With the stuff on the front page, I figure I should explain what the Navy Foods book is.

One of our largest audiences happen to be Chinese speakers, and I wrote – almost two years ago – a series of posts on the nature of military food. I mostly used the primary reference “Cookbook of the United States Navy” (you can find this on a lot of sites if you search for that exact title) and gave some fun examples of the different kinds of foods you’ll be able to eat on a ship.

What I did is honestly just explain some basic cooking principles. I like to cook myself (though I wouldn’t say I’m at all good or anything along the sort), and I cook the vast majority of my meals. Coming out of a redneck family helps too, since we did a lot of hunting and fishing and gardening.

For me, I think the interesting here is less the recipes (though of course I think they’re really neat), but rather seeing how different it is that the Asians cook in comparison to us. For instance, I didn’t realize that a baking oven is not as common as it is here. We have very different styles of preparing things like rice (we tend to bake, they tend to steam or use rice cookers), and sometimes even terms with similar meanings (braising) mean different things contextually. Ingredients that we take for granted such as certain sauces are again, very uncommon, and oftentimes they need to get it from western-styled markets if they wanted to try the same recipe.

Fast forward to today, and St. Bernard (one of our artists) liked the idea enough that she’d like to illustrate it. In all honesty, it’s pretty basic stuff. I assume most of us here in the English-speaking countries know how to roast meat or to make pies, so I don’t think we’ll really be localizing it unless there’s demand.

But, I love her art style. It’s pretty adorable and it fits the book really well. So you’ll definitely be seeing more of it.

“Having just returned from visiting the Lexington museum in Corpus Christi, which also has small sections about both CA-30 and CL-81 Houstons and miniature of CV-8 Hornet, I had a question regarding ships in WWII that share names. Are you planning on doing anything to differentiate them in name, or will they just have the same name in the same way that John or Mary are common names?”

You guys have seen this one, but it’s worthwhile to post it again to illustrate my point. This is really a matter of identity.

Here, Pennsy is obviously trolling Sanny. Those are (probably) cosplay pictures, but the general point is pretty clear. Even if all those are different “Pennsy’s” (which they aren’t), Pennsy is a Pennsy is Pennsy. Putting on a funny hat doesn’t make Pennsy not a Pennsy, and putting on a swimsuit doesn’t make a Pennsy more Pennsy.

“Where’s Pacific’s next major event?”

Taiwan went well. Probably the Chinese ones next. Zero’ll be coming to the US for AnimeBoston. I’ll probably put up an announcement soon regarding that.

Oh, do you mean in-universe? No comment. 🙂

“What happens when a shipgirl goes on a mission?”

This is sort of an unusual question, but I’m going to guess at what you’re actually asking.

On the mission itself, the shipgirl does whatever the mission objective may be. Generally, on your standard counter-Abyssal run, you’re looking at a very simple thing of eliminating the Abyssal in question.

The shipgirl is generally kept in touch with Avalon through a number of ways. Satellite image, two-way communications, and the like. I mean, the shipgirls themselves aren’t dumb. This isn’t like Pokemon where Mike has to tell them to fire on the enemy or run away or whatnots. He might have to remind a few girls to back off or to fight at optimal range, but that’s a comparatively rarer event.

Though, of course, STEC does watch the shipgirl’s performances. There’s plenty to be learned from each shipgirl’s way of fighting, and plenty of ways to improve after. In addition, a chance to observe the Abyssal fleet in action is always a good one, since the more you know and understand what the enemy’s capable of, the better you are at beating them.