Post-Thanksgiving Report

Well, presumably we all survived Thanksgiving, safe and maybe even sane. I "only" had 15 people to feed - hardly a crowd at all! Our eldest son didn't make it home, since he had to work the day after Thanksgiving...the muni bond market was open, after all, even if no one noticed. He was able to duck out early Friday and catch the 4PM flight home, to get here at 5:30.

I did most of my cooking on Wednesday. About 8 hours' worth, between nut breads (cranberry & banana), yeast breads, desserts (although one guest brought 2 pumpkin pies - Hooray!), peeling potatoes and sweet potatoes, etc. I'd highly recommend that program. It leads to much less exhaustion on Thanksgiving itself. I conscripted Dan to do the carving; he was happy to help, and sample the turkey in advance. I was pleased to learn that it was edible.










My "Chernobyl Turkey": explanation for Paula: I have many fans of dark meat. Turkeys only come with 2 legs, sadly. So, I took up making extra legs. About 5 years ago, my niece, then 8, asked me how I got 2 turkeys to have 12 legs. I told her they came from Chermobyl. Everyone over 30ish laughed uproarously; everyone younger looked at me like I had 2 heads. Chernobyl Turkey it remains. If you can count on the platters, you'll see 10 legs from 2 turkeys. Hmmmm...must've looked mighty strange wandering around like that.




My bread cornucopia was beautiful, at least until Dan stuck parsley antlers into it. His rationale was that deer season opens Monday.



This is the table. I had to make this tablecloth, since they aren't sold at around 18 feet long. I do love the white china against dark green.










All of our Thanksgiving food was gone by Friday night, save enough turkey for 2 small sandwiches. That's about 60 pounds of turkey, 10 pounds of mashed potatoes, 5 pounds of mashed sweet potatoes, and about 3 gallons of stuffing. Very impressive eating on the part of my boys.

Dan's 22nd birthday is tomorrow, so we held his party Saturday, when everyone was home. He had become very angry a couple of weeks back when he had a flat tire and had to drive on the donut spare, looking like a complete idiot, so I went to a scrapyard and showed them a photo of Dan's car. They sold me a matching wheel with a reasonable tire on it for $50. Dang, what a deal! And, I guess if it isn't in your trunk as a spare, a wheel and tire make a fine stool.

Hope everyone had a fun weekend! Now, get back to the grind. And Christmas is coming - begin shopping! (Ack! The Stress!)