Food, glorious food

We went down to SJ to have Thanksgiving dinner with K's brother and a total of 15 guests. (Fifteen!) It was great but, as you can imagine, a little nuts. Made even more nuts by a ball, launched by their oldest son, blowing in one of the kitchen windows, showering much of the Thanksgiving food with shattered glass. The turkey was pretty much out of range (and free of shards); the juices were strained through cheesecloth just in case; but the potatoes to be mashed and the cauldron of green beans were just tossed. Everything else was either safely in the oven or in the other room already. It was the most amazing noise. K and I both thought something glass had been hot and then put in very cold water or vice versa; that's what it sounded like.

Dinner was fine, if different. I am a bit specific about what makes up Thanksgiving dinner. The sweet potatoes were roasted with other root vegetables and rosemary and were just amazing. There were popovers instead of rolls and scalloped potatoes. But the turkey and gravy were excellent, as was the stuffing. G behaved himself SO beautifully. I was really proud of him, and told him so. We brought 4 pies, made fresh Wednesday night: pecan and pumpkin (from Cook's Illustrated, and very good), apple crumb (recipe off the web, excellent!), and my family's traditional sour-cream mincemeat. People were quite complimentary.

We came home without leftovers (as I'd suspected), and I made preparations to cook my turkey the next day. We invited one friend who we knew had spent Thanksgiving day alone, but she had plans; then I called some Alameda friends who I'd been wanting to have over, and hurrah!, they could make it.

The turkey went in a smidge late, and we, uh, dallied a bit in the afternoon, so the end of the preparations were a little frantic. But dinner was on time and turned out terrific (OMG I made the best gravy), and we all finished in plenty of time to get to the local theater to see "Happy Feet" (3 out of 5 stars IMHO).

And...I have leftovers!