November 21: Pre-holiday prep

The day before Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because I can just cook and cook all day long. I did a bunch of cleaning too, but that's always there.

Today I baked 3 pies: traditional pecan, dark chocolate bourbon pecan, and a backup pumpkin in case Trick Shot's pumpkin pie gets all eaten. I also made vegetarian wild rice stuffing. I ran out of brown rice so I had to substitute some quinoa; we'll see how that works out. More rosemary bread because it's been pretty popular this month. Raisin sauce for the ham. Wine.

No wait. I drank the wine. Nevermind.

Cranberry sauce I made a couple of weeks ago because it's better after it ages. And I did lots more chopping and prepping for the big push tomorrow. You know, the mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, balsamic glazed carrots and parsnips, fluffy white rolls, bread and sage stuffing .....

And then at the last minute I whipped up a dark chocolate flourless cake just in case we needed more dessert. I do that every year and I always make too much .... which is what Thanksgiving is all about.

I've got a 5- pound spiral-cut ham and a 23-pound turkey that was running around the farm as of last Saturday. Farmer Mak took them to a processor this year instead of doing the butchering at the farm like we did last year. I checked to see if the bird fits in the roaster. It's several inches too tall. Looks like I'll have to McGyver something with foil, duct tape, and spit. I'll be up early stuffing and roasting, peeling and baking.

My guests had better wear their muumuus because a feast will be laid up in this house tomorrow and everybody better go home full.

Elvira stopped over with homemade mac and cheese and a couple dozen pumpkin cupcakes. Drake's dog Duke ate all but 9 of the cupcakes in under 5 minutes. As Drake said, she loves animals too much to be mad at Duke. Drake's going to have to answer for the missing cupcakes.

Drake got home this evening and helped me with the heavy lifting: carrying all of my music gear that was set up in the dining room upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms. Setting up tables. Watching a movie. We thought he was going to have to work at the nursing home, so it's good to have him here.

Now I'm going to catch a few hours of sleep before I have to wrestle that bird into the roaster. Tomorrow night I'll be back here, uncomfortably full and stewing in turkey farts, stretching out my yoga pants as far as lycra will stretch, writing something about the events of the day.

You have yourself a great Thanksgiving. And find something to be grateful for. It's there if you want to see it.