Yep, Another One

For those who could careless about our Thanksgiving plans, you're out of luck this week because I can't stop talking about it. It's like the Grey's Anatomy of holidays. In terms of progress, J made two pumpkin pies using the Cook's Illustrated recipe. Based on J "accidentally" sticking his finger in a pie (ooh dirty!) and tasting it, the pies taste delicious. Here's my thing about Cook's Illustrated, they have all of these steps to ensure hte perfect optimal whatever and in the end it feels so not worth it. To make the pies J had to use the food processor, a big pot, a stand mixer and a blender. And that's not even counting what I did to make the crust. He had to mix the ingredients in the food processor, add the dairy products in the pot and heat everything up and then mix again in the stand mixer. And STILL the pie took 20 minutes more to cook than the recipe called for. Nevertheless, two desserts down, one to go. Tonight we will buy the turkey and green beans. I changed my schedule and decided to make the griddle cakes Thursday because we have plenty of space on the stove to cook things but limited space in the oven to heat things up. In other food news, I found out that Slim will be bringing cider-butternet squash risotto.

In other Thanksgiving news, our guest list has changed. It appears that one of our friends and the friend we was to bring along loves football more than eating and will be spending Thanksgiving in a bar watching the Broncos game on NLF on Demand. If we had NFL on Demand, then our friend and his friend asked that they be able to watch it during dinner. Umm, no. Seriously, no. There's a reason why we have Thanksgiving at 7:00 pm as opposed to in the afternoon. It's DINNER.

I think this is where I don't get straight guys, not all straight men but GUYS. Why are sports more important than actual human interaction? I mean I am a total tennis and figure skating fanatic and I could tell you what Peggy Fleming's signature move in the Cortina Olympics is but given a choice between watching Michelle Kwan square off against Chen Lu or keeping dinner plans, my thinking is: "that's what TiVo is for." I've just never needed to see the sports I love in real time. I enjoy being able to fast forward through the boring parts. I wonder if that's because I like individual as opposed to team sports. I've never bought into that 12th man thing where I think that "we" won, especially when I am not even in stadium/arena/whatever when the team has a victory. I know a crowd can really help, but I still think a victory belongs to the person or team that actually COMPETED.

This does keep our unbroken streak of Thanksgiving drama when we've decided to stay in town. The first year we hosted, a former friend asked if we could have her boyfriend over and then decided to invite him to go to New York with her, WITHOUT EVER TELLING US. We found out about it secondhand after we bought extra place settings and groceries. The next time we went to the Lancaster where one guest insists on having fish (which Lady Lancaster cooks for her) AND wants one of the vegetarian entrees even thought she ate plenty of turkey and fish. Included in this calvacade of drama was the fact that the two men invited simply refused to help out with ANYTHING.

I'm actually more baffled than angry. The plus side is that we will be having plenty of leftovers to take to a leftover party on Friday AND I will be able to get a 12 pound turkey as opposed to a 15 pound turkey. Based on Nigella Feasts, 12 pounds is fairly optimal for a turkey in terms of juiciness and having enough meat for everyone. In fact, she says that if you have more than a 12 pound turkey can feed, get two 12 pound turkeys. Unfortunately, I don't have the oven space for that so I would have had to risk cooking a 15 pound turkey. So really it's a win-win situation all around.