Thanksgiving 2008 - Greased Lightning...

As bitter as I was in my last post about Thanksgiving and the Turkey With No Brine, I do have to admit, my Tia roasts a pretty good bird. There. I said it. Though I will also argue that stuffing the stuffing in the bird makes it mushy and gross and stuffing should be baked independant of that.

But I'm also a non-traditionalist food snob.

And I think I make a pretty mean ham. Even if I do think I over cooked it a little (or over-heated it, since the dern thing was pre-cooked), and nearly reduced my mother to tears when she found out that I was planning on doing it without pineapple and cherries.

Man, she went nuts. And told me I had to go to the grocery store right that minute to get pineapples and cherries because if i didn't then the world would end or something. Luckily, I got to the grocery store around 10AM on Thanksgiving, which is enough time to make parking a head ache (I avoided the lot completely and did street parking) but not bad enough that I wanted to stab someone in the canned fruit aisle.

While there, I sucked it up and bought some fresh cranberries too, even though my family will be heathens and still go with the jellied can stuff.

Still, did anyone else feel like this holiday crept up on them without notice? Usually we can see this one coming a mile away, but this year it was here and gone in the blink of an eye.

You could tell we weren't ready for it. My mother, in charge of only greanbeans and corn, was so delighted she had nothing to do this holiday she decided not to even worry about a green bean casserole and just threw a bunch of butter in it. My sister, in charge of the bread, came over with only four packs of twelve for three families, and ended up having to cook two batches of cornbread to make up for it. My aunt, in charge of mashed potatoes, forgot to bring the gravy. My other aunt, the hostess (and non-turkey briner), forgot to suck out some of the Turkey juice and ended up with grease in the oven, which meant it caught on fire.

Which meant we spent about twenty minutes standing outside while my uncles tried to fan out smoke, and the bread that my sister brought ended up... well... smoked.




Which meant the yams weren't cooked. So no yams this year.

And in the midst of all that, my five year old cousin decided it was a good time to ask the group what sex was.

This with a nun at the table.




All in all, another great Thanksgiving, even if no one was quite prepared for it.

Except for maybe Thalia, who spent most of the turkey time standing around my uncle's legs as he carved the turkey, hoping for a slice or two.

She got greenbeans from my cousins instead.

view the rest of the pics here.