Tag: food

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What a Breach

I woke up fairly early this morning and laid in bed until Summer got up to make biscuits for breakfast. I finally finished up the gravy I had saved from a couple weeks ago, which was only a little bit questionable. Afterward, Eaddie came out for help with some math homework. I didn’t remember doing matrices as a kid, but it seemed to make sense to me now. I finally got the achievement in Into the Breach that I’d been working on for a couple weeks, and eventually Summer got ready to take me home and go to the gym.

I spent a little time outside cleaning up inside the Montego, and then poked around in the garage to get Eaddie’s bike out. I don’t know why the tires seem like they don’t hold air for very long, but I got them aired up as well. I eventually wound up in a bath, and Summer brought Eaddie over to bike. I felt much better afterward, and then we loaded up the bike rack and headed to my parents’ house for chow mein.

Eaddie met us there on her bike and ate, and then wanted to ride across the neighborhood to try and find a friend’s house. When she got back, we loaded the bike up and came back to my house to unload. Then they went home while I did a couple loads of laundry.

Summer called a little later and said that Autumn hadn’t invited her to senior night, and in fact wanted to have her grandparents walk her onto the field. It didn’t mean anything to me, because the majority of the students don’t have a senior night in the first place, and because Autumn hasn’t really done anything in particular for us to be proud of her anyway. She’s done everything she can to make our family life hell. I understand why it upset Summer, especially since Autumn wouldn’t even have a senior night herself if Summer hadn’t refused to let her drop out of band. The whole thing is a power-play, and honestly I’d rather avoid homecoming week anyway.

Move along.

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Taco Bout It

I’ve ridden a bike to work all week because the weather has been so nice. It may be jacket weather in the mornings next week though. This morning’s meeting was our first that required an agenda from Zach and Gary. Zach took the lead, which he took awkwardly. It was pretty easy to tell that he was given direction without purpose. After the meeting, everyone else went through the shop and cleaned all the flat surfaces.

I didn’t have a whole lot going on, but I decided to go through and clean out my stale tickets after that was mentioned during the meeting. Then I wrapped up a couple other things I had been working on, and I was basically done with projects for the day.

When lunch time came around, Zach wanted CJ’s. I rode my bike behind them, but got lost in traffic. By the time I got to CJ’s, they had already left for Cracker Barrel because there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. I left the line and went after them, but got another message that Cracker Barrel had a 30 minute wait, so they had gone ahead to Brangus. I opted out at that point and went back to the shop to eat my leftover Slim Chickens. Evidently Brangus didn’t work out for them either though, because the line was out the door. They ended up at La Chiquita, which wasn’t busy because as I’ve said before, it’s not particularly good.

The afternoon was super quiet, and I had trouble killing the rest of the day. Autumn had been at Dwight all day for her educators class, but called to say she could take Eaddie home. I asked her to drop her off at her hair appointment so I could go scrap the metal I had been hanging onto for so long. I ran home at quitting time and made it to Cunningham just in time. I was disappointed that I only got $15 for the lot of it, so I probably won’t be saving cans any longer. It’s just not worth the storage space.

Lelan finished Eaddie’s hair before I even got halfway across town to pick her up. I was surprised that it was still so long, but Eaddie said she really liked it. She sent us home with some tea tree shampoo because she still picked out some nits after all this time. I figure Eaddie has just accepted a symbiotic relationship at this point, because she doesn’t complain about itching, and nobody has really purged the house.

We went home for a bit, but Eaddie immediately started talking about ice cream. Autumn was in her room, but eventually came out to mow. As she finished, Eaddie and I decided to go to Bocadillos for tacos and ice cream. On the way, Eaddie saw Noah at work, so we stopped by PDQ to see him for a bit on the way back. While we were there, I saw the guy I passed the other day on an R1 that looked just like mine.

Summer finally made it home, so we headed on home ourselves. We tried stopping at Tropical Smoothie to get her some food, but they had shut everything down. We ended up at Wendy’s instead, for a reliably good burger. Summer was up surprisingly late watching TV, but we only saw Autumn out of her room once, and Eaddie disappeared as soon as we got home. I was pretty tired myself, so I went to bed relatively early.

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Egads!

We got up a little early this morning so I could start smoking some ribs. They thawed out completely overnight, so we just had to get them to my house, prepped, and on the smoker. We stopped at Walmart first, so I could get some charcoal. I decided to try some Jealous Devil lump charcoal instead of the Kingsford briquettes that I’ve used my whole life. The smoker specifically called for lumps, and that was what a quick Google search for the “best lump charcoal” spat back at me.

It hardly took any time at all to get the grill going and up to temperature. Summer helped me get the dry rub on the ribs, and we got them onto the smoker at 225º for three hours. She left for the gym while I stayed behind to watch the smoker and eventually get a shower. She came back when the first step was done, and we wrapped the ribs up in some foil with some barbecue sauce and apple cider vinegar. I had watched so many tutorials while I was waiting, that I forgot I didn’t need the sauce until the third cook phase, but it didn’t really matter much.

I was really hungry at that point, so we went to Taco Bell to share a meal before going to Walmart to pick up what Summer needed for potato salad and broccoli salad. She kept getting interrupted by calls and texts from work, which frustrated me since she was originally the one hurrying me through the store. We finally got everything and headed up to her house to start cooking.

Autumn had gone to her grandparents’ house for some reason, though she didn’t actually help with any housework like she was supposed to. Eaddie wanted to go to her friend’s house to work on a school project, so I dropped her off before going back to Summer’s to make some hummingbird food. When the two-hour cook phase was over, I headed back to my house to unwrap the ribs and throw them directly on the racks again.

They were still super soft, and the bones wanted to rip right out of the meat. I was worried that they were too tender, but after an hour they firmed up a little bit. I did make a bit of a mess, and some grease got down into a crack that I can’t really clean. I’ll have to see if I can take that one part off to clean it out. When the ribs were done, I wrapped them back up in some foil and loaded them into a big styrofoam cooler, and went back up the mountain to get the girls.

Autumn arrived at my parents’ house just as we did, and we sliced up the first rack of ribs. They turned out pretty good, but I know I can do better. I think they were still just a little bit too tender, and I’d really like to try a coarse pepper base. I could really use a better place to trim them up as well. Dad made peach cobbler for dessert, and everyone got plenty to eat. Then we watched The Music Man, which I had never seen before. Eaddie had been wanting to watch it for a while, but evidently it was a regular for them growing up. Autumn had to be forced to stay and finish the movie, but slept through most of it.

Autumn went back to spend the night with her grandparents, and it was quick to bed for the rest of us when we got back to the house. I’ve got a good amount of cleaning to do tomorrow, so I won’t be able to stick around for long.

Camelot Cousin’s BBQ, Est. 2022

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On a Roll

I woke up early and hacked up a bunch of crud, then went back to sleep pretty hard. I heard Summer get around, so I eventually got out of bed and had some leftover biscuits and gravy. Then I went home to work on the garage. It got really hot really early because of the humidity, so I ended up taking really frequent breaks inside, but I felt good about the progress I made. There’s still a lot to do, and a lot of stuff that needs a new home, but today proved just how poorly and inefficiently things were packed into the place.

Summer came over after her workout and helped poke around a bit, but then went home while I finished up. I took one last break and watched an episode of She Hulk, and finally took a shower. Autumn dropped Summer and Eaddie off at the park to play tennis while she went to see her grandparents for a bit. Once I was done, I picked then up to go to my parents’ house for spring rolls for dinner.

Julie was already there to help prep everything, and was sharing stories about her most recent adventure. They set up another table for us in the living room, expecting more than could fit around the dinner table. Autumn didn’t show up until the very end, but the rest of us took turns going to the dining room to make rolls that we carried to the living room to eat.

Autumn showed up to say, “hello,” and then took the others home with her. I helped clean up a little bit and then headed to the house behind them. Summer had been struggling with a headache and half of her face tingling intermittently throughout the weekend, so I finally convinced her to call the doctor in the morning. I doped up myself since my cough was getting a bit worse again, and was going to go to bed early until Eaddie came out and sat down next to me to do some last-minute science homework. I helped her with a few questions, and then it was off to sleep.

You’re welcome.

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Now That’s Chocolate Gravy!

The middle school sent us sausage, biscuits, and gravy this morning. It was a good thing that only like half of us were there though, because there wouldn’t have been enough for everyone to eat as much as some of the guys did. Since there were so few of us, Zach made the comment that he would just eat the leftovers for lunch to save some money.

We had a really long meeting, and nobody was in the mood to get up to a whole lot today. Evidently one of the seniors committed suicide last night, but I only really heard anything about it third-hand. I got around to the Transportation office to check out a phone, but mostly stuck around the office. Everyone ended up coming back to the shop to eat leftovers for lunch, but there weren’t enough biscuits or sausage to go around. I finished up the sausage with some gravy and a couple chocolate donuts. It warmed up surprisingly nicely, since the donuts basically acted like fried biscuits. The chocolate just added a little bit of sweetness to the spicy sausage and gravy. Greg was working on a MacBook while everyone else ate though, and ended up having to pick up something for lunch.

I went to Oakland for a bit of the afternoon, and rerouted some cable for a phone line. Fortunately Paul was around to drill some holes for me, so all I have to do is go back on Monday to re-terminate the cable and plug it back into the phone. Then I finished up the afternoon at the shop, hoping in vein to be released a little early.

I went home for a little bit and messed with the rotisserie set I got for my new grill. It was definitely missing the specific parts that I needed, though it had the roasting spits for both the larger and smaller versions of the grill. I sent a message to Masterbuilt, so we’ll see what they say. Summer said she was bringing me something special for dinner, so I eventually headed up to her house as she got back into town. On the way, there was a pretty big wreck on the north side of the bridge, so there were a ton of cops there to direct traffic. The westbound offramp was backed up onto the interstate, but luckily Summer was able to make it through town to get home.

She brought me some Long John Silver’s that ended up being pretty poor in quality, though it still brought back the oily flavor that made me nostalgic. She got some Popeye’s for herself, but they accidentally made the order twice and let her have both. After we ate, she really wanted to watch Something’s Gotta Give. It seemed like a love story for old people, so I wasn’t super entertained by it. Then she went to bed and I waited up for the kids to get back from a travel football game super late.

Experience America!

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Breadcrumbs

I took the Grom in today to complete the set. It wasn’t quite as chilly first thing this morning, but it was still nice all day long. It’s too bad I don’t feel like I’m getting to enjoy the weather at all. I went to Oakland first so I could complete a couple things. Then I went on in to the shop where I spent most of the day digging through scripts and following the flow of information to find where things were breaking.

It really was super uneventful aside from leaving the office to install some software for some folks at Support Services. When I got back to the shop, Thomas took Zach, Gary, and me to Morelos for lunch. It was really good, and I’m still confused as to why Greg hates that place so much. We used to go all the time.

The afternoon dragged on forever, and was just more of the same. When I left, I went home to change and then stopped by Walmart to pick up some “fresh” parmesan for Summer’s meal. She was home making some bowtie pasta with chicken, cheese, and spinach. It was awesome, and everyone but Autumn really loved it. If only we could have nuggetized it somehow.

Eaddie was really talkative for most of the night, but after dinner everyone was pretty quick to go to their rooms. I tried not to stay up too late since my cough has been wearing me out at night.

Loads better than cooking it in a cheese wheel.

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Home Cooked

It’s getting colder now, and it’s fully dark when I wake up. My CPAP humidifier has been gurgling overnight, and it doesn’t help me sleep any better while I’m sick. I still managed to make it out the door a couple minutes early today, and got a bit of a chill on the way in on the Shadow. My whole day carried on relatively busily between various phone calls and urgent cries for help.

I met Summer at Superfast for lunch, and we ate the bánh mì that Mom made us yesterday. She was dressed up to work in the office there, so we just hung out in the office while we ate. Then I went back to work and had to beckon Josh to come to the office to eat the apple pie that Tammy made for his birthday.

The afternoon was oddly both busy and quiet. There wasn’t much activity in person, but I got several calls from Brody the rest of the day. I figured that Eaddie and I would go to my parents’ house for eggplant soup, but she wouldn’t respond to my text. She finally called when I got home and said she forgot about her private lesson, but by then she was done. Autumn dropped her off at my house and then carried on toward home. Summer didn’t want to go, so it was just the two of us.

Eaddie was thinking she didn’t like the eggplant soup or the tofu so much, but once we got there, she remembered that she actually loved all of it, and she kept going on about how much she liked soups. Dad was fasting, and Mom got home from work a bit late and didn’t eat until after we were done and gone.

On the way to the house, I took Eaddie through Sonic for a churro shake, and it was pretty awesome. It took them about five minutes to fry the churro, and they brought food out to two cars behind us while we waited. Back at the house, Summer was finishing up some work stuff, and then it was a pretty quick night to bed for everyone. I think it just felt a lot later than it really was, but I was exhausted from all the coughing anyway.

Whoop, whoop….

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Pre-Season

I tried not to sleep in too late today, and got up to some leftovers while Summer made herself breakfast. She still had a bunch of cleaning she wanted to do around the house, so I eventually went home to do some work myself. I originally planned to start my new Gravity grill so I could season it while I started to clean out the garage, but ended up fighting to get the thing connected to Wi-Fi for over an hour. I ended up searching for anyone else that had similar trouble, and found a Reddit thread where someone had to contact support to learn that the SSID and password combined had to be fewer than 15 characters for it to work. Otherwise, it would stall out exactly like I was experiencing for an hour and a half.

I spun up a guest SSID with a shorter password and got the grill connected just before I finished the heating process. Then I thought I shut everything down before going to my parents’ house to get a bánh mì. Mom was asleep while Dad was in Fort Smith, but she got up and made sandwiches for me, another couple to take for Summer and myself, and finally one for herself as I was leaving.

When I got back home, I could hear the fan in my grill going full-blast, because apparently I didn’t press the power button for long enough. It was trying to get the temperature up to 400º, even though I had blocked off the air and heat intakes. I oiled up all the parts I could get to and switched the grill grates out for the griddle top, but didn’t get it started again because I had to meet Summer at Walmart.

We wandered around inefficiently, picking up stuff for Justin’s baby shower, then some brats for dinner. We ended with an annoying lap through clearance as other people kept crowding in around us. The girls were already home, so I started up the grill as soon as we got there.

Dinner was quick and simple. Eaddie had finished up mowing her part of the lawn and had me help her with some science homework. Autumn spent all night in her room. Summer went to bed pretty early, and I wound down as quickly as I could.

Bringing the inconvenience and frustration of the modern world to the centuries-old tradition of smoking food over an open fire!

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Let’s Go to the Mall

We got up this morning and went down for breakfast. It was small, but adequate. Eaddie and I came back upstairs to clean up while Summer and Autumn hung out downstairs for a while. When everyone was finally ready to leave, we went to All Star Sports Complex for some mini golf. It got pretty hot in the sun, so after that, I took the girls to Iguana Island Treats for some pineapple whip and snow cones.

From there, we went back toward the hotel and stopped at the Woodland Hills Mall. I was absolutely astounded at how many people were there. It was just like Summer and I remembered from our youth. I don’t think we saw a single empty store, and there were people shopping absolutely everywhere. I was surprised at how much fun Autumn and Eaddie actually had. I figured they would be over it pretty quickly.

By the time we left, the girls started to get a little hungry. We went to the room to clean up a bit, and then went to HuHot Mongolian Grill. It was just like Genghis Grill, which we’ve visited in Little Rock, except that it was all-you-can-eat. The guys running around the circular grill were tearing it up, and the food was great.

After stuffing ourselves, I took us to the Super Target just to see what it was like. We picked up a few things and headed back to the hotel. Eaddie talked Summer into picking up some ice cream, but instead of a small box, they got a box of eight KitKat brand cones. Eaddie ended up eating three and I ate two to try and avoid melting, because our refrigerator didn’t actually have a freezer section.

I doped up on some meds because my sinuses were getting the best of me, and then it was off to bed relatively early.

BANG THAT GONG!

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Tulsa Major

I woke up an extra hour earlier than work today, and headed up to get the girls. We left town just after seven, and stopped at Hardee’s in Clarksville for a quick breakfast before powering right through to Bixby. As time ticked by, I became more and more frustrated by people driving well under the speed limit. To escalate things further, Waze landed us in the wrong place, and we had to switch to Google Maps to arrive at the 181 Ranch.

The girls started their Conquer the Gauntlet race while I went back to the car. I only lasted inside for a couple of minutes before I sweated out, so I popped the hatch and broke out my camp chair. I was so glad I brought it, because I would have had to leave and come back otherwise. The sun was just too much for me. I played Into the Breach until they finished nearly two hours later, and then we packed everything up to head to lunch.

Summer picked a place right in the heart of Tulsa, and I probably should have vetted it first. I guess it was my fault for providing the list of places in the first place, but I found the list on a popular comment on Reddit, and didn’t really have the time or interest to look into them myself. We ended up at a place downtown called Prossimo Ristorante that wanted to know if we had a reservation. To say that we were underdressed would be an understatement. We were seated under chandeliers by the bar, surrounded by people day-drinking champagne. They weren’t even busy, which made the fact that they asked for a reservation even sillier. I could tell immediately that we were about to go on a very expensive date for four. The chef was kind enough to come out and prepare their fresh alfredo for us, but to add protein and a tip, we hit around $175. I was glad the girls enjoyed it, but I surprisingly hated the pasta. I found it to be too salty and too hard.

After we ate, we headed back out of town to find the hotel. On the way, the Murano popped a service light and I stopped at an O’Reilly’s to quickly have them check the code. It said something about an evap system leak, which Summer assured wasn’t likely to be anything serious. We made it to our hotel with additional navigation frustration, because even Google Maps wanted us to take stupid directions. I didn’t understand it at all.

We got checked into our suite, but I wouldn’t call it that myself. The room was the size of a regular hotel room with a king bed and a sleeper sofa. If I had realized it wouldn’t be a real suite with multiple rooms, I would never have paid extra, and I would have gotten a real bed for the girls to sleep on. With everything sprawled out, we barely had room for everything, and clothes and towels ended up absolutely everywhere. We relaxed for a little bit before making the girls come out to the pool with us. I figured the water would be swimmable, but it was super cold. Summer, Eaddie, and I got in, but not for long.

The girls showered when we got back to the room, and then we went out for our night on the town. I stopped at Krispy Kreme first, and was excited that their light was on. Unfortunately that was a lie. Their conveyor appeared to be broken, with some pretty gross-looking donuts sitting on the non-moving belt. We got a dozen assorted donuts out of the case, ate, and then headed on to the Cinemark.

I had never seen Jaws before, so it was cool to get to watch it in the IMAX. The theater was super busy, likely because of the $3 movie tickets for “National Cinema Day.” We waited in line forever to get some popcorn, but we had plenty of time before the previews even started. I thought the movie held up really well. I definitely enjoyed it more than Top Gun. I was sad that they ran out of posters before I could get one at the end of the movie.

On the way back to the hotel, we ran to Walmart up the road for some supplies, and then rounded everyone up for bed. It didn’t take any time at all for the girls to fall asleep. I thought I’d get to bed sooner, but it just didn’t happen. Hopefully we come up with some fun stuff to do tomorrow.

Wing it.