sean’s place

Gobble-de-Mmm.

Thanksgiving has again, come and gone. Turkeys have been slaughtered, stuffed, basted, and roasted in ovens across the country, yielding their delicious meat to families and traditions.

The Rees House at Carmichael were invited as a whole to Thanksgiving celebrations at The Rees House of Palos Verdes, an invitation we politely declined. We preferred to keep it small and to ourselves as we are apt to do. Sarah was gracious enough to join us in our celebrations, and even provided sound culinary advice and assistance. Her thoughtfulness and skill with a whisk livened up the whole house.

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Ugh. Way too verbose…

So, Sarah joined us for Thanksgiving at my parents’ house. Dad prepared a lovely turkey (cooked to the right temperature) stuffed with a stuffing that Sarah and I made. We used Alton’s recipe with our own modifications (proportions of ingredients and choice of spices, primarily) and stuffed the whole shebang into a stuffing bag. Stuffing bags are great! They allow for relatively easy insertion and extraction from a turkey, which is important, especially if the turkey is done before the stuffing is. In our case, the turkey came up to temperature a few minutes ahead of the stuffing, so we pulled out the stuffing, bag and all, and parked it right back in the hot box. Both turkey and stuffing were highly excellent.

Sarah and I also put together some lovely mashed potatoes and gravy. The gravy was cool since we used the turkey drippings with generous portions of red wine. Sarah whipped up a roux with the turkey fat and flour to thicken the sauce. We added sauteed giblets and onions to the gravy which Sarah insists made it unflatteringly chunky. I didn’t catch any chunkies in my gravy, so I can’t really attest to that.

Dad whipped up a delicious persimmon pudding for dessert to pair with a chocolate fudge cake in celebration of my brother’s recent 21st birthday. Happy Birthday bro. The persimmon pudding was highly delicious and its remnants are cooled in my fridge waiting for consumption.

This thanksgiving hopefully represents the final high-gear cookery in that kitchen as we know it. Mom and Dad are about to undertake a long and expensive process of remodeling the house. The kitchen will be completely redeveloped with new appliances and features. Hopefully next year will see the first big dinner in the new house.

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Sarah and I proceeded from Carmichael back to Fresno to drop off the kittens and for her to practice. We then went up to Coarsegold for Thanksgiving #2 at Sarah’s parents’ (can someone tell me what the rules are for double possessives like this as it relates to apostrophe usage, please? :)) house. It was a major bash with 14 someodd people showing up, eating, and being familylike. Emily (Sarah’s sister) brought a few Thanksgivingly underprivileged friends to the festivities. All in all, it made for a nice night out with the girlfriend and her family.

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I have since consumed all the leftovers from my parents’ house, except the small portion of Persimmon pudding. That will be gone soon, too.