Thursday, November 20, 2008

Countdown To Thanksgiving

Each year at this time, I begin doing calculations. When do I buy the turkey. I usually have no room in the freezer for one of the uber cheap frozen birds-- right now 47 cents a pound -- and I am seriously considering placing the frozen object of my desire (at this moment) in my daughter's freezer. The New York Times has printed my annual turkey grave recipe complete with roasting legs, wings (if you can find any) days before and making a vat of turkey stock. Did they steal it from me or did I read it in their newspaper years ago?

I have already purchased my 59 cents a pound sweet potatoes, my cranberries, my dried bread for stuffing and I have a half bag of Maine potatoes for mashing in the fridge. I still need Brussels sprouts (my garden ones failed to produce sprouts) and since I am not on the "365 day healthy eating plan" this year, I could make green bean casserole this year. I'm the only one who loves it. I could just make a small portion. I will try to remember to bake dinner rolls or I could ask Sam to make them. And pie. I need to bake a pie. Or two pies.

Sam wants to do some sort of crafty thing while dinner bakes. We burned our fingers with hot glue one Thanksgiving while attaching faux candies to a wooden doll house for a gingerbread look. It was more fun (I think) hunting for things that "looked like candy" and making Sculpty cookies and peppermints, but Sam liked the hot glue and glitter part. So I think we will be making something with Mardi Gra beads. I will blog the entire "experience" so don't worry about missing out on the fun and glue burns. G is making the framework for us.

At work, we are in the midst of a huge wreath order. 300 wreaths with red bows. We are just attaching the pre made bow and then a hanging wire but it takes time and yesterday we made 123 with three or four of us working on the project at the "Christmas table" (lots of fun and laughter). We all had to leave for periods of time to water plants, repot plants, talk to customers on the phone, eat lunch, haul stuff off the delivery truck etc. It was a brisk 23 degrees and I was in a greenhouse or outdoors all day. Once the sun was gone, it got very cold, and we were still hauling things out to the unheated plastic greenhouse. Needless to say, a nice HOT shower and some pajamas was my reward after work. And Top Chef on tv. They failed miserably the second episode and Padema even spit some of the food out into her napkin. I've had to do that. Not good.

Today I will see what G has been doing up in the attic. He says he has been sorting the contents into trash, Goodwill and keeper piles. I need to check and see if things are sorted correctly. Then I will help carry the Goodwill stuff down the stairs and onto the truck. The trash part will be more time consuming to dispose of. No convenient dumpster parked in the driveway. G has "found" boxes from either our move here in 1991 or our move from Germany to Chicago in 1988. Still sealed. So whatever is inside has not been needed or missed in 17 or 20 years. I personally think there may even be boxes from our move from Chicago to Germany in 1982. The packrat gene is alive and well in my DNA.

Sam just called and has stuff for a "dump run" so we may have a solution to the "no dumpster" problem. A load of stuff to the Town dump.

And do we have a nice lunch at our favorite lunch restaurant? We do enjoy it so very much and it would be our only meal "out" this week. And all the bills are paid. sigh.

2 comments:

  1. And yet the chef who made the napkin-spat dessert didn't get kicked off. I thought it was so funny when the Italian guy was defending his meal because he thought he was one of the worst. "I don't understand why I'm here!"

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  2. Have you ever tried organically grown fowls? The meat is very nice and compact without all that fat and you can actually feed more people with a smaller bird.
    I do realise the financial constraints but it does taste better.

    I remember one year I was visiting my sister in NJ and she brought home a turkey for $5.00!!! How cheap must it be to produce such a bird and sell it for $5.00 and still make a profit???
    Scares the willies out of me.

    Last couple of years we have been purchasing a 'Gans'.
    You can see them running around in the yards during the summer months and autumn on the farms. Of course, the price is mind-boggling but it is only once a year.

    Weather is lousy here today so it's vege soup day.

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