Tag Archives: thanksgiving

Dog, collage, and cream biscuits

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Someone looking guilty
Someone looking on with avid interest
Someone ready to go outside after licking the cutting board
PCC collage made when I couldn’t sleep last night
The prompt this week is the woman’s face

Hope my American friends had a tasty and relaxing day! We were four and it was really nice. I learned you can always make something else (oh? Bourbon-laced sweet potatoes? Why not! Cream biscuits? Sure!), thereby turning a meal for four into something more like dinner for nine.

I had a chance to test the Hockey Puck Biscuit Theory.

Previously, I have been embarrassed and annoyed that any time I tried to make cream biscuits for a holiday meal, they were epic fails. Hockey puck biscuits. While my more private baking adventures are not uniformly good, I often manage to produce tasty and flaky biscuits.

Until yesterday, I figured the tension and pressure of putting out a dinner for a crowd foiled my efforts. But yesterday, we were four. There goes my theory.

So what, then? A post-turkey oven is not hospitable? Sitting on a cookie tray for three hours jinxes the dough? Anyone? Maybe the cut dough needs to be refrigerated until oven-time.

I mean look at that thing! It’s practically two-dimensional.

Everything else was good, I’m happy to report including the cookies (talk about going overboard. I’d already made a pumpkin cheesecake).

It’s cold. It may or may not be raining. If not, it will be raining soon.

Lastly, I came upon two share-worthy creators this morning. The poem by Bernadette Mayer (below) offers a master class in the use of repetition and captures my mood of late. The collage artist, a 75-year-old woman living on one of the barrier islands along the South Carolina coast, takes my breath away. Some of her pieces are huge. Aldwyth.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49736/failures-in-infinitives

Pandemic Pie Bonus

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Being able to start eating the pie on Thanksgiving Eve counts as a silver lining this year. As does sitting here typing instead of running around in a dash of last minute clean up and then prepping for hours in advance of the big meal. I enjoy the latter, but still, this is nice. I slept til nine.

Given Finn’s propensity for fowl thievery, the brined bird is airing behind a barricade of coleus cuttings. The other side is a staircase to which he has no access. Ha! Look at us! Dog people who finally learned a thing or two.

Why a whole bird for two people, you ask? I was gonna keep it simple: breast only, one-ingredient side dishes. Well, I couldn’t find breasts at the critical moment and pomegranate seeds and walnuts are demanding to be partnered with Brussel sprouts. Maybe a maple glaze?

We already finished the holiday puzzle but another is on the way. This year will require at least two.

There will be two zoom calls and episodes of Money Heist. Twitter. Maybe a fire, even though it’s warm enough to rain.

I have so so much to be grateful for — including all of you, dear readers. Have a wonderful day in whatever way. Let’s all live to see another holiday!

Not traditional

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We had a semi-typical TG meal last week when C was here: stuffed Cornish game hens, homemade cranberry sauce, wilted cucumbers and roasted butternut squash.

Tonight, we celebrate a different kind of moment. “The Irishman” is on. The fire warm. And dinner, based on a meal enjoyed at Vesta in Denver, is delicious!

Braised lamb shanks and root vegetables served on Parmesan / rosemary grits with garlic baby bok choy and more of that homemade cranberry sauce.

Chocolate biscotti for dessert.

Grateful.

Happy thanksgiving to all!

Roux baby

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Happy Thanksgiving American readers! Yes, I’m using French’s crispy onions for the green bean casserole topping but I’m firmly drawing the line at mushroom soup. Made a roux with real butter and real cream. Tons ‘o fat. I hope my sister in law’s too busy in the kitchen to read this because otherwise she might not have a serving!

Per usual, I found a great Bon Appetit recipe online. The hardest part was finding the setting on my phone to keep it awake. Greasy fingers and passcodes make for an unhappy partnership.

Sometimes when I’ve had it with the news (just hearing “Saudi Arabia” turns my stomach), I play with the dianaphoto app and make double exposures. It’s truly fun. (K and I may have gone out for burgers last night as a pretext to stop in at the Pottery Barn — how I love their Christmas displays! All that sparkle and dazzle show up nicely in photographs).

Here are a few pix. I’ll save most of the Christmas ones for (ahem) AFTER Thanksgiving.

The skyline is Charleston from 2017 visit.

The peace pin was a gift from Liz (I’m Going to Texas, sidebar) and created by Barry Smith of Australia.

Return

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One to the other. Season. Place. Ground and sky. A flight back to Colorado later today. Special china’s been put away but the folding chairs — not yet.

I called this patchwork a “whimsy” elsewhere. An unstoppable doodle. Irrepressible play. Now that the pile of these is growing, I probably ought to figure out what to do with them. Maybe make longer panels for the hall double hungs upstairs? Facing east, those windows get blasted by morning light, so the cloth’d be like glass for a few hours a day.

There was a big smudge on my phone camera lens. Ambience or malfunction?

And, after a couple days away, it’ll be back to the story.

PS  Deb Lacativa‘s cloth is playing a star role in this patchwork (from my recent lottery win, blogged about here). Some of my recent walnut dunks show up, as well as older indigo creations of mine.