Mmmm. So full.
The buzz is still going. Tonight We had our friends Lise and Doug over for leftovers, and even the leftovers were lush. My friends left with full bellies and I stayed here with a warmed heart.
Monday I went to Alcatraz Island with my sister Robyne and her boyfriend Neil. On the boat on the way back, we were discussing holiday plans, and our lack thereof. Tomorrow Robyne is hosting a big triple birthday, for herself, for Neil, and for her house-mate Chris, who has a couple of guests staying with them. She's cancer-free these days, praise the name, but radiation after-effects still have her a bit beat-up. She told me there was no way she could manage Thanksgiving on top of the triple birthday massacree, so they'd probably be just ordering Chinese food or something.
I had been kind of toying with the idea of doing a Thanksgiving in our swank new kitchen in our new lovely home, but I was a bit at a loss for guests. I'd thrown up a few balloons at some friends and neighbors, but my interest in the project came over me a bit too late for polite invitations. Everyone already had their plans. But here were five guests with no plans! I got the elaborate rundown on Robyne's post-radiation diet, no wheat, no soy, no meat, no dairy, no refined sugar, but hey, she DOES eat eggs and organic evaporated cane juice (turbinado sugar). I began sifting my brane for ideas for desserts for the ingrediently challenged. I added into the equation my mom, who likes meat and dairy, but doesn't eat wheat or msg, AND added in Matt, Chris' friend, who is a vegan. Oy veh. We called my parents, who don't like night driving, but did want to come. Robyne gave us the gift of triangulating her drive from Marin to Piedmont through Benicia, and we were good to go. Resolved to party, I stopped at Cowgirl Creamery in the ferry building and picked up some fancypants cheeses, choice enough to inspire Little Nemo to simply fearsome adventures in Slumberland.
I started a couple of days early on Tuesday. I did my big ass three store shopping run to Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Safeway. This year I went with a fresh bird so I wouldn't have to deal with second guessing the defrosting process, and so I could get one that had no msg injections. I threw a soup together in the crockpot from a few of the fresh veggies, some cheep smoked turkey, some quinoa (wheat free for my mom) in my pantry and some beer. I used my huge cleaver to halve the hard, knobbly, green-skinned kabocha pumpkins and a butternut squash and baked them until they were tender (like 45 minutes) and skinned them. I boiled, skinned, and mashed ten pounds of potatoes with butter, garlic, and milk. I peeled five pounds of carrots. I did some tidying. I went to bed.
Wednesday I bought an extra Montessori day for Miranda. I emptied the crock pot of the quinoa soup and started a new one. This time I tossed the butternut squash in with some yellow lentils, some carrot juice, and some fresh cuisinarted ginger. I blended the kabocha pumpkin with freshly grated nutmeg, cinnamon, star anise, and vanilla and baked it into pies, two with wheat-free crust, one with no crust for Robyne. I tried for meringue, but the kitchen was too humid, and my foam kept collapsing back into pale, failure albumen instead of peaking; cream of tartar and copper mixing-bowl not withstanding. So the pies had no meringue, and I used the huge number of eggs I'd cracked to make an ad-hoc frittata with potato, mushrooms, onions, and granny smith apples. Came out swell! I doctored two Duncan Hines butter recipe yellow cake mixes into a huge brandy nutmeg cake with caramelized apples on top and a caramel brandy hard sauce drizzled over all. Since not one of the dietary restricted people could eat that, I put a label on it that said "Brandy cake with caramelized apples and caramel hard-sauce. Contains no pork. It has everything else, though."
I made butter carrots out of the five pounds I'd peeled the night before, carrots sautee'd in butter, onions, and Odwalla carrot juice forever until they shrink to half their size and compress to twice their flavor. To warn Robyne and Matt the vegan, these I labeled "BUTTER. Also contains carrots." I worked on making almond butter and turbinado sugar into marzipan for Robyne, but after a couple of hours of simmering, straining, restraining, cheesecloth straining, and simmering some more, I finally gave up, and decided what I had was pretty delicious. I refrigerated it, renamed it "Chilled almond jellied sweets", and moved on. I chopped celery, sage, and onions and bagged them for stuffing. I cleared Miranda's piles of toys and art supplies from the dining room table, turned the expando-desk into a second big table by adding the removable leaves, put tablecloths, real live ironed cloth napkins, place-mats, the good silver, and glasses out at each place, put out serving dishes and utensils and labeled them with index cards to remind me of what goes where, and went to bed.
Thursday was turkey day. I cleaned, salted, and positioned the bird in the roasting pan. Miranda looked at it sadly and said "I know it's dead, but it looks alive. I see it's an animal. Poor turkey." So we took a serious moment to thank the turkey for giving us its very life so our lives could be fed and made stronger, and so our celebration could be so fine. She's a special little human. Not every three-year-old thinks about life enough to recognize that meat is a life, and even fewer need closure about that.
After our moment of thanks, I tented the turkey with foil, put it in the oven, and then proceeded to baste it with its own juice around every twenty minutes to every half hour. I pulled out older bread and bagels from the freezer and toasted them. I also did a toaster oven full of wheat free rice, spelt, and rye breads. (And then basted the turkey.) I sauteed a huge iron skillet full of celery, onions, sage, and white and crimini mushrooms. (And then basted the turkey.) I made three pans of stuffing, one big one with turkey juices, veggies, sausage, and wheat breads, one small one with the same, but non-wheat breads for my mom, and one vegan one made with brown rice bread, olive oil, organic veggie stock, and the same veggies. (And then basted the turkey). I worked a lot on cleaning up, as I cook like the tasmanian devil, leaving huge, vertiginously stacked, swaths of disarray in my path. (And then basted the turkey.) I got refrigerated foods into the warming oven or into warming pots. Robyne, Neil, and my parents arrived, and I fed them bread and wheat free bread and cheese and fruit until chris and his guests arrived. (And then basted the turkey.) I finished the turkey with the sooper sekrit part of the recipe, a glaze of tangerine juice, fresh ginger, turbinado sugar and corn starch. Hmm. Guess it's not so secret now. I also siphoned the fat off the pan juices and whisked the juices with cornstarch and garlic to make a proper gravy for the mashed potatoes.
Anyway, it all rocked. I had a cheese tray, breads, fruits, two soups, three sides, three different trays of stuffing, three desserts, gravy, extra tangerine glaze, and a bird so tender and mild you could stick it in a manger and three kings would bring it gifts. I got piles of compliments and all da love. My dad went all misty on me. tritone told me I'd outdone myself, and though very loving, my husband is not prone to panegyrics. That made me glow. The shocked guests with dietary restrictions who all got to eat good soup, stuffing, and dessert on thanksgiving were so grateful that I got help with the dishes AND a massage. My mom called me the Master Multi-tasker. Even internebbish made it by after his other Thanksgiving plan, and I got to feed him dessert and bask in the glow of best friendship and yet more lavish praise. And I tell ya, when you no longer do the day-job thing and you basically work for a safe child and compliments, it's awfully good to get them. My self esteem is just sailing! My hips and my knee and my back hurt, but, ooh, what a high. Three days of prep and cooking for all this love? Cheap at twice the price, my friends.
Monday I went to Alcatraz Island with my sister Robyne and her boyfriend Neil. On the boat on the way back, we were discussing holiday plans, and our lack thereof. Tomorrow Robyne is hosting a big triple birthday, for herself, for Neil, and for her house-mate Chris, who has a couple of guests staying with them. She's cancer-free these days, praise the name, but radiation after-effects still have her a bit beat-up. She told me there was no way she could manage Thanksgiving on top of the triple birthday massacree, so they'd probably be just ordering Chinese food or something.
I had been kind of toying with the idea of doing a Thanksgiving in our swank new kitchen in our new lovely home, but I was a bit at a loss for guests. I'd thrown up a few balloons at some friends and neighbors, but my interest in the project came over me a bit too late for polite invitations. Everyone already had their plans. But here were five guests with no plans! I got the elaborate rundown on Robyne's post-radiation diet, no wheat, no soy, no meat, no dairy, no refined sugar, but hey, she DOES eat eggs and organic evaporated cane juice (turbinado sugar). I began sifting my brane for ideas for desserts for the ingrediently challenged. I added into the equation my mom, who likes meat and dairy, but doesn't eat wheat or msg, AND added in Matt, Chris' friend, who is a vegan. Oy veh. We called my parents, who don't like night driving, but did want to come. Robyne gave us the gift of triangulating her drive from Marin to Piedmont through Benicia, and we were good to go. Resolved to party, I stopped at Cowgirl Creamery in the ferry building and picked up some fancypants cheeses, choice enough to inspire Little Nemo to simply fearsome adventures in Slumberland.
I started a couple of days early on Tuesday. I did my big ass three store shopping run to Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Safeway. This year I went with a fresh bird so I wouldn't have to deal with second guessing the defrosting process, and so I could get one that had no msg injections. I threw a soup together in the crockpot from a few of the fresh veggies, some cheep smoked turkey, some quinoa (wheat free for my mom) in my pantry and some beer. I used my huge cleaver to halve the hard, knobbly, green-skinned kabocha pumpkins and a butternut squash and baked them until they were tender (like 45 minutes) and skinned them. I boiled, skinned, and mashed ten pounds of potatoes with butter, garlic, and milk. I peeled five pounds of carrots. I did some tidying. I went to bed.
Wednesday I bought an extra Montessori day for Miranda. I emptied the crock pot of the quinoa soup and started a new one. This time I tossed the butternut squash in with some yellow lentils, some carrot juice, and some fresh cuisinarted ginger. I blended the kabocha pumpkin with freshly grated nutmeg, cinnamon, star anise, and vanilla and baked it into pies, two with wheat-free crust, one with no crust for Robyne. I tried for meringue, but the kitchen was too humid, and my foam kept collapsing back into pale, failure albumen instead of peaking; cream of tartar and copper mixing-bowl not withstanding. So the pies had no meringue, and I used the huge number of eggs I'd cracked to make an ad-hoc frittata with potato, mushrooms, onions, and granny smith apples. Came out swell! I doctored two Duncan Hines butter recipe yellow cake mixes into a huge brandy nutmeg cake with caramelized apples on top and a caramel brandy hard sauce drizzled over all. Since not one of the dietary restricted people could eat that, I put a label on it that said "Brandy cake with caramelized apples and caramel hard-sauce. Contains no pork. It has everything else, though."
I made butter carrots out of the five pounds I'd peeled the night before, carrots sautee'd in butter, onions, and Odwalla carrot juice forever until they shrink to half their size and compress to twice their flavor. To warn Robyne and Matt the vegan, these I labeled "BUTTER. Also contains carrots." I worked on making almond butter and turbinado sugar into marzipan for Robyne, but after a couple of hours of simmering, straining, restraining, cheesecloth straining, and simmering some more, I finally gave up, and decided what I had was pretty delicious. I refrigerated it, renamed it "Chilled almond jellied sweets", and moved on. I chopped celery, sage, and onions and bagged them for stuffing. I cleared Miranda's piles of toys and art supplies from the dining room table, turned the expando-desk into a second big table by adding the removable leaves, put tablecloths, real live ironed cloth napkins, place-mats, the good silver, and glasses out at each place, put out serving dishes and utensils and labeled them with index cards to remind me of what goes where, and went to bed.
Thursday was turkey day. I cleaned, salted, and positioned the bird in the roasting pan. Miranda looked at it sadly and said "I know it's dead, but it looks alive. I see it's an animal. Poor turkey." So we took a serious moment to thank the turkey for giving us its very life so our lives could be fed and made stronger, and so our celebration could be so fine. She's a special little human. Not every three-year-old thinks about life enough to recognize that meat is a life, and even fewer need closure about that.
After our moment of thanks, I tented the turkey with foil, put it in the oven, and then proceeded to baste it with its own juice around every twenty minutes to every half hour. I pulled out older bread and bagels from the freezer and toasted them. I also did a toaster oven full of wheat free rice, spelt, and rye breads. (And then basted the turkey.) I sauteed a huge iron skillet full of celery, onions, sage, and white and crimini mushrooms. (And then basted the turkey.) I made three pans of stuffing, one big one with turkey juices, veggies, sausage, and wheat breads, one small one with the same, but non-wheat breads for my mom, and one vegan one made with brown rice bread, olive oil, organic veggie stock, and the same veggies. (And then basted the turkey). I worked a lot on cleaning up, as I cook like the tasmanian devil, leaving huge, vertiginously stacked, swaths of disarray in my path. (And then basted the turkey.) I got refrigerated foods into the warming oven or into warming pots. Robyne, Neil, and my parents arrived, and I fed them bread and wheat free bread and cheese and fruit until chris and his guests arrived. (And then basted the turkey.) I finished the turkey with the sooper sekrit part of the recipe, a glaze of tangerine juice, fresh ginger, turbinado sugar and corn starch. Hmm. Guess it's not so secret now. I also siphoned the fat off the pan juices and whisked the juices with cornstarch and garlic to make a proper gravy for the mashed potatoes.
Anyway, it all rocked. I had a cheese tray, breads, fruits, two soups, three sides, three different trays of stuffing, three desserts, gravy, extra tangerine glaze, and a bird so tender and mild you could stick it in a manger and three kings would bring it gifts. I got piles of compliments and all da love. My dad went all misty on me. tritone told me I'd outdone myself, and though very loving, my husband is not prone to panegyrics. That made me glow. The shocked guests with dietary restrictions who all got to eat good soup, stuffing, and dessert on thanksgiving were so grateful that I got help with the dishes AND a massage. My mom called me the Master Multi-tasker. Even internebbish made it by after his other Thanksgiving plan, and I got to feed him dessert and bask in the glow of best friendship and yet more lavish praise. And I tell ya, when you no longer do the day-job thing and you basically work for a safe child and compliments, it's awfully good to get them. My self esteem is just sailing! My hips and my knee and my back hurt, but, ooh, what a high. Three days of prep and cooking for all this love? Cheap at twice the price, my friends.