Any time you get more than fifty percent of my family together, mayhem ensues. It's strongly inadvisable to come near our home around any major holiday. Thanksgiving in particular is pretty out of the ordinary. For starters, we don't eat Thanksgiving dinner until about 8 pm. IF we're ready. There have been years where we ate at 10. The first thing you need to know about Thanksgiving at my house is that it isn't about the dinner. It's about the cooking. The week before my mom makes a TWO PAGE list of all the dishes that will be prepared for Thanksgiving. Then, she will assign EVERYONE an equal number of dishes to prepare. This has been going on all my life. I was in charge of pies starting when I was eight years old. I'm not exaggerating. It doesn't matter how well you know how to cook the dish, if that's what you are assigned that's what you will make. When I moved out and OR Tire started cooking the pies we all regretted it. (Just kidding, he's not that bad.) One year Beadle was doing the pies and she accidently put one cup of salt instead of one cup of sugar AND one teaspoon of sugar instead of one teaspoon of salt in our pumpkin pie. I teased her relentlessly about this. I still don't know how you can be pouring ONE CUP of salt and not think twice about it. It's probably more understandable if you know that she was 10 at the time. This method of divvying up dishes has resulted in some pretty interesting cooking.
All right, so I will attempt to recreate my mother's master list of Thanksgiving dishes. That's should be enlightening for everyone. Turkey (obviously, but there's usually 3 or 4, one smoked and two traditional), chicken and noodles (this is delicious, but requires cooking two whole chickens), mashed potatoes, yams, potato salad, cranberry jello salad, homemade cranberry sauce, green salad, gravy, green beans, oyster stuffing, regular stuffing (because most of us don't like oyster stuffing), homemade rolls (no fewer than 6 dozen), cornbread, vegetable tray, relish tray, deviled eggs (???), egg foo yung (????), sliced apples with homemade caramel sauce, fruit salad, carrot pudding with nutmeg sauce (this is a baked pudding, "come again?" you say), pumpkin pie, old-fashioned cream pie, lemon meringue pie, apple pie, cherry pie, blueberry pie, chocolate cream pie, cheesecake, banana cream pie and mincemeat pie (yes, mincemeat pie). I think the reason for all the pies boils down to our competitive nature, each of us thinks we can make a more delicious pie than everyone else. There are usually two of each of the pies and every one is made from scratch. Tired yet? Let me explain. My mom doesn't like cooking, so she loves leftovers, if she's plays her cards just right, she can get us to make her enough food that she can survive on Thanksgiving leftovers until Christmas. That's my theory anyway.
A brief side note on the preparation of oyster stuffing. I have helped my mom make this as long as I can remember. She always makes it with her own bread crumbs, because buying a dozen boxes of the premade stuff is just "too darn expensive". So...two days before Thanksgiving she buys about six loaves of French bread from the bakery. Then she spreads out newspaper across a ten square foot area of the dining room. I break the bread into bites sized pieces. I loved to do this because this was literally the only time I got to eat white bread as a kid. It still tastes like cake to me. I could easily eat an entire loaf right now. It is allowed to harden for a few days. Then, mom mixes it with canned oysters, and turkey broth, bakes it to a gelatinous solid, and voila! oyster stuffing. I have never tasted the stuff because of the smell. Which is lucky, turns out I'm allergic to shellfish.
This is all made more hectic by our constant attempts to keep the two human sized dogs from eating our dinner before we do.
So, what else do we do on Thanksgiving Day? Well, we don't watch football. My husband made the mistake of asking Pooker, on his first Thanksgiving with my family, if they could watch the game later. As it happens Pooker was wearing a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, so it was a safe guess, and a good conversation opener for my introverted older brother. Pooker's response was, "huh?" J said, "the football game." Pooker, "There's a football game today?" J, "Yes! The Cowboys play every Thanksgiving. You're wearing a Dallas Cowboys shirt!" Pooker, "This is a football team? Huh. Someone gave this to me. We're playing Dungeons and Dragons downstairs if you want." J did not want. But gaming is pretty typical. Also, there's usually a puzzle. We play a lot of Risk, Trivial Pursuit (the best way to show off your know-it-all-ness), Settlers, Cranium, Balderdash and Scattergories. We are super competitive. It isn't Thanksgiving unless someone (usually Beadle) has stomped out of the room in anger. It is also quite likely that they couldn't have watched the game because there isn't a working tv in the house. The ones that are there are used for mostly for gaming and dvd's. My parents won't get cable and, since the switch from analog to digital is a giant government conspiracy (more on these later) probably never will.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Monday, March 2, 2015
A Game of Thrones Tangent
This has nothing to do with my weird family (well maybe it does, half of them have read the books but refuse to watch the tv show for purist reasons, also because they don't have cable, and never will). If you're not into Game of Thrones, just weird families, you can skip over this post. I just have this theory I have to get off my chest. Does anyone else think that Jon Snow is actually Lyanna Stark's son? I've thought that from the beginning. I think his dad is probably Rhaegar Targaryeon, and Ned hid him from Robert to protect him. Or Robert could be the dad, I guess, just the secrecy seems less necessary. Anyway, I welcome your thoughts.
Also, he's super hot.
Exhibit B: The Know-It-All Factor
I debated long and hard about this post. I know it will cause some tension, but it is too funny not to share. Now, I want to be clear, my family members are some of the smartest people I know. But intelligence and reasoning are two very separate gifts. One of their flaws is that most of them believe they know more than you about any given subject. I'm not excluding myself from this, I have certainly been guilty of it more times than I care to admit. I was lectured to on a variety of subjects from how to properly load a dishwasher to the correct pronunciation of Celeborn from a very young age. This led to outrageous competitiveness and not very good sportsmanship. I like to think I have been humbled as an adult and no longer do this, but I'm sure I sink back into old habits sometimes. Here are some examples of my family being know-it-alls when, in fact, they should have just let it go.
I like to cook dinner for my family when I go to visit. Because for the most part they are not accomplished in the kitchen and my dad doesn't believe in salt. Last year I made some pasta. It was readily devoured because I'm a decent cook. After, my dad asks me what kind of cheese I put on it. I said, "goat cheese." He and my brother look at me baffled and my dad says, "yes, but what kind of goat cheese? There are lots of them." The two of them proceed to list all the exotic cheeses they can think of. Here are the ones I remember: Camembert, Brie, Romano, Feta and Roquefort. Okay, I'm no cheese expert, so I say, "I don't think those are made from goat milk. All I know is I go to the deli and buy a little container that says "Goat Cheese" on it." Like so:
An argument over the ridiculousness of this statement ensues.
By the way, Camembert and Brie are traditionally made with cow's milk. Romano too, although it can be made with goat's milk, but that still wouldn't make it goat cheese. Feta and Roquefort are sheep's milk. To be fair I had to Wiki all of those except Roquefort. But that is all beside the point because goat cheese (also called chevre) is it's own separate kind of cheese, not all cheeses that use goat's milk are goat cheese. But somehow, despite my culinary prowess and grocery store knowledge, I couldn't not be correct in this case. Luckily, however, I got the last word, because I wrote a blog about it. Clearly I'm super mature and have outgrown all the competitiveness.
I went to visit my ailing grandpa a few summers ago. Posted on the front door was piece of paper printed up by my dad warning of the presence of MRSA Medication Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus in the home and a list of precautionary measures to avoid infection by said fell bacterium. I may not be a cheese expert, but I majored in microbiology, so I know a little about bacteria. So, when I went inside I said, to my mother, "Slugweirta, don't you mean methicillin resistant staph aureus? That's what MRSA stands for."
Wanting the situation to sound as dire as possible she says, "no, this is new strain it's resistant to all medication." I bite my tongue. Because I'm a grown up and stuff.
To my dying day I will not be able to explain the following story. At Beadle's bridal shower we played a game, you had to list words that start with each letter of the alphabet that have something to do with the topic "Wedding Day" if someone else has the same answer as you, you don't get a point. Like Scattergories. The following is what I can remember of my mother's list
Anxiety (ok, fair enough 1 pt)
Barf (What? that's a lot of anxiety)
Diarrhea
Escherichia coli (I'm not sure how bacteria got involved here, at least they're susceptible to medication)
Fainting (I can see that)
GERD (reflux? really?)
Jaundice (unless you drank yourself to liver failure, I don't see this)
Kuru (if you don't know, this is a degenerative brain disease that you get from eating human brains)
Nausea
Panic
Queasiness
Tired
Unhappy
Venereal disease (nice, mom)
Xenophobia
There was one for every letter, she got 26 points, because no one wanted to argue with her.
The last story is about Beadle, losing her mind about losing to my husband at a game of mini golf. I know she is super embarrassed about this story, but it makes me laugh every time I think of it. Apparently she prides herself on her putt-putt skills.
I like to cook dinner for my family when I go to visit. Because for the most part they are not accomplished in the kitchen and my dad doesn't believe in salt. Last year I made some pasta. It was readily devoured because I'm a decent cook. After, my dad asks me what kind of cheese I put on it. I said, "goat cheese." He and my brother look at me baffled and my dad says, "yes, but what kind of goat cheese? There are lots of them." The two of them proceed to list all the exotic cheeses they can think of. Here are the ones I remember: Camembert, Brie, Romano, Feta and Roquefort. Okay, I'm no cheese expert, so I say, "I don't think those are made from goat milk. All I know is I go to the deli and buy a little container that says "Goat Cheese" on it." Like so:
An argument over the ridiculousness of this statement ensues.
By the way, Camembert and Brie are traditionally made with cow's milk. Romano too, although it can be made with goat's milk, but that still wouldn't make it goat cheese. Feta and Roquefort are sheep's milk. To be fair I had to Wiki all of those except Roquefort. But that is all beside the point because goat cheese (also called chevre) is it's own separate kind of cheese, not all cheeses that use goat's milk are goat cheese. But somehow, despite my culinary prowess and grocery store knowledge, I couldn't not be correct in this case. Luckily, however, I got the last word, because I wrote a blog about it. Clearly I'm super mature and have outgrown all the competitiveness.
I went to visit my ailing grandpa a few summers ago. Posted on the front door was piece of paper printed up by my dad warning of the presence of MRSA Medication Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus in the home and a list of precautionary measures to avoid infection by said fell bacterium. I may not be a cheese expert, but I majored in microbiology, so I know a little about bacteria. So, when I went inside I said, to my mother, "Slugweirta, don't you mean methicillin resistant staph aureus? That's what MRSA stands for."
Wanting the situation to sound as dire as possible she says, "no, this is new strain it's resistant to all medication." I bite my tongue. Because I'm a grown up and stuff.
To my dying day I will not be able to explain the following story. At Beadle's bridal shower we played a game, you had to list words that start with each letter of the alphabet that have something to do with the topic "Wedding Day" if someone else has the same answer as you, you don't get a point. Like Scattergories. The following is what I can remember of my mother's list
Anxiety (ok, fair enough 1 pt)
Barf (What? that's a lot of anxiety)
Diarrhea
Escherichia coli (I'm not sure how bacteria got involved here, at least they're susceptible to medication)
Fainting (I can see that)
GERD (reflux? really?)
Jaundice (unless you drank yourself to liver failure, I don't see this)
Kuru (if you don't know, this is a degenerative brain disease that you get from eating human brains)
Nausea
Panic
Queasiness
Tired
Unhappy
Venereal disease (nice, mom)
Xenophobia
There was one for every letter, she got 26 points, because no one wanted to argue with her.
The last story is about Beadle, losing her mind about losing to my husband at a game of mini golf. I know she is super embarrassed about this story, but it makes me laugh every time I think of it. Apparently she prides herself on her putt-putt skills.
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