Prime Rib and Yom Kippur

After watching one of my "Good Eats" DVD's I couldn't let go of the idea of cooking a Prime Rib. Well not actually a Prime Rib but a Standing Rib Roast which is essentially the same thing only with out the Prime label. I had the idea stuck in my head and couldn't let it go. At first I thought about preparing it for Shabbat dinner but I couldn't get out of work with enough time to prepare it.

So in the end we decided that the Rib Roast would make for an excellent Erev Yom Kippur meal. It appealed to the idea of starting the fast with one last hurrah - a fabulous piece of meat. I woke up early on Sunday to get over to Ventura Kosher Meat ( which I think is the best Kosher Butcher in LA by far) to ensure I got what I wanted. I picked up a nice roast and headed home confident that all was well. I knew I was missing one critical tool but I figured it would be easy to pick. Alton Brown had used an electronic probe thermometer to cook his roast on the DVD, and I figured it would be easy to find one at any major store. Being the net geek that I am I looked online first to see where I could pick one up, but couldn't find a store that carried one. This was a mistake, cause if I had simply called the store I was planning to go to in the first place they could have told me they had exactly what I was looking for.

The unfortunate result was several minutes of me yelling at my mothers oven because the probe thermometer it came with didn't work the way I wanted it to. The poor dog was literally shaking in fear because of my temper tantrum. Eventually the probe spontaneously started working and I was able to cook the roast essentially the way I wanted to. I had to cook at a higher temperature because I was up against a deadline, but I was still happy with the results. This time was a good learning experience and I 'm confident that next time will run smoothly with the exact results I want. Of course, a Standing Rib Roast isn't exactly cheap so I'd better think of a good reason to cook it again.

The odd thing was I ended up thinking about the roast during various parts of Yom Kippur services, but not out of hunger. I was sitting in Shul thinking about the ways I could perfect the cooking process of the roast. I really need to learn how to channel all this food thinking in a more effective way.