December 31st, 2024 - Mulled apple juice and end of year musings.

May the new year bring peace and prosperity, I'm so lucky to have you all in my life.


Today is the day for end of year musings. Though usually this is a cooking blog, it's also the best place I have to write long-form blog posts. I'll add a recipe for mulled apple juice as an apology.

Mulled apple juice uses the usual spices used for mulled wine, just alcohol free. You'll need:

  • Apple juice - 1 liter
  • Cinnamon - 1 stick
  • Cloves - 3
  • Star anise - 2
  • Sugar - 50 grams

Heat the apple juice in a saucepan to just under boiling. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Add the spices, let steep for 5-10 minutes before serving. If you want to keep this around for longer, remove the spices after about 15 minutes or it'll get bitter.

You can add other spices just as easily. The classic warm spices - ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, cloves, mace and (star) anise - are all great, but I'd suggest using mostly whole spices rather than powdered. You can also add lemon rind or orange rind. Cardamom is probably a bit too subtle for this drink.

2024 in review

Jack of Dice

For my company, it has been a good year. We've pulled through, a little leaner, but with a better selection of products than before, once again focusing mostly on dice.

In March and April, we said goodbye to Simone and Mandy, reducing our labour costs. Though there was some doubt if we would be able to get everything done with just the two of us, thanks to Shopify's automations we were able to make it work.

Things could be better. I don't have as much downtime as I'd like, and I'm behind on admin, but the store is once more turning a profit.

We had a great Castlefest, earning about as much as the previous years even though we had far less stock, by focusing on the items we knew would sell well. FACTS was not as good, but the Dutch Comic Con once again did well for us.

Chessex Europe closed their doors last month, that was an unwelcome surprise. I've been used to being able to order Chessex from a dedicated European distribution point since before Jack became official. I've placed orders for Chessex dice with two other suppliers in the mean time, so we'll see which of them come through.

Personal

The highlight of this year was a three-week trip to Indonesia - my first time back in 28 years - with two of my brothers and my youngest brother's family.

I'm an outlier as an Indo. Where most either have stories from their grandparents or parents, or lived nostalgia for the Tempo Doeloe, my memories are from the '80s and '90s, living in a sprawling metropolis of over 2 million people.

Well, Medan has changed and stayed the same. The Sudakos (small buses running on set routes but without a schedule) are slightly bigger and no longer yellow. Everyone has mobile phones, and you can buy minutes at pretty much any roadside seller. There are fewer roaming vendors selling snacks, more convenience stores, almost all becaks are now motorized.

Oh, and every single bus and truck is solar powered.
(This is a joke. Solar is the Indonesian word for diesel).

The food remains amazing. I have completely filled up my cloud storage with pictures, at least half of which are of food. We caught the tail end of Durian season, and we went to gorge ourselves twice. Our family's favorite restaurant, Jl. Selat Panjang no. 8, is still run by the same family, the next generation.


At my old job at Speldorado, the boss has decided to jettison the toy half of the store, keeping only the boardgames and puzzles. Considering the low profit margins and high rent, as well as the hassle of trying to stay competitive with the big chains, I think this is the best decision. The boardgame half of the space is his family's property, so costs will be much lower from now on.

The dice hoard collection sits at about 7000 dice. It's likely more, as I have at least two caches which haven't been recorded in my spreadsheet yet.

The future

Jack is having packaging made, to reduce the amount of plastic we use, which will help distinguish ourselves more. Hopefully Jack will grow again, and we can hire someone to help with the administrative duties.

Rumours are going round the neighborhood that our row of houses will be demolished for new development in 2026. The housing corporation is being cagey and dancing around the subject.

The developer for the Staalweg, where Jack is housed, has been almost completely silent over the last year, except for one 'we still exist' email to those interested in the development.

I've started DM-ing a Curse of Strahd campaign with my weekly D&D group. The group made it through the starter adventure, and I have many ideas for how to run the module.

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