Stuffed, that is. We continued our tradition of joining a particular family in our church who always open their home to those who don’t have family in the area. Except this year was the first year since they had their first that none of their offspring has been present. Two of them live in Seattle, one in the DC area, and the other, while he lives nearby, was visiting his in-laws this time. So we became their surrogate family.
Dinner was good, the food excellent. We had the traditional American fare (turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with toasted marshmallows on top, green bean casserole, ambrosia, stuffing, gravy), some favourite dishes of the hosts (mashed rutabagas (which I know as swedes), oysters), an English dish that goes extremely well with turkey and other game birds, that I had prepared (bread sauce*), and some Chinese dishes as the the other guests were all Asian (a chicken thing, and a spicy noodle-shrimp-pork dish).
Conversation was great, with topics including nearly being shot, chickens, nearly being hit by cars, being compared to teletubbies in Best Man speeches, wrestling, life as a paediatrician on call, to name but a few.
Repairing to the lounge to watch the Cowboys beat the Bears in the Thanksgiving day game, those of us so inclined also did some knitting.
After dinner had settled, we enjoyed Apple Pie, Pecan Pie (both courtesy of Sam’s Club, and a Pumpkin Pie that I had made.
We also played Apples to Apples which is always good fun.
It was, overall, a relaxing, yet curiously tiring day.
* Recipe for Bread Sauce
Peel, top, and tail a medium onion, and then stud it with whole cloves around the larger of the two cut edges to make a crown. Place the onion, crown down, in a saucepan. Add some milk, and some white bread with crusts removed and broken into small pieces (or you can make it into breadcrumbs first) and gently bring it to a boil. Must be on a low heat or it will burn on the bottom. You need enough bread and milk to have enough sauce for your needs, and to have the right consistency (sort of “thick sauce”-y, maybe slightly lumpy). Let it gently bloop for half an hour or so, and then leave it for as long as possible before the meal. If you can manage overnight, great.
Before serving, remove the onion (which should remove all the cloves too, but if not, fish out any that escaped), and reheat in a microwave (reheating this sauce in a pan is a very delicate operation, prone to burning). Put lashings of it on your turkey, and consume, moaning with the pleasure of it all.
number 15:Stepped Fret