This year's American Thanksgiving looked as though it might not happen at all given that I wouldn't be home from work until 5:00 PM and Jen would need to cook dinner and tend to two demanding babies all day. Jen figured if she could get a good, solid nap out of them then she'd be positioned well to possibly get everything done.
Sadly Elliott did not cooperate but luckily Jen was able to distract him with one of the worst yearly television events: the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This will undoubtedly be one of those times where she is upset by my editorializing on the blog. However, if she wants to defend her position that this is a thing worth watching I will allow her to discuss the merits of this abomination on the blog next year. I, however, will be watching something worthwhile with the children, something far more entertaining like soap operas or C-SPAN.
This week marked the final week of our farm share pickup. I made a late night appearance where we got a pound of beets, two pounds of carrots, Red Russian Kale, garlic, celeriac, potatoes, turnips, radish, parsley, dill, Golden Delicious Apples, Fuji Apples and Bosc Bears.
They also threw in a bonus jar of apple butter after we got short-changed on the fruit last week. This would have been fine since I'm having difficulty keeping up with the work of maintaining current apple sauce production.
After getting home from work I put together this cheese slate with Ouray, La Tur, and a blue cheese whose name I have already forgotten even though it was an exceptionally good blue cheese.
To start off the evening we poured this 2007 Vintage Cremant de Bordeaux Les Cordeliers that we got in Bordeaux last year. As much as I've been preferring beer with cheese these days I have to admit that this went very well with the cheese selection.
This was the Wombats' first American Thanksgiving and we may not have been able to have it at all had we not had two friends, Heather and Adam, generously accept our invitation to come over and hold the babies while Jen was able to put dinner together. Martin repaid the favor by immediately spitting up all over Adam's sweater.
We really know how to show our guests a good time.
Jen miraculously put together a fine meal featuring:
Roast Turkey
Mashed Carrots and Turnips
Glazed Tri-Color Carrots
Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing
Scalloped Butternut
Cranberry Sauce
Jellied Cranberry
Roasted Root Vegetables
Also on the menu were these roasted potatoes. Jen was trying to recreate her grandmother's roasted potatoes. She reported that they were not as good but as close as she has come.
She asked me if we were making too much food for four people. I suspected that she already knew the answer to this question. When I suggested that maybe one style of potato may be enough for just four adults she informed me that there was no chance of her removing either potato dish from the menu.
As I suspected. She knew the answer and laughed in the face of it.
With dinner we had this 2007 Corton-Renardes Grand Cru that we got on our extremely costly wine detour when we were in France last year. Again, I'm normally more excited about beer pairings but it was nice to finally have one of the twelve bottles we bought in France. This was a very nice, peppery, wine that was still fairly light and went very well with turkey dinner. It was nice to be able to share it with good friends who kindly distracted the babies so that we might eat.
For dessert Jen was able to pay homage to the somewhat overlooked Canadian Thanksgiving this year with her Canadian themed pie.
It may have been a little more stressful, and a little more messy, than years past but this year's Thanksgiving was pretty rewarding. We got to FaceTime with our families, enjoy our new babies, and share food and drink with good friends. Now, in just five or six hours of work, we may even have a kitchen that does not look like someone cooked an atomic bomb in it.
Now taking volunteers to come and help next year!
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