It's almost May, and boy is it – the weather's getting so nice that I get annoyed when I go outside without a jacket and it's cold. When I first moved here from New York City I could be outside in shirtsleeves no problem – 60 degrees was a warm spring day. Now I'm thoroughly a Californian.

I'm Nat Bennett, and you're reading Mere Being, a monthly-ish later about merely being.

This month has been: Dinner parties, grinding away on software development, and doing my best not to freak out.

I finally started doing something I've been thinking about ages, which is hosting a small dinner party on a regular schedule – currently it's every 2 weeks. I'm trying to get more routine in my social life – reduce the activation energy.

It took forever for me to get started with this project because I couldn't make a bunch of decisions. Should I do it on Sunday or on Friday? How many people? Should I use Partiful or an e-mail list or text messages every time or...?

Finally I read The Best Meal Prep Is a Sunday Dinner Party and everything kind of fell into place.

One of these Sundays fell on Easter so I made Greek Easter Bread. It requires a couple of unusual ingredients to achieve its slightly piney flavor – you live in San Francisco you can get Mahlab and Mastic from Samiramis Imports. (They also have green plums right now, in great quantity.)

I've also been giving the Bean Book a workout – like this recipe for gigantes plaki.

One last recipe. If you ever need something to bring to a Passover seder I highly recommend bringing Persian charoset. A Persian friend says he's been bringing it for years and it's always a hit and I can confirm – people will refer to this stuff as "the good charoset."

A lot of recipes like the New York Times one above call for fresh apples and bananas but I prefer this Serious Eats recipe (which is maybe a little bit more Sephardic than Persian?) that's just dried fruit and nuts. We also use a mix of cherry and pomegranate concentrate instead of wine – it brings a similar sugar/tannin/acid profile.

Video games–

We got into the Marathon Alpha and we are excited. If you're not already familiar the pitch is "a first person shooter where you go into a dungeon abandoned colony to get equipment and treasure, but if you die while you're in the dungeon abandoned colony then you lose all your equipment, including stuff you brought with you." There are environmental enemies and opposing player teams – other players are the most dangerous threat in the game but also could have the best loot.

A lot of the public conversation about this game has revolved around the fact that this genre is called an "extraction shooter" and that it is "hardcore." Dying and losing all your stuff is "too hardcore" for "casual players," which supposedly will limit the game's appeal.

This is obviously ridiculous if you've ever played actual mass-appeal games. Dying in Marathon is less punishing than dying in Minecraft. Sure, not on all settings, but an "extraction shooter" is essentially a "rogue-like FPS" and "casual players" adore roguelikes. "Short runs and you lose all your gear when you die" describes Balatro, which has sold 5 million copies.

The kids these days love dying in holes!

Anyway– that's all I've got for the day.

Oh, though, one last thing– if you're in the Bay Area and want to be invited to a Sunday Dinner, send me an e-mail and I'll put you on the list.

See you next month--

Nat