So, I realize it's been about 10 days since Thanksgiving, (or at least it was when I started writing this novel of an entry...) but whatever. Here's the recap:
We went down to Richmond to spend Thanksgiving with my family. Since it's only my parents and one sister, holidays can be a little quiet. Our extended family (many of whom made the trip for the wedding) is spread all over - Hawaii, a huge California contingent, Michigan (yay Camp Gull Lake!), Arizona, Maryland, Washington State, Oregon, you get the idea. Not content to just have a quiet little gathering of five when we cook enough for 20, we love to invite people over.
In a way, Thanksgiving is a perfect holiday. No presents to stress over, four days off work, good food, lots of vino and some family fun. Plus there's football for when the menfolk get bored...
In years past, my family has joined with other families to celebrate. One of the most memorable Thanksgiving dinners was held at my parents neighbors house. The dad was a big hunter and tended to have a Jeffrey Dahmer (only with deer, instead of, you know, humans) thing going in the garage most of the time. Knowing that we would not be ok with venison, he traded some deer meat with another buddy for a turkey. A real wild turkey. Until it got shot at least. Only unbeknownst to us, the guy had shot it with buckshot. In case you aren't familiar with buckshot, it's basically a plastic bullet casing filled with little BBs. Or at least thats what I think it is, because I don't actually shoot guns.
Every couple of minutes, someone would bite into a piece of turkey and make a "I think I just cracked a tooth" face. Sure enough, it was another piece of buckshot. At some point, we decided to make a little pile by each of our plates and the person who had the most by the end of dinner was the winner. Cool, I know.
This year, no one was poisoned with lead animal bullets, but it was fun nonetheless. My mother invited a German family who just relocated to the area over for their first Thanksgiving. Their hilarious 18 month old kept us entertained, when my dad didn't.... My parents own a McDonalds highchair. They like to say they stole it, but it actually came from some friends of my grandparents when I was a baby (they owned a bunch of McDonalds). Over the years, we lost the seat belt part and someone sawed the front cross bar off, but while dangerous, it still functioned as it's name suggests, a
high chair. That is, until this year, when my Dad decided to demonstrate that he could sit in it, turning his hips and sitting down, then landing promptly on his ass, after the chair blew apart.
I think wine might have come out of my nose.
Off he went to the garage, and an hour later, post wood glue and clamps, the danger-chair was back in business.
If you are wondering what we had to eat, I made
this butternut squash soup as a starter (it's delish - I make it all the time).
Mom did the turkey and stuffing, and my sister made a ton of dishes from the
Barefoot Contessa Parties!
, all of which were rather delish.
For dessert, I brought down a pumpkin pie and a wonderful chocolate pie. For the chocolate pie, I made a Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer crust (looks like black dirt, yum yum) using
this recipe. The wafers can be a bit of a pain to find in stores, but thankfully, my local Safeway even had them.
Once cooled, I used the chocolate filling from
this recipe. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo before we cut into it and it was promptly DEVOURED. It turns out, my mom used to make something very similar when I was a child, and my craving for a chocolate/chocolate pie was some sort of repressed memory. A wonderful combination. Try it!
The rest of our time in Richmond was fairly uneventful and involved us being big idiots as usual - demonstrating our skills in trivia and lack of skills in all sporting activities.
However, just when we thought we'd gotten on the road for an uneventful ride home, about a dozen cop cars come flying by, in a high speed chase. They tapped the driver, the car spun out of control, slamming into the side rails and then the police dragged the driver out of the car, at gunpoint. All about 50 feet in front of us. Crazy, I know. You can read about it
here.
Further evidence I need to be mounted with a
head cam.
I got a new toy today that i LOVE. My Auntie Lauren is the best puppysitter ever. I sent you a picture of me playing with it. It has rope AND tennis balls. I'm going to see how quickly i can destroy it.
)
