Gaming works up a mean appetite. This is especially true when you’re world-hopping and gripping your controller tight with grueling boss battles. We here at Mega Cat know all too well how easy it is to forget to fuel up when traveling and working.

 

 

Some of us have wholesome, nutritionally dense, often Vegan diets. Others are unevolved meat-eating cavemen. Some of the cats at the office subsist on Pop-tarts.

 

 

Good food helps us perform and feel better. It’s not just good diets that create good games. We also take time to enjoy simple pleasures like a great drink or sumptuous dessert. We work hard, we play hard, and it's important to reward yourself from time to time.

 

 

Once again, our food influencer pals have come to the rescue with a variety of different dishes and treats to tantalize the palette! Whether you are a kitchen ninja or a master of take out, these recipes are sure to be a hit with cooks of all skill levels.

 

 

 

The Succulent Bite

Nico Norena is the founder of The Succulent Bite. Born in Chicago in 1993, raised in Madrid and with a Colombian family, Nico grew up traveling the world and exploring various food cultures. What started as a passion for food and photos, soon progressed to a social media marketing company that works to take the most succulent bites from Miami and travel directly to you!

When you look through his feed, you can expect nothing less than indulgent and mouthwatering content, from the most mesmerizing cheese pull, to a spoon diving into a freshly baked souffle. Awarded Best Food Instagram 2019 by the New Times, he tags every place he visits, so everyone can go get themselves a piece of deliciousness.

Favorite Gaming Memory: “ I remember as a young boy playing Pokemon in my GameBoy color. I had the red version and my cousin had the blue. We used to stay hours playing and advancing levels together, trading Pokemon and sharing endless memories.”

 

Nico’s Walnut Chocolate Fudge Brownies
& Ice Cream

 

Nico Norena: “Why cook?: Sharing a meal or a dessert with someone means spending time (even if just a few minutes) and enjoying the delicacy together. Each of these moments will have a story, create the best ones!”

 

 

Appeasing a Food Geek

Kelsey Tenney is a food scientist and product developer that loves to dabble in making home cooking more approachable. Always a food nerd, she uses the science behind cooking, baking, and ingredient interactions to create recipes that are understandable for any level of home cook. She also loves to drop general geeky food facts in the mix too, because why not? She lives in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco, and you can usually find her reading a cookbook, baking, or testing out a new twist on the dirty gin martini.

Favorite Gaming Memory: I remember playing Fatty Bear's birthday surprise on my family's old-school PC when I was a kid. I loved it because the big priority of the game was to find ingredients to bake a surprise cake for Fatty Bear's owner (he's a stuffed animal), Kayla. I must have played that game dozens of times every month.

 

Kelsey’s Sweet Potato Broccolini Sheet Pan Hash

 

Kelsey Tenney: “Cooking is great fun. It can be experimental, meditative, routine, or simply a way to cure a craving. It is often viewed as something that's intimidating, but once you conquer a couple meals, it's very freeing. This recipe is a great way to start if you're new to cooking or a great add to the repertoire if you're a kitchen veteran.

You can make this recipe work with whatever is in your pantry. It’s extremely versatile for veggies and seasonality. I used broccolini here, but cauliflower, brussels sprouts, kale, and squash would all work wonderfully! Also reducing the potatoes and adding more veggies makes it more nutritious. Plus, it all gets roasted on one sheet pan, so clean up couldn’t be easier. Bonus: springtime herb sauces would be amazing here as well. Enjoy!”

 

 

ChatChow

Giovanny Gutierrez is a technology evangelist, thought leader and serial entrepreneur. Giovanny is Founder of Chat Chow TV, a mouth-watering video podcast where he goes behind the scenes with the chefs, owners and mixologists of Florida's celebrated food industry and is currently operating as Director of Interactive Media at Tinsley Advertising in Miami, FL. Previously Giovanny was founder of Ionic Studios, making viral videos like my Wii Fit Girlfriend and teaching web design/programming at Miami Dade College.

Favorite Gaming Memory: “Playing a Ms. Pac Man cocktail for the first time. I was instantly hooked!”

 

Giovanny’s Havana Especial

 

Giovanny Gutierrez: “Opened in 1912, hordes of tourists arrived from New York aboard the "Havana Special' first-class train service, which would take them in 42 hours aboard train and steamships from Key West to Cuba. Havana Especial ran until 1960 when it ceased operations.”

 

 

MyVirtualVacations

Alyson Nachman started MyVirtualVacations.net over 5 years ago out of a passion for family, travel, and food! Cruise over and you’ll find helpful reviews and photos of cruises, resorts, and destinations…plus all the food that comes with them. She is obsessed with the culinary aspects of vacationing (and so are we). Taking pictures of what’s around her, on her plate, and even the menus: you’ll find it all on her website, as well as on her social media posts. She can talk cruising and food all day long! Maybe she’ll take us with her next time!

Favorite Gaming Memory: “ Lots of gaming memories here! Both of my boys were immediately obsessed with gaming from the day they were born so MANY happy occasions and milestones have been celebrated with gaming gifts throughout the years.”

 

Alyson’s Bermuda Beef

Alyson Nachman: “One benefit of travel is to discover other cultures. I love to recreate dishes that I’ve had when visiting other regions. It virtually brings me back to vacation mode! An easy and favorite recipe is one that I created after visiting Bermuda and sampled their amazingly delicious skewered beef at Harbor Nights, one of their popular summer festivals”

 

 

Buddy The Traveling Monkey

Vicky Sosa is a Florida-based blogger traveling around the world with her stuffed monkey Buddy. From a very young age she dreamed of traveling the world and got her first real chance after joining the Army. Since then, she’s had many different jobs and lived in many different cities.Two years ago, tired of the 9-5, she sold all of her stuff and started traveling and writing full-time.

She started her website Buddy The Traveling Monkey to provide others with useful travel tips, inspiration, and destination guides. Although she writes about her travels all over the world, she loves to focus on Florida and show how much more there is to the state than the typical tourist attractions.With her blog she hopes to inspire people to get out there and see the world, whether it’s a weekend trip or traveling for a year.

Favorite Gaming Memory: “A favorite gaming memory of mine was following along as a guy I was dating at the time played "The Last Of Us." I've never been good at actually playing video games (I'm horrible with controllers) but I've been a pretty good helper. As in, I watch and point out things the gamer might miss, help with mini games, etc. "The Last Of Us" had an incredible story though and I was hooked from the beginning, more so than any other video game. I remember being so emotionally invested that I cried at a few key storyline parts. It got so bad that I wouldn't let my boyfriend play the game unless I was there because I didn't want to miss any of the story!”

 

Vicky and Buddy’s Italian Meatloaf

 

Vicky Sosa: “I love this Italian Meatloaf recipe because it's different from your traditional meatloaf and is very easy to make.”

 

 

Meals Maven

As Owner of The Meals Maven, Stacy does more than create delicious recipes. With an eye on simplicity and common sense, she’s dedicated to protecting the place of real food in our everyday lives through an established system of meal planning.

Favorite Gaming Memory: “I wouldn't call myself a gamer but I've had my hands on games a couple of times in my life. When we were kids, my brother and I had to share this electronic handheld pinball game. I loved it and was way better at it than him. My husband tracked one down for me on ebay for my birthday one year, which was really sweet. It's in pretty rough shape but I'm still good at- even better than my kids. I live in a family of gamers, but I prefer cooking. It's kind of like a game...

The other, slightly-more-recent gaming attempt was a hospital sim game. At first I thought I could do it, but when patients started relieving themselves in the hallways and garbage started piling up, I quickly realized there was no way to recover and I had to concede.”

 

Stacy’s Sweet Potato Chana Masala

 

Stacy Westman: ” Nutritious and healthy food is food that is colourful. It’s food that I want to eat. It’s a meal that I want to sit down and savour and enjoy every bite, and it’s food that challenges my taste buds and delights my eyes and tickles my nose. Nutritious and healthy food is food that supports my body- in its entirety- it makes me feel energetic and strong.”