The Queue: holiday baking

If you want to know just how grim it is out there, my grocery store is out of both powdered and brown sugar. Completely out, no more.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions and we’ll provide the answers — and a cookie! — just as soon as we try two other stores. Do you think Walgreens has powdered sugar?

At of the start of Cycle 3, with Hells Bells, I decided I am only allowed to watch Critical Role while I’m riding the indoor stationary bike. I started when the season went live, and am currently on episode 3. So. That’s going well.

I shifted over to doing the upbeat musical theater songs that require a lot of dancing and breath support, like the majority of Six or big numbers like Blow, Gabriel, Blow from Anything Goes, but since my husband works from home that can be a little tough, too.

I’ve actually been trying to find songs that have a good cadence for outdoor running that also get me pumped. So far the playlist includes Dragonborn, Just Dance, Temperature, and Conga, so just a little bit of thematic whiplash.

There are a few very specific instruments that lie inside a slice where composers love them and use them constantly in nearly every composition, and yet those instruments are incredibly difficult to play and hard to come by. Violin, guitarists, drummers, trumpet players are all a dime a dozen. But oboe players, bassoonists, double bassists? You will always be able to get some kind of side hustle gig doing that, even if you’re barely mediocre. It’s memorable and fun, as well as useful. So, bassoon, probably.

I was going to pick cello but then I remembered I’d have to cut my nails, so nah.

So, fun story. Back when WoW was first a thing, my husband and I joined the same guild. He found the guild because he’d partied up with a particular priest in Westfall during the closed beta before vanilla launched, and that priest was in this larger guild for some online gaming beforehand, and they were branching out into WoW. The guild itself was a little odd, kind of a personal fiefdom of one particular guy. That guy got married and invited a bunch of people from the guild, including us, which was a fun time. We’d been playing with these guys for a year or so at that point, and it was a relatively local shindig for us anyway, so it was fun to meet up. One of the people we hung out with most was Blamkins the mage, which I contend is the best naming combo ever.

So, predictably, shortly thereafter that original guild imploded, and so we hitched a ride with Blamkins to this smaller guild made up of mostly his local IRL friends, plus a few other people. We’ve hung out with that group ever since, through job changes and life changes, and it’s been a great experience overall. They all live pretty distant, but we’ve hung out with an assortment here and there, mostly chill pizza affairs.

But, to bring the story full circle, one of those guys posted to his food blog what is now the family favorite Christmas Cookie recipe. Every year, they clamor for Brian Cookies for Christmas, and they swear it is the best holiday cookie recipe they’ve ever had. So, through the power of WoW and friendship I bring you his recipe, and I just hope your local grocery store carries enough powdered sugar to make them.

Happy holidays, and I’ll see you next week.