The Year's Already Over

We're into Garbage Time on 2025, and I've got all the junk you need: a powerful appetizer, a banana-bread Boulevardier, books, music and more!

Scott Hines

21 Nov 2025 — 11 min read

You hear it at the end of every year:

Ugh, I can't wait for next year.

I'm so glad this year is over.

Good riddance to this [insert year]!

I don't personally engage in this behavior; I believe in stubborn optimism as a self-preservation tactic. I understand it, though–especially in a year that has been broadly sub-optimal for reasons I will not go into here.

Well, even though 2025 has been Not The Best!, I have some good news: it's already over.

No, Scott, I'm pretty sure there's still more than a month lef–

WRONG. It's over.

I could sense it all week. Coworkers and clients are already beginning to disappear into the ether of I Have To Use This PTO. Project schedules are already bowing to We'll Deal With That After The New Year. Next week will be short, distracted and inconsequential; December will be largely a sham. The next five and a half weeks might technically belong to 2025, but only as much as the late innings of a blowout baseball game matter to fans; we'll have position players pitching and fans making giant cup-snakes in the bleachers of our minds.

For all intents and purposes, the old year is already over.

While the new year is busy struggling to be born, we can still have ourselves a monster of a time.

Today, I've got:

A blast of an appetizer!
A clean-off-the-bar cocktail!
Great music, an entertaining book, small-screen ephemera, pets and more!

Time's up. Your weekend starts now.

You know I keep that thing on me

Thanksgiving is approaching, and we know the usual suspects. Turkey. Stuffing. Mashed potatoes. Green bean casserole. Skyline Chili dip.

(Just had to make sure you were paying attention.)

We can't sleep on a non-traditional appetizer, though.

Are you having people arrive the night before? Maybe you're going somewhere for the big day, but you know they won't have thawed the bird early enough and dinner's going to be late. Shoot, maybe it's next Saturday and you just need a break from turkey. For all these situations, it's good to have something else on hand.

In the past, I've touted my Spinach-Artichoke Rolls and Cocktail Meatballs as handy appetizers for such situations:

This past weekend, I had a chance to try something new (or, new to me, at least.)

My friends Hoke and Michael came to Louisville for the Clemson-Louisville game Friday night–a game that turned out hilarious, perfectly justifying the newsletter I published that very morning–and Saturday, we hung out in my backyard watching college football, making cocktails and cooking.

I gave a go at Shotgun Shells, a not-at-all-invented-by-me concept that involves stuffing manicotti shells with meat and cheese, wrapping them in bacon, and smoking them. My first attempt was pretty good, though the smoker got a little too hot (I blame Colonel E.H. Taylor for my lapse in attention), and they burned a little, with the bacon shrinking more than I'd have liked.

I was fully prepared to call it a day with this moderate-enough success, until Hoke pitched a twist I hadn't considered. "You know, these would be really good with pimento cheese in them," he said, right around the time Texas A&M began to loom ominously in South Carolina's cracked rear view mirror. And that's how I ended up making these monstrosities twice in a week.

Wouldn't you know it, though: he was right, and the second version was terrific.

I did this batch in the oven, and I tried to keep it simple so you could easily recreate these if you need an appetizer in the coming week. I've also purposefully structured the recipe for easy scalability.

Pimento Cheese Shotgun Shells

(makes eight servings, scale as needed)