[Sca-cooks] Thanksgiving feasts

[Dana Huffman]

> countgunthar at hotmail.com writes:
> >
> > <<Since things are so quiet should we now start the
> > annual "What did you have/serve for Thanksgiving?"
> > thread?>>

I went to my brother's & sis-in-law's this year and so
didn't get the traditional stuff (you have to understand,
mine is the sort of family that has to have the candied yam
on the table, even though the only person who liked them
died several years ago (yes, yam, singular, the joke is
also traditional).  Mom loves doing Thankgiving because it
requires no menu planning at all).

Anyway, the turkey was brined and smoked and very good (and
beautiful!) but it made the gravy almost too salty to eat.
Mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes -- I discovered that the
non-candied ones are edible, if not first-choice.  Rice
"dressing" that was really a casserole because it didn't
make it into the turkey but was pretty good, with nummy
chicken-and-apple sausage in it.  There was apparently
cranberry sauce of some sort but it accidentally got left
in the fridge.  Spinach for the veggie, which doesn't hold
a candle to the traditional asparagus, but also raw spinach
for the salad -- she got a huge bag of the stuff at Costco,
apparently -- that I discovered I quite like.  I had in
fact had it before but didn't know what it was, and hadn't
ever bought any because I didn't think I'd like it.
Anyway, the raw spinach was served with pears and an
oil-and-vinegar dressing.  I took rolls and a batch of
carrot candy (zanahoria rallada, from Granado I think it
was?  Lady Brighid's? redaction) that came out really
sticky but quite tasty; people tried and liked it but then
ate pie (pumpkin or apple) mostly.  But anyway it was
something to do on my new stove, very exciting.  All in all
a good meal, the only thing I really missed was the
standard white-bread-onions-celery-sage-butter stuffing.

Then I got inspired by my sister-in-law's discussion of how
she wants to remodel her kitchen and went home and tore up
the old avocado-green flooring in mine over the weekend, to
discover that the next layer down WASN'T actually any
better, and anyway I've done things backwards AGAIN --
should have done the floor BEFORE getting the new stove.
So now I get to figure out a way to put new flooring over
old, dirty, probably waxy linoleum -- anybody know if you
can sand linoleum?

The new stove, by the by, is a beautiful black glass-topped
one (Hotpoint), and the oven actually heats to the
temperature you set it for!  I checked -- it's habit.  I
told the salesman I was probably buying it in an attempt to
recapture my lost Goth youth, but in fact it's very
aesthetic and makes the '70s decor of the rest of the
kitchen look really, really sad and tacky.

Dana/Ximena



=====
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
En los tiempos oscuros debes aprender a mirar las estrellas. Pero no todas
están arriba.  El planeta tierra flota y gira en el espacio, y es necesario
que sepas que mientras caminas por el duro suelo miles y miles de estrellas
brillan bajo tus pies -- Jairo Aníbal Niño, Los papeles de Miguela.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
What to do about Afghanistan?  For one idea, see: http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/index.html

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1