I’m sorry for everyone’s sick relatives and changes of plan.
We had dinner with our adult nephew, his husband, and my sister in law. The turkey and sides were lovely, and the dessert crumble is in the oven. Very low key and pleasant. I didn’t eat a lot but more than I’ve had in any day in the last few weeks since I started Ozempic. I’ll see how much digestive trouble I get, if any.
We had plans to head to Elkhart for dinner with relatives. However, I was depressed when I went to bed last night, and I woke up more depressed. I sent Mrs. Nott off to Elkhart this morning, and I’m here alone. I worked through my daily puzzles and word games, had some lunch, and sat down here in the office.
Don’t fret, I’m not dangerously depressed. I just didn’t want to be a wet blanket on everybody else’s holiday. I have an appointment with a new shrink on Dec. 13th.
Sucks.
As I posted in The Pit,a friend who was supposed to come over had to cancel,so instead of our planned Thanksgiving dinner out I ended up sending out to have two McRibs delivered.
Terrible. I put the turkey together this morning while dangerously uncaffeinated and put the wrong ratio of broth/wine into the pan (too much wine). Then the countertop roaster died halfway through the cook but I didn’t catch it until I went to take a final temp check and realized the damn bird quit cooking aroun 125°. Since chow time was an hour away I turned on the oven, cut the breasts and thighs off the bird, put them in a casserole pan with some of the pan drippings, and stuck it in the oven to finish cooking. It finished cooking but it was dry. And tasted too strongly of sauvignon blanc.
Now I’m sitting in a supremely uncomfortable chair listening to a house full of people bitch about Biden’s Covid response.
Next year I’m buying a stack of Tombstone frozen pizzas and some ear plugs and calling it good. If people don’t like it they suck it.
Nah, nothing can taste too strongly of a good wine. I’m sure it was good.
So far, so good. Our original plan was to go to Austin and spend the holiday with my wife’s family. But I managed to get a cold starting the first week of November and am finally over it. But my wife and kids have now got it, and my in-laws are kind of medically fragile and on some immune suppressing drugs, so we’re staying home.
After a rather harried shopping trip on Tuesday night and a follow up trip yesterday by me, we’ve managed to get everything we need, and it’s all either cooked or in the process of being cooked for a 6:30 pm (CST) meal. We even managed to get a thawed and pre-seasoned turkey (go HEB!) so we didn’t have to fool with risky methods to thaw a turkey in two days.
Most of the day I’ve been messing around on the Dope and internet, watching rom-coms and drinking tea with my wife, or playing video games with the kids. Not a bad day all around.
It’s going pretty well, thanks for asking.
I’m on my own here in Oregon, which is fine. I’m not really one to get hung up on tradition. My cousin lives a couple of hours away but I don’t really think he’s a Thanksgiving type person either. I talked to my parents last night and I’ll be talking to them again a little later. Bob and I just got back from the dog park and as soon as I start to get hungry I will start on my own little feast. Bare in mind, I can’t cook for shit, but I think I got this wired tight:
So far, so good. I slept late, chatted with a friend, and completely failed to make the pumpkin pie I planned on because I was reading and eating a late brunch. That’s okay, I’ll do the pie tomorrow or Saturday. I love me pumpkin pie at anytime but I do make a special effort for it in winter so I can get some orange foods in my diet.
Because of my depressed, immunocompromised, and poverty-stricken self. I elected to stay home with my kitties. That way, I can ignore being ignored (or further stressed) by the relatives, who also didn’t take Covid precautions this year. I’m finally going to get the latest booster shot tomorrow. I can also save on the expense of gas for the car.
I love my family, but we are typically Irish-American LOUD, and as an introvert, I prefer to take them on one-by-one instead of en masse. I’ve done this many times before and it works for me. Happy Thanksgiving, peeps!
I’m thankful for every one of you guys.
Family Thanksgiving was sparsely attended, someone brought a yappy little dog, and it was one of the best holidays we’ve had in some time.
It went okay. As I posted elsewhere, Mr. brown is pretty much bedridden upstairs with gout. I prepared our planned dinner of leg of lamb, potato casserole and brussels sprouts and brought him his portion, while I ate downstairs. Then I brought upstairs both our plates of pecan pie and whipped cream and we ate dessert together.
It’s been peaceful downstairs and I’ve been enjoying watching trash TV and MST3K on youtube. But I’m still digesting that big meal four hours later. I hope it’s digested by the time I go to bed tonight.
I shouldn’t say a word but both our sets of noisy neighbors appear to be elsewhere for the day. I expected them to be screaming over some football game or having drunk fights in the backyard. But it’s dead quiet.
Did something smart! Came across a sandy area while off-roading with the dogs. Now, our normal ride, Caroline, is 4-WD, and has every ‘un-stuck’ device known to man, is down. So we are in ‘The White Jeep’ which is 2 wd (I didn’t even know this was a thing, till someone gave this to me). It will get stuck on a bush, and deep sand is Right Out! And I had no phone to call anybody, and nobody to call anyway.
I turned the fuck around and got home. Listening to Drive-By Truckers and BBQing some beef ribs. Not all bad, I guess.
I had the local family over. We were 9. I cooked a 12 pounds turkey, stuffing, gravy, squash, and a pair of pies. My sister brought pumpkin bread and a pumpkin pie, and my bil made garlic mashed potatoes in our kitchen. My daughter made a salad and my son brought green beans.
Everyone spent some time with our lonely foster cat, so that was nice. I also got my brother and my son to take crap out of my house, and my son to okay my throwing out a lot more stuff.
I just got back from spending an afternoon with dear friends for our version of a Right Good Thanksgiving dinner.
We started off with sparkling wine and deviled eggs one friend had brought. Then we moved on to the main course. The hosts made a splendid standing rib roast with au jus, along with sides of green salad, mashed potatoes, lemony asparagus, steamed squash and rolls. We shared a nice Pinot Noir I brought.
I also brought dessert. Homemade chocolate eclairs and a lemon cheesecake with blueberry sauce.
Lots of fun and laughter. Their sweet little Tibetan Spaniel tolerated our loud carrying on and relished many pets and scritches.
A fine day had by all! I’m home now and relaxing with a fire and a decaf coffee, catching up on everyone else’s day.
Best wishes to everyone, with special good thoughts sent to those whose plans didn’t go as they hoped.
Got up and made casseroles, cranberry relish and deviled eggs, went to Mom and Daddy’s and ate myself stupid. Now I’m watching football. God bless us every one. Feel better to everyone that needs it!
My wife and I went to one of our favorite restaurants that we haven’t been to in three years. The buffet was fab, the traffic control was awesome (the line never got too long and the food was constantly re-filled) and the wait staff were first-rate. We talked with one of the waitresses who we adore. At one point, my wife says she’s thankful for ___, and I fire back that I’m thankful for ___, and we spent the next five minutes in a back-and-forth that was actually quite touching; not silly in the least. I complemented our server, who seemed really touched to hear it and I wrote positive comments on the bill. It was pricey but worth every penny. And now I’m here! Best Thanksgiving in many a moon.
Is Croatoan the incantation that summons the Old Ones?
ETA: FYI – did you know that The Lost Colony was one of Andy Griffith’s first gigs after graduating school? Now you do.
Went to pick up my 91 year old mom to bring her to the feast at my niece’s. She was in bed when I got there, not feeling well. Gave her a covid test. Positive. Thanksgiving over.
I prepared for Thanksgiving by eating very little yesterday (two pieces of buttered toast, and half a pulled pork quesadilla), and nothing this morning. I ate no appetizers, chips or snacks before dinner. By the time we sat down for dinner at 2:00pm, I was famished. We were invited to a family friend’s house, so i didn’t even have to cook. My wife made cranberry relish and we brought a gallon of apple cider.
I knew our host is an excellent cook, and I was not disappointed. I had a plate heaped with turkey (white meat & dark), mashed potatoes & gravy, sausage stuffing, roasted brussel sprouts & sweet potatoes, mashed butternut squash, green bean casserole, mashed turnips, beets, cranberry relish and a buttered white dinner roll. I had seconds of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, and stuffing.
After digesting for an hour or so, i had pumpkin pie, coconut cream pie and pecan pie, though just a small piece of each.
Needless to say, I am stuffed.
I went over to my mother’s apartment and cooked dinner for her and a friend of hers who lives in the building. Dinner was brined turkey which came out super-juicy, with gravy made from the drippings, cornbread stuffing with sausage and raisins, bread pudding, cranberry sauce from the can, roast asparagus, instant mashed potatoes, Red Lobster Cheddar Bay biscuits, and baked mac & cheese. I have never made mac & cheese before today, but I wanted to try something new and my mother prefers soft foods these days due to not having many teeth left, so used a recipe I found from Youtube;
The recipe calls for six cheeses, but I refined it down to Tillamook sharp cheddar, Tillamook pepper jack, and Philadelphia cream cheese, and added French fried onions on the top in lieu of a bread crumb topping, and it came out AMAZING, which is good because we spent more on the ingredients for the mac than we did on the turkey.
Aside from cutting the heads off the asparagus because I’ve never cooked it before and I thought you were supposed to, everything came out amazing, it took just over three hours from when I got started to when dinner was served, I somehow managed the task of having everything come out of the oven/stovetop ready to eat at the same time, and a good time was had by all.
I must ask: how was this received by your guests?