Happy Thanksgiving!

It is almost 2 am. One more pie in the oven. Eyelids are drooping. 10 guests coming. Why do I do this to myself every year?

Answer: I love entertaining in our big formal dining room (our record is 21 at the table with an extra table added on at the end). I do not enjoy the hours of housecleaning and cooking on Wednesday, or how tired and edgy I am until the moment I sit down and eat in 7 minutes what it took me at least 7 hours to prepare. But a room full of people eating and chatting, rolling out the old family yarns and adding a new touch...well, it makes me strangely happy. And thankful.

Hope you all have a great day, too.

Blog Holiday Potluck

All right - tonight we officially have our first snow here in the middle of nowhere, NY. Thanksgiving is coming up, then Advent, then Christmas...it's on! So, in the spirit of camaraderie and to provide some variety in all of our holiday menus, I propose a blog holiday potluck recipe exchange. Consider it a meme. And if you're reading this, you're tagged!


I've posted a new favorite (and easy) pork roast recipe over at my Brookside Bistro blog, and I invite you all to click on over and add a favorite holiday recipe to the comments (you can do it here, too). I'll post them all individually with backlinks to your blog.


C'mon...it'll be fun! Or would you rather watch the news?


;-)

P.S. Guys, favorite beer brands don't count. Talk to your brides, your moms, your parishioners - they'll hook you up!

300

UPDATE: WOO HOO!!! THEY WON AN AMAZING GAME!!!

"[NEXT WEEK], THEY DINE IN HELL!"

[A.K.A., ROCHESTER]

In honor of my 300th post:

Good luck to the Cheerleader's football team in their tiny school division State quarterfinals tomorrow. Sadly, I fear they may go the way of King Leonidas and his companions...

"Remember this day, men, for it will be yours for all time!"

I must say, the movie was a bit gory, but well worth watching just to see that handsome Gerard Butler running around, being brave, saying cool stuff, bleeding....mostly shirtless....

For the record, being quite content with my Beloved, I do not lust after Mr. Butler in my heart...but I wouldn't mind having him, say, come over and do some yardwork at my house on a warm summer day while I supervised from the patio...he could take breaks and chat with me in that cute Scots brogue and stuff. Yep, that would be fine. If he wanted to drop by to practice and maybe improve his shotput skills while wearing a kilt and undershirt, that would be lovely as well...I'd make him some oatmeal:

Hee hee hee!

I will make the last of my Scott's tomorrow at dawn before trekking off to somewhere outside of Syracuse to get the girl to the game. And her Football Player, who persists in his attentions despite her gentle rebuffs. I feel a little sorry for him.

So....what did you think of the debate?

Poll at the sidebar.

First impressions: interesting stuff from both on gay marriage. Very interesting.

Sarah Palin's most cringeworthy moment: not knowing/improvising on the Constitutional role of the Vice President as President of the Senate. Yikes.

Joe Biden's: (tie) 1. Trying to persuade all listeners that he "gets" what middle class life entails, both economically and socially. Puh-leeze.

2. Claiming that his "beautiful house" is his only investment. Did you SEE the man's gleaming white crown and bridge work every time he smirked while Sarah Palin was talking?!? There's THOUSANDS of dollars invested in those Chiclet choppers.

New dinner recipe over at the Bistro blog, btw, if you can get some nice asparagus this weekend.

Non-goose Michaelmas

No goose to be had around here, so I made one of the easiest, cheapest, yummiest crockpot dinners tonight...

Brookside Bistro proudly presents....

Crockpot Chicken, with its companion leftover recipe, Chicken Pastina (con Verdure, if you want to get fancy.)

Kasia - you can do this one!

Here's why I love making this meal - aside from being VERY yummy:

whole, fresh chicken = $5
broth = $1
soup mix = $1.50
pastina = $2.50
veggies = $2.00

So we've spent about $11.00 and change to feed our family of 4.25 (he's still little!) for two nights. Not bad, and they love it!

I slammed out some homemade bread, too - felt the urge to knead today - and topped off the experience with some honey butter. Oh yeeaaaahhhh....

Vineferous pleasures I recommend...

...Louis Jadot Pouilly-Fuisse to calm the hearing post-mortem jitters and to start off your holiday weekend.

My first bottle was given to me by Jerry Lewis - a lifelong friend of one of my best pals in San Diego was/is his yacht captain, so it was a lovely little gift after a chance encounter at Seaport Village one gorgeous late summer day. (The yacht, incidentally, is called "Sam's Place" in honor of Sammy Davis, Jr.)

And now you know why no one will play Trivial Pursuit against me.

Anyway, the Beaujolais is also quite nice.

Guilt by chocolate

I have sinned against South Beach. I ate part of a large Special Dark bar last night. It was good. I'd do it again. Who are we kidding...I will do it again. There's a few big squares left.

Just thought I'd share.

The info. Not the chocolate.

Fiber is fun!

Okay, sometimes it's the little things...

I'm sitting here under the SEB (sweet electric blanket) because it is a cold, cruddy, gray day. It needs to snow or get off the pot. Then, I hear the side door thunking shut and the roar of a departing truck, which means some sort of parcel is here. No idea what it might be, Christmas is way over, and I have ordered nothing since well before. So I dragged myself away from my novel to see what might be here and....my gray day is immediately brightened!

Yay! It's one of my strange favorite things....Scott's Porage Oats, which I have to get online through British specialty stores. I picked some up at a British shop[pe] over the summer when I was back in Chicagoland, and became an addict. But there's nothing close to that kind of shop here in the middle of nowhere. So after we ran out, I found it online and ordered 2 big boxes. I reordered about a month ago and it was backordered. Totally forgot about it with the holidays, travel, etc.

Anyway...I LOVE THIS STUFF!!! (It's not the guy in the kilt, honest.) For some reason, despite all the Quaker, Silver Palate, Bushmill, steel cut, hand rolled by blind midgets at a Croatian orphanage varieties of oatmeal you can find out there these days, Scott's, cooked with more milk than water with a bit of salt and brown sugar tossed in, is THE BEST. Now, to our British and Scots friends, this is probably as bland and bourgeois as it gets -- maybe Scott's is the Quaker Instant of the UK -- but I tell you, nothing comes close. My beloved is making beady eyes at the boxes and asking if it's wrong to have oatmeal for lunch, so I know it's not just me.