Saturday, March 13, 2010

Cafe World Tip 12 - What does the Spice Rack and Spices Do?

There seems to be a great deal of confusion out there over Cafe World's introduction of the new Spice Rack.

Apparently, people are having a hard time obtaining everything, even though I and several other internet sites have posted links on how to get all the jars and shelving instantly.

But beyond obtaining everything you need to build your spice rack, what do the spices actually do to the food? Interesting question, and since I have been using the Spice Rack for a week or so now, I can tell you exactly what it contains and what each spices does to or for your food, as follows.

First, there are 7 spices you can obtain in your rack - so far anyway.
The first spice is called the Mystery Spice and has a "mystery effect on your food".

The second spice is called Super Salt and it adds 5% more servings to the dishes you are preparing. So, if you're making a dish that give you 900 servings per cooked dish, you will get 45 more servings on EACH one that you put the spice on. If you have 9 ovens and put spices on all 9 dishes you are cooking, then you will get 45 servings times 9.

The third spice is called Power Pepper and it add 10 percent more servings per dish. So, if you have 900 servings in a dish you are cooking, you add the Power Pepper and you will net 90 additional servings.

The fourth spice is called Onehour Thyme (their spelling) and it speeds cooking time 1 hour per dish you are cooking. So, if you have a dish that takes 4 hours, you put the Onehour Thyme on it and it now takes 3 hours to cook instead.

The fifth spice is called Sixhour Thyme - same as the Onehour Thyme but it takes off 6 hours of a dish you are cooking.

The sixth spice is called Instant Thyme - it prepares the dish instantly.

The seventh and final spice is called Salvage Sage. It removes spoil from a dish.

Obviously, this is a great addition to the Cafe World lineup, BUT, there are some drawbacks. First, to actually use the spice is painstakingly slow. You click on your spice rack, click on whichever spice you want to use and then click on the dish you want to use it on. It must take at least 30 seconds if not long for the application to life the spice bottle into the air, over the dish you are cooking and then dump some of the spice over it.

Second, the better spices cost money. Not gold coins, real money. You get a limited number of servings of them and then if you want more, well, it's going to cost you. For example, to get a 6-pack of instant spice costs $25.00!!! That's a bit much for for a game, don't you think? A 100-pack of it costs $145.00. You didn't read that wrong, one hundred and forty five dollars. I'm guessing it's possible to get some of these spices free from your neighbors, I definitely know you can get the mystery spice gifted to you from neighbors.

You CAN buy Super Salt and Power Pepper with gold coins. Pretty pricey, but what else do you have to do with your coins? Oh, yeah, you wanted to re-do your Cafe. Well, it's all about your priorities, I guess. A 50-pack of Power Pepper costs 30,000 gold coins. Well, the gold coins didn't cost money, so I have been buy that stuff and using it on dishes that cost a lot of gold coins to buy to begin with. Probably not a good deal to use on Super Chunk Fruit Salad, but definitely worth it on more expensive dishes that take longer to make such as Chocolate Cake, or maybe the Giant Dino Egg which takes 3 days to prepare and costs 1,800 gold coins per dish to prepare.

So, that's a review of what the Spice Rack is all about. It IS worth it to use on some dishes, but again, the biggest drawback for me is how long it takes to actually use the spice on each dish you are cooking.

Now get back to cooking!

ben

Poverty

Okay, I'm not THAT bad off. I still have money in my accounts, but it is dwindling quickly. Paying the child support helped to ensure that my money will totally disappear soon if I don't get some paying tenants - paying - their rent, as in - paying. You know, like when a person gives you money for services rendered/offered/completed?

I have a water bill to pay, a few credit card payments to make and keep the electricity on this month. Beyond that is gas for the car and of course food for the stomach. Michael's mother has actually been bringing him food on a fairly consistent basis. Of course, I tend to force the issue simply by not having foods that Michael likes or - even harder - has to be cooked. I like cooking my own food, therefore I do not buy a lot of prepackaged garbage. Prepackaged if full of all kinds of wonderful garbage, most notably fat content and sodium content. Packed with fat calories, that stuff is really not good for anyone.

I would not, of course, be in this position if even ONE of my tenants was current on his payment. I have an alleged, prospective renter coming over this afternoon. Craigslist people are the bane of my existence. They call me, I do not call them. I put my Magic Jack phone number on the ads so that a person can simply call me if they are interested in the room and discussing it instead of endless emails. They say yes, they will shop up - but they never do. Probably 20% of the people that say they are going to show up actually DO show up. Oh, the point was that I can change my Magic Jack number at ANY time if some whacko starts doing crank phone calls. Of course, I can just shut the thing off as well and those whackos will be talking to nothing buy my voice mail.

Rehashing the same thing over and over, Monday and Tuesday are the "Days". The thyroid testing, that is. Mom and dad are seriously concerned after I informed them of what is happening, even though I tried to tone it down and not really make a big deal out of it. Oh well, I guess that's what parents are supposed to do.

I do have one consolation: after Mondays photos of my thyroid, I am going to a marketing company who is going to video me in answering questions about the process I went through to get my loan modification done. It's an hour's worth of my time for 50 bucks, so I don't think it a waste at all. They advertised on Craigslist asking for people to come in. I thought it a scam at first, but it's real live people operating out of a building in north Phoenix and yes, they have been there a while. The worst that can happen? I don't get my $50 and then there's some serious "answering" to do. Lol.

Well, I'm going to get this little drive with Caleb over with.

I'll report back how it went after we get out of the hospital with all the injuries sustained in the acci.......I mean after we get back and see how it went : )

g'day

ben

 Sunday - early 20 minutes until departure time.  I don't much care for delivery on Sundays for it takes a while to get security to the ...