plenty. A lot of this was played by my project team, but I am playing it on a different save in my off time.

Books

  • A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  • Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones
  • The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley

Update and Future October 18

I don’t normally post on my website, but lately some stuff has been going across my mind. Specifically the latest news that Google Plus is going away, and since I got my start in fantasy illustration there and still would consider it a large part of my art experience. I want to talk about what is next for me and what I plan to do.

I started drawing with intent sometime in mid to early 2016, catching my first paid illustration commissions shortly after starting, I got incredibly lucky in that way. I released my first game that I wrote, did layout for, and illustrated at the end of 2017 (my game Runaway Hirelings that I am incredibly proud of). And a more recent development was this year I did my first convention table where I sold some art prints and books. Its been a climb and I have enjoyed working on all the projects I have taken on, sometimes I feel like I didn’t do as well, but I am still glad I took on what I did and met the people online that I did.

As for Google Plus’s part in this story? Its where I met artists in games, talked about some games, drifted away from games a little bit, reconnected with some art, drifted away a little bit, and was an active participant for a little too. It was where all of my tabletop role-playing game connections came from. A bunch of people seem to be spreading out across platforms, and I am unsure if I will end up following over to anyone of them. Or if I will just try to develop myself on a platform that I am already on. If I do, it may end up being this website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

We’ll see since there is still 10 months until the circles of google+ break apart to dust and are gone forever.

Goals and Plans

Since the announcement of google plus shuttering its doors, I have had to think about what I want to do and where I want to go with art and creating game related stuff. What do I want to do? Where do I want to go with whatever it is I do?

The obvious first goal is to get to making stuff full time. I want to be able to draw stuff each day and have it go places and be somewhere where it can be appreciated at least in a way close to what I intend. That is why I want to have enough stuff together next year, to submit to art shows and solo show calls. I also have a card idea, a goal involving some form of video games, and another writing goal.

Galleries and Shows

I watch a lot of videos and try to take in as much as I can about art and theories about taking a part art and how to look at things. Since I am in what most people consider a desert for that type of thing, and I am still new to all of it. It means that what I know is basic and what anyone else who has google and just started reading highlighted blog posts and YouTube videos would also know.

But, I want to put together a set of stuff in the vein of a picture that I worked on this year, if I could put it all together maybe it would help me feel more successful with my pens and pictures. And when I have that set in frames and ready to present, I can at least have something to present and then attempt to show.

Why do I want this? I do and it’d be nice to talk about things that I draw for more than “it looks cool”. Also it would be nice if someone got something and hanged it up on their wall.

Cards and Tarot

As for art products as projects, I have had a passing interest in tarot and as similarly interested in how some artists put together illustrated card decks. I had thought about it previously a couple times when I was younger (I had a lord of the rings tarot deck that my aunt gave me when I was a younger child), and about the same time as I had a binge of internet google searching of custom or hand carved chess sets.

But what reignited my curiosity was reading The Art of Ian Miller book that I have where one of the pictures captions said Miller was going to use this one image of a haunted building across and atop these geometric pillars that spiraled around like a chaotic mess. Looking at that just makes me want to make a deck, to draw these pictures and put them in a deck so I can pin them to the wall. So that other people can have a gallery in their hands to flip through when they want dark buildings and a horror landscape.

I am working on educating myself on tarot that way I can get fully into it and make something that both is respectful of it but fulfills my creative goals and needs with drawing the pictures. If it seems that I can’t make the tarot work, then a deck of cards with cools pictures may be where it goes…

Video Games

Or as I often describe them in tweets and chat conversations “vidya germs”. I have reinstalled a bunch of game making software that I previously tried to use a ton of times throughout high school and shortly after, but I think I now have enough knowledge and awareness to at least try to make something small.

Which is why next year one of my small goals is to make a small game that is 2 hours long. It may end up being a game that uses just text. Or it may be a short adventure game idea that I was playing with (potentially making use of Adventure Game Studio and a bunch of digital tools I got in a big fat folder on my desktop).

Right now its looking like a game inspired by one of my favorite castle illustrations may end up being the one that I go with.

Writing Goals

As for writing goals? Beyond literally all of the other things that I am thinking and wanting to do, why would I want more? I just want to get a lot of stuff done.

Earlier this year I wrote a short story, just a bit over 3,000 words and I was proud of it. I thought it was pretty good. So, I want to write some more short stories of varying length; I definitely have enough stories that are half written or started that I could retouch and work on next year.

Assuming I don’t redo one of them between now and the end of the year.

As usual, my stories will be tied to weirdness and horror, or attempting to describe surreal stuff and what I think surreal is to me. Beyond just stories, maybe I can finish another game project? Something small and tight like Runaway Hirelings; hopefully I’ll like it just as much as Runaway Hirelings too.

Too many goals

Having so many goals and plans for things that I want to do may seem like it is counterproductive to getting work done and completing projects. It is, and it feels like it is sometimes. But bouncing around helps me a lot when developing ideas and concepts slowly towards some version of polish.

Will I accomplish all of my goals? Probably not. But I really want to do something different and break into my own space and do some new things.

Where can you find me?

And where will you find these updates and what not? Well, I want to put more on this website, so here of course.

I’ll also be on all the sites on listed on this page: http://thomas-novosel.com/about-me/