Home Cooking For Losers: Alice Greenfingers And Cooking Mama

With so many Bay Area food blogs focused on actually growing your own produce and cooking your own food -- rather than just dining out -- we were starting to get a case of home cook envy. Our kitchen is about the size of a matchbook and watering the houseplant is as close to gardening as we get. But this is the digital age, and there are ways around reality. No, not drugs -- video games!

Armed with only a PC (sorry Macs) and a copy of Alice Greenfingers (download the free trial version here) you too can become a crop-sowing, barnyard-raising farmer, without all the messy blight, drought and financial hardship.

When you're done reaping the harvest or whatever, just pop over to your Nintendo DS for a little session with Cooking Mama, where you can chop, fry, mix and plate delicious virtual food to your heart's content.

Then you can finish that bag of Doritos and try not to cry over the broken shards of your depressing life. Loser.

-- Brian Bernbaum