Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

It's finally Friday! One more day of work, and then a whole weekend to relax and do errands, of which I have two. First, most important, I'm going to drive up to Mt Hope Estate and pick up an order of booze. We had finished off all the wine and spirits we'd brought home with us in October, so now we go back and get more. Mostly, I'm getting some wine, but there's a few spirits in there, like Eggnog and some bourbon whiskey.

I'm not really much of a drinker, mostly because I don't like most booze. I'm just as happy with a Shirley Temple as anything alcoholic. But we did the whiskey advent calendar, and that's been fun, and my sister got a wine advent calendar, which is less good. I'm not a fan of dry wines. I like sweet flavors. Which is something that Mt Hope has aplenty. From Niagra to Pink Catawba, they're sweet and go down easy. I'm never going to be a huge drinker, mind you. But I may drink more than previously, now that I've found good stuff. The whiskey advent calendar is miniature bottles, and we split them three ways, so we're having maybe 2/3 of a shot, if that. And the wine, normally I just take a little sip and go "ick," and move on.

The only sad thing is that they didn't have the coconut rum cream in. That was amazing last time. But I got mocha rum cream instead.

Yesterday was a little busy at work, but not horrible. I did a lot of calling out, trying to fill in some slots, and so my total only came to 36. But I got those slots filled. They did not go to waste. I had made some brisket for dinner, which was very good. Kinder's hickory brown sugar rub has a really good flavor.

Tonight, we might have Sam's Club's lobster mac and cheese for dinner. We'll see.

The prime rib came and it's fucking enormous. It's four bones, and about 8lbs. It's a cradled rack, which means that they slice the bones off, get rid of some of the midline fat, and tie them back on. It means that this prime rib is mostly meat, and apparently doesn't change the taste much. I'm figuring the bones weigh about pound of it, so that's still 7lbs of meat. I can't wait to cook it on Thursday.

Saturday, I need to prep it, wrapping it in cheesecloth to take some of the water out, so the sweet fat is not diluted when it's cooked. Then, on Thursday morning, I'm going to take it out and coat it in beef tallow, salt and pepper, and put it in a low oven to roast for a lot of hours. Then it shall rest for a while, while I make my Yorkshire pudding and throw it in the oven right before dinner. I can't wait to try it. I'm using Alton Brown's recipe, and usually his stuff is good.



It certainly looks tasty.

Tonight, we have a one shot game, which should be fun. Other than that, no games at all this weekend. December is a tough month to schedule.

I got the notification that my sister's present shipped today. I still don't think it'll be here in time, but hope springs eternal. It's coming from China, though, so I doubt it. We'll see. They turned out very pretty.

And on that note, time for me to get ready for work. One more early day to go, and then next week it's semi normal schedule, though we're closing at 2pm on Christmas Eve and then we're closed on Christmas, so y'know, yay, three and a half day week! Everyone have an awesome Friday!!