Happy Thanksgiving!
Nov. 24th, 2005 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
djonnI am faintly astonished.
As I type, there is turkey and dressing in the oven. The table is set (for three -- my parents will be over shortly). Two-thirds of the components for apple pie are prepared and awaiting the arrival of the third (I admit it, for pie I cheat and use refrigerated premade crusts, but the store was out when we went shopping Tuesday night). But there is only one dirty dish in the sink -- the sauté pan in which the veggies for the dressing were heated -- and the kitchen is otherwise in extraordinarily tidy shape.
What's really astonishing is that the kitchen is that neat, and I have time to type a LiveJournal entry, even though this is the first Thanksgiving dinner I've hosted in a very long time. Most years my parents and I go visit the Kid Brother and his family in sunny southern California for Turkey Week. David is a superb turkey-chef (he indirect-grills his birds), and my sister-in-law's family joins us for the feast, so it's definitely a full-scale Thanksgiving. This year, however, Mother is recovering -- very, very well, mind -- from knee replacement surgery, and isn't yet up for a long trip. So we are having a smaller Thanksgiving here.
And indeed, the parental units have arrived, with pie crusts and Mother's homemade applesauce in hand. The pie is now assembled and ready to go into the oven (when the turkey comes out). And the next small batch of dishes is washed, so the sink is blissfully empty.
There's a certain degree of improvisation going on in feast preparation, since this is a rare occasion for me and I don't have custody of any of the Secret Family Recipes. We have a Diestel (read: very high grade) boneless turkey breast, being prepared under a recipe posted just recently by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cadhla -- slightly tweaked since you can't put things inside a turkey breast. The dressing recipe is out of the local newspaper's food section (and looks very good, and was amazingly easy to assemble). The cranberry sauce will be out of a can, I've got bakery rolls rather than doing homemade (too many things to bake, not enough oven), and we will have mashed potatoes -- a California-branch tradition -- rather than sweet potatoes/yams with marshmallows (an Oregon one; those will appear for Christmas, however). But it will be a sumptuous meal, and I'm confident in the prospect of leftovers.
Also I am thankful for family to have Thanksgiving with, Web-family/friends to share the event with and provide useful suggestions, and all the other things that make life not just livable, but comfortable (and which I hope I'm not taking too much for granted).
As I type, there is turkey and dressing in the oven. The table is set (for three -- my parents will be over shortly). Two-thirds of the components for apple pie are prepared and awaiting the arrival of the third (I admit it, for pie I cheat and use refrigerated premade crusts, but the store was out when we went shopping Tuesday night). But there is only one dirty dish in the sink -- the sauté pan in which the veggies for the dressing were heated -- and the kitchen is otherwise in extraordinarily tidy shape.
What's really astonishing is that the kitchen is that neat, and I have time to type a LiveJournal entry, even though this is the first Thanksgiving dinner I've hosted in a very long time. Most years my parents and I go visit the Kid Brother and his family in sunny southern California for Turkey Week. David is a superb turkey-chef (he indirect-grills his birds), and my sister-in-law's family joins us for the feast, so it's definitely a full-scale Thanksgiving. This year, however, Mother is recovering -- very, very well, mind -- from knee replacement surgery, and isn't yet up for a long trip. So we are having a smaller Thanksgiving here.
And indeed, the parental units have arrived, with pie crusts and Mother's homemade applesauce in hand. The pie is now assembled and ready to go into the oven (when the turkey comes out). And the next small batch of dishes is washed, so the sink is blissfully empty.
There's a certain degree of improvisation going on in feast preparation, since this is a rare occasion for me and I don't have custody of any of the Secret Family Recipes. We have a Diestel (read: very high grade) boneless turkey breast, being prepared under a recipe posted just recently by
cadhla -- slightly tweaked since you can't put things inside a turkey breast. The dressing recipe is out of the local newspaper's food section (and looks very good, and was amazingly easy to assemble). The cranberry sauce will be out of a can, I've got bakery rolls rather than doing homemade (too many things to bake, not enough oven), and we will have mashed potatoes -- a California-branch tradition -- rather than sweet potatoes/yams with marshmallows (an Oregon one; those will appear for Christmas, however). But it will be a sumptuous meal, and I'm confident in the prospect of leftovers.Also I am thankful for family to have Thanksgiving with, Web-family/friends to share the event with and provide useful suggestions, and all the other things that make life not just livable, but comfortable (and which I hope I'm not taking too much for granted).
