Text 19961, 122 rader
Skriven 2014-11-30 11:10:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Txgvg dinner 363
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It was a seasonably chilly day, but I spent more time than I
ought huddling under the covers, my metabolism not being nearly
up to snuff yet. All I had to do was do the turkey (a Bourbon
Red, represented to me as a Red Bourbon, apparently an equivalent
name), dressing, and gravy, pretty easy.

I'd planned to brine the bird, but Wednesday night the plumbing
decided to act up, so with the backup all three parts of the
kitchen sink were too ugly to use. We called Roto-Rooter, the
only outfit answering its phones, and were told to expect a
visit between 9 and 10. At 10 the call came - they couldn't get
here but would show up between 8 and 10 Thanksgiving morning
but not charge the holiday surcharge, as we'd called early.
So the turkey just sat there. Fine with me. Roto-Rooter showed
up around 9, futzed around for an hour, cleaned out all the
pipes, and charged $400. They claimed that was the regular
rate; I think they added the surcharge.

I scrubbed out the sinks and made a dry brine - mostly salt,
a bit of pepper, and sugar - to rub under the breast skin and
inside the cavity. There was a good two hours for the goodness
to soak in.

The garden still had lots of herbs, so I picked a couple ounces
of sage and a bunch of lemon thyme sprigs - the regular thyme,
apparently less hardy, had gotten gray and crumbly.

Quick rinse of the bird, pulling off of excess cavity fat, of
which there was a lot. Stuffing of herbs under the skin and
in the cavity and various nooks and crannies.

Into a 500F oven for 20 min, breast side down, then flip and
roast at 300F for 3 hours (an approximately 20-lb bird).

Linda, whose cooking ability I find dubious, made a pumpkin
soup from a Publix brochure. I thought of reproducing the
recipe, but on second thought, nah. It used canned pumpkin,
canned applesauce, apple juice, maple syrup (lots), and
pie spices. It was of course extraordinarily sweet and out
of place as a soup course; also there was way too much
nutmeg, a spice that is okay in whispers but not more.

Various guests with various food allergies and intolerances
brought various side dishes of various levels of unpalatability.

Collards and vinegar - collards are a delicious vegetable if
prepared with pork product. These were vegan, and after the
first bite, which determined this, I passed.

Roast root vegetables 1 - carrots, beets, onions cooked at
an insufficient temperature to caramelize, so the intrinsic
flavors shone through.

Roast root vegetables 2 - purple carrots, parsnips, regular
carrots, and Brussels sprout interlopers; these were at least
partially caramelized, so I ate some of them. I do prefer my
roast vegetables to actually be roasted.

Rosemary's brother made mash, which had milk in them, so I
avoided these as well.

Linda wanted corn, and as we had some in the freezer (Rosemary
claimed from last Thanksgiving, or Christmas at the latest),
that was easy - empty the two packages into a dish and nuke
for 10 minutes, adding butter as needed.

Not being up for a wander, I had had Rosemary and Linda go to
the store and pick up sausage and bread for dressing. I got
some chorizolike stuff mislabeled as spicy Italian and, wonder
of wonders, Wonder bread. I cubed and toasted the bread and
made do; there was no use for the sausage. Back out to the
garden for several handfuls of sage for sage-onion dressing.
It turned out okay, but Wonder bread is still sweet and
insubstantial even after croutonization.

The turkey was utterly delicious, especially the dark meat,
which really reminded one that turkeys used to be game birds.
The ample fatty drippings made a fine base for gravy.

Rosemary required the gluten-free people to make dessert
according to their own specifications. These included a tart
but tasty mixed berry (straw, blue, rasp) pie with (untasty
and sand-textured) rice crust, and a pretty palatable pear
crunch with oat topping.

For the rest of us, Edy's ice cream and Pepperidge Farm.

3 cheers for chocolate - a standard, rather nice version,
not too sweet, good cocoa beverage flavor;

va va vanilla - neutral and tasteless, and they cheat by
adding yellow food coloring to make you imagine the stuff
is richer (with eggs, which are not actually an ingredient)
than it is, but what they ought to have done is add a bit
more vanilla; and

velvety vanilla bean - somewhat more vanillary than the
above, pretty decent, not so good as Breyer's used to be
but better than Breyer's is now.

Santa Cruz oatmeal raisin soft cookies were a good facsimily
of homemade, right down to the heavy hand with the baking
soda. My sister used to make the best oatmeal raisin cookies
by the simple method of cutting the soda to 25% of what the
standard recipe says;

Lexington milk chocolate toffee almond - no better than Chips
Ahoy or similar; grainy unpleasant texture, not much flavor,
though I have to give it to them that the milk chocolate
doesn't taste spoiled the way Hershey's does;

Sugar - very standard, very ordinary, very good - not too much
nutmeg or allspice the way many sugar cookies are done.

I excused myself for an hour nap while everyone else chewed
the fat, then came down for the word games, which nobody could
agree on, so they were scrapped in favor of current events
conversation, which I could have done without so much of.

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