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daidoji_gisei ([personal profile] daidoji_gisei) wrote2006-11-28 08:06 am
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Thanksgiving

I stayed in Lincoln for Thanksgiving, as opposed to going home to my mom's. This decision was (mostly) unconnected with the drama earlier this month; I've spent most of my adult Thanksgivings celebrating with friends. And this year I had the feeling that I was going to be extra-busy in the bakery, so taking Thursday to loaf around my place sounded good.

I thought I was going to spend T-day alone, but on the Saturday before I found out that my friend Genevieve was going to be alone and she to work from 1-6 pm that day, which pretty much killed any chance of a fancy dinner for her, so of course I invited her to have dinner with me.

Genevieve's work, btw, is 'media personality': she's one of the announcers at NET Radio, Nebraska's public radio station. She's even got her own program, the Verge, which you can listen to on Sunday evenings from 7-9 pm (Central US time) by going here. The Verge is her look at 'newer' takes on classical music, so it has things like Elvis Costello's Juliet Letters or "Variations on the Mission Impossible Theme". Interesting stuff. /plug

Genevieve is a virtual vegetarian, by which I mean that she chooses not to eat meat not because she's against eating animals per se but because she thinks the current agribusiness model puts too much of a strain on the world's resources and so she will eat fish and once a year, on Thanksgiving, she'll eat a free-range, non-hormone, non-etc turkey. Since I work for a store that sells such turkeys getting one was trivially easy, and Wednesday night I went home with an 8.5# bird. It was a cute little thing, almost small enough to be an extra-large chicken. It was even small enough to fit in my fridge, which was a relief: I'd had visions of having to leave it overnight in the trunk of my car. (See, living in Nebraska has advantages.)

We divide out the meal, because Genevieve wanted to contribute to our feast. I had to do the turkey (being the one not at work) and I insisted on doing the pie: I'm very proud of my ancestral pumpkin pie recipe. Genevieve then went for the vegetables: sweet potatoes with rosemary and garlic, and green beans with walnut-almond sauce. I'd had a moment of fear when she mentioned sweet potatoes because I do. not. do the marshmallow thing, but then she clarified so all was well.

I arose on Thursday morning and after a leisurely breakfast started cleaning. I had determined that to mark the occasion we would have a civilized dinner, at the kitchen table, which meant I had a lot of clearing to do. Dishes to be washed, blue-glass bottles I was saving (I love blue glass), cool seedpods I had found on walks, my sewing machine that I had, at sometime in the past half-disassembled and then left--everything had to be made ship-shape and then stowed. Granted, the sewing machine got stowed on the floor of the kitchen in a corner (after first being re-assembled), but still the difference was clear.

Then I ran to the store because I had forgotten to buy the whipping cream. I had switched from Cool Whip to real whipped cream many years ago because of the taste, and because it really isn't that hard to make yourself. It's dead easy with a mixer, and I can even do it by hand if I have to. Cream was on sale and the ultra-pasturized stuff has a really long shelf-date so I bought a few extra: I want to make carmels for Christmas. Back home I started on making the pie, with the pie crust from scratch. At one point the recipe I was using directed me to wrap the dough ball in plastic and chill 30 minutes for ease of rolling out and I just giggled and went on. Because I could I pulled out my tiny leaf cookie cutters and decorated the rim of the crust with leaves. Then I mixed up the pumpkin filling, poured it in and sent it to the oven.

While it was baking I commenced turkey wrangling. The package of giblets was easy to find, but the neck was jammed so far into the body cavity I briefly feared that I'd be forced to leave it in! But it came out eventually and all the random bits got stuck back in the fridge to await gravy stock-making. I decided to be minimalist this year and just salted and peppered it; when you are planning on eating the meat with gravy and cranberry sauce why complicate things?

The turkey wasn't quite done when Genevieve showed up so I tore off the wings for us to snack on and put it back in the oven. Her vegetables went in as well to reheat. The turkey finished and while it rested I made gravy. Not too thick, and just barely salted: perfect. (Well, it probably could have used a little garlic but I forgot to add it when I made the stock. But if this is your worst problem in making Thanksgiving dinner you have a lot to be thankful for.)

Dinner was relaxed and entertaining. After we had eaten all we wanted of turkey and trimmings I cleared away the plates, made a pot of Lapsang Souchong, whipped up the cream and served pie. We talked and talked. At one point she pointed out that we had something in common: She had taken a risk in quiting her previous job and taking her radio job, because it had allowed her to do her own show; I had been prepared to take a similar risk when I applied to be the L5R lead story writer. I had never considered it that way.

Eventually she had to go home. I packed up the remaining turkey leg (Genevieve prefers dark meet and I don't) and one of the thighs, some of the gravy and half the remaining pie for her to take home. She leaves some of the sweet potatoes and the green beans for me. I get everything that needs to be in the fridge into the fridge. For all of ten seconds I consider staying up and doing the dishes, and then I go to bed.

It was a good Thanksgiving.

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