Sunday, 2011 August 28
The past few days have been a lot of fun. Chris, one of my closest friends came into town for his brother Mike's birthday. Mike lives conveniently close by so I got to spend a fair amount of time hanging out with both of them.
Friday night we met up about four o'clock to head to a Mariners game. We had to get warmed up for the game, however, so we swung by The Hawk's Nest for a light supper and some beer. None of us had ever been there before and the only reason we went was because Mike had a Groupon for it. Honestly, I don't think any of us feel like we need to go back. The food was okay but overpriced and the sandwich portions were small (my Philly cheesesteak was tiny). There are a lot of better options around the stadium.
Suitably fortified we made our way to the stadium. And went directly to the dugout bar in left field. We kept this pace up the rest of the night, finally making it home via a cab at some indeterminate time early Saturday morning. Everyone crashed at my place.
We reconvened about eight hours later. It was obvious everyone was hurting; it had been a fun night and we were paying the price for it. Chris and Mike headed back to Mike's place to clean up, my wife headed to a baby shower, and I managed to get started on my next big project: ribs. A week earlier I had (somewhat foolishly, in hindsight) promised to make Chris and Mike a big batch of ribs and I wasn't going to let a nasty hangover get in my way.
I bought Dr. BBQ's Big-Time Barbecue Cookbook a number of years ago and it has never let me down - I highly recommend this book. I had picked up six full racks of baby-back ribs from Bob's Quality Meats, the local butcher shop. Much like Dr. BBQ, Bob's has never disappointed me either and these ribs were huge, meaty, and generally gorgeous.
By about 2:15 I had pulled myself together enough that I started getting the ribs ready. The process of preparing the ribs, the sauce, and the glaze was actually somewhat cathartic for me. By about 5:00 I was feeling hungry, and when the ribs (and all of the other food we had made) were done at 6:30 I had my appetite back. My wife got home about 5:00, Chris and Mike showed up about 6:00, and we sat down to a great supper. I was exhausted by the time we finished cleaning up, but it was worth it (knowing I had a lazy Sunday coming up the next day helped too). It was a great weekend.
Friday, 2011 September 02