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November 22, 2007

An industrious Thanksgiving.

All in all, the day turned out very well.

I woke up at 6 a.m. -- even before my dad, the C-SPAN addict. I started coffee and set to work with the turkey -- preparing stuffing, dressing, etc. The turkey was in the oven by nine, and then it was off to the races making side dishes.

Guests were set to arrive at 2 and eat at 3, but that wasn't a plan I was aware of until late in the morning, so I decided too do my best not to worry and to keep focused. It would have been unreasonable for me to expect to have everything prepared and together exactly on time, so I didn't really make that my goal. As it was, people started eating around 3:40.

If you'll see my previous entry regarding the Thanksgiving menu, you'll note that I stuck (more or less) to the plan:

Thanksgiving dinner 2007
From top left: macaroni and cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cornbread, dressing with andouille, raisins and walnuts, winter vegetable cobbler, roasted sweet potatoes, gluten-free vegetable cobbler, extra dressing (center). Not shown: gravy, collard greens, standby cardiologist, shame.

Dinner conversation was wonderful, and the Nahe Kreuznacher Kauzenberg Riesling Spatlese went well with the turkey. I'm newly impressed with my father, since he purchased an entire case of it.

Speaking of turkey:

Sorry that call from the warden never came through
I made a double batch of whole wheat raisin bread:
Whole wheat raisin walnut bread, from scratch yet.

A double batch equals four loaves. My arms were tired from kneading, but it was well worth the effort. If not for the incredible help from Liz and Ella, this would have gone really poorly. They helped clean and did amazing prep work. Ella made the greens, Liz did the bean casserole, and both were damned tasty.

And hooray: I cooked, so I didn't have to clean. Though I did help sort food into storage containers. Thanks to Quentin, Alisa and Liz for cleaning up everything.

I'm proud of myself for cooking everything (except the relish) today between 6 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Iron chef, indeed.

I hope you had good things to eat and got to spend time with people you were glad to see today.

Posted by Your Protagonist at November 22, 2007 07:42 PM