And now it is daytime in Thailand on Thanksgiving Day, and I’ll wish you all a Happy Turkey Day now, as I am logging off soon and will be out all day. If I do not explode like that guy in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Enjoy! 
Ooops! Found out that the bird that was picked up is only 16 pounds, so my partner went out and picked up some extra legs and thighs (we are dark meat folks here!) to add to it.
Wishing you all a very happy and thankful day tomorrow - I’ll be too busy to check in. Take good care of yourselves and those you love, or just tolerate enough!
Ham: Baked
Turkey: Brining
Pumpkin Pie: Cooling
Egg Nog Pound Cake: Cooling, but it fell apart when it came out of the tube pan, so we’re going to slice it when it’s completely cooled
Potatoes: Peeled, cut into chunks, ready for boiling
Carrots: Had to make an adjustment, since we didn’t have any ground ginger, so I’m making honey glazed carrots
Green Beans: Prepped and ready to cook
I’m taking a break until the next step, getting the turkey out of the brine and in the oven.
Siam Sam, how was dinner?
Siam Sam has probably exploded by now.
The turkey is roasting, the dressing is ready to go in the oven. The collard greens are cooked and will be reheated just before dinner. They got cooked yesterday morning cause I like 'em best the next day rather than eating 'em the day they’re cooked. Oh, and everything is ready to make the giblet gravy, including the chopped eggs the way it’s intended to be.
Guests will be arriving soon bearing munchies and other sides. I have wine chilling and a friend will be here well, actually, he just walked in, with his world famous bloody mary mix and vodka. YUM! 'Twill be a good day!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL MY AMURRKIN DOPER FRIENDS!!!
<Burp> Excuse me. Yes, I darned well near DID explode.
Dinner was great! The food was fantastic, as it is every year at Bourbon Street. In fact, I’m up so early (6:30am Friday here now) because I’m SO full I can’t sleep. Tossed and turned all night. But it was worth it.
We did waddle to The Pickled Liver afterward and partook in the weekly pub quiz. In honor of Thanksgiving, our team was The Turkeys, even though I was the sole American on it. And we won! Came in first among six teams. The prize was 1000 baht (US$29) off of our bar bill, which is always welcome. (Being from Texas finally turned out to be good for something. During the Photo round, in which we had to identify monuments from around the world, I was the only person in the entire pub who recognized the Alamo.)
Alas! We did not make it to the live lesbian shows in Soi Cowboy. Those will always be there, and I was so stuffed still by then that all I could do was make it home and collapse. I was SO full. I’m STILL so full. Man, I love Thanksgiving.
So, Siam Sam, it seems one might infer from your last post that you had a good time and ate too much.
I ate too much too! The bestest thing about today was that nobody brought one of those horrible ungawdly green bean casseroles! YAY!!! We did have some good green beans though. They were steamed, wrapped in bacon, drizzled with olive oil and then baked in the oven for a few minutes to cook the bacon. YUM!!! The turkey, dressing and giblet gravy are all gone. Once again, it was a hit!
Here’s hoping all you other Amurrkin dopers had a great Thanksgiving.
Now I’m ready for Thanksgiving!
I cleaned the bathroom and tidied the middle bedroom. Inflated the Coleman inflate-a-bed and put down a couple of blankets and pillows. Vacuumed the house.
My guests just called and they’re in Olympia getting a bite to eat on their ten-hour drive. They should be here in about three hours or so. I’ve mixed up the cheese filling (ricotta, parmesan, romano, egg, fresh parsley, nutmeg, salt, fresh garlic), mixed some flour and eggs and olive oil together and rolled it into rounds, and made pierogi-shaped raviolis. I bought some fresh French bread for garlic bread, and I have some mixed Spring greens and Roma tomatoes for salad. There are a few beers in the fridge (Longboard Lager and Stella), and a few more cool in the breezeway. The only hitch is that I washed a blue-grey bath mat with a red one, and now the blue-grey one is pink. C’est la guerre. I’ll get a new one after the ladies leave.
The turkey is in the fridge, I have all the makings, the dishes are done (except for the cutting board I rolled the pasta on), I’ve got snackage and Trader Joe’s Volcano coffee, and I’m all set to cook the feast mañana.
My turkey cooked fast! I had everything timed, thinking the turkey would take 2 hours, but bugger if that temperature alarm didn’t go off early (yes, the probe was in the right place, the turkey was done.)
So, frantic at the end, I called in Ivylad, my MIL and my SIL. I put Ivylad to making the stuffing, my SIL to mashing the potatoes with the roasted garlic, my MIL to making the gravy (just the neck, no eggs, sorry swampbear) and I made the biscuits and finished up the veggies.
I kept the mashed potatoes in the crockpot to stay warm, we got the little kids served, then we chowed down. My BIL had two plates, everything was delicious, then the turkey kicked in…we were all dragging within the hour, although we did manage some dessert…pumpkin pie, egg nog pound cake, and my SIL made a lovely dish of fresh fruit drizzled with cream that I could just not eat.
Then, everybody left to go home and nap and I crashed for two hours. The kitchen is still a bit of a mess, but I cooked, so the kids get to clean!
My Thanksgiving is over…my next chance to host will be in 2010.
I’m glad everyone had a wonderful meal! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Siam Sam, did you take pictures of the feast? Ivylad thinks you must be old, because if you were younger you would have made it to the live lesbian sex show. Unless it’s become old hat for you? 
Alas! I’m not as young as I once was. But you’d be surprised how mundane live lesbians can become.
No photos. I had both hands full feeding myself.
Coffee is settling my stomach. I think I may be ready to eat again sometime this weekend, next Monday for sure. I was betting on “never” last night.
That’s ok. I did give you special dispensation to leave out the chopped aigs.
Next up on my radar is Ploenchit Fair, a traditional British fair held once a year for charity. It’s on Saturday, December 1, this year, the first time I remember it being held outside of November. There’s a (hopefully) great new venue: a private international school right on the river. I’m hoping the beer tents will be set up riverside, so we can enjoy the sunset. I’ll tell ya, those beers go down real smooth when you know it’s all for charity. 
Ivylass: What/how/why do you soak a ham?
It’s a country ham, which means it’s been cured by salt. A lot of salt. Like a salt-lick amount of salt. If you don’t soak it to get the salt out, you might as well serve your guests a bowl of salt and have done with it.
So, you soak it, changing the water twice, which gets the salt out, then you can bake it. It still has a nice salty flavor to it, which we complemented with a brown sugar glaze.
Whew! 14 humans and 12 dogs was the final count. Folks showed up aroung noonish, and left by 10:30pm or so. I’m still recovering, but the house is mostly cleaned up. Turkey for lunch, and turkey glop for dinner again tonight - yum!