humans have meandered into this page.
|
|
It's June 12,1998, and I'm still at work. Okay, technically, it is now June 13; it's 1:30am. I still don't consider it the next day until I actually go to sleep and wake up. Then again, that's probably one of the reasons why my days seem to run together so often. So it is Saturday, June 13th, 1998. We all know what that means. It's Thanksgiving!. At least I have gotten most of the things I need, I even went out to run a couple of errands. I'm still in for a fairly long night. I have to go home and bake one of Frank's Almost World Famous Cheesecakes and I picked up a recipe from my friends' mother for cornbread dressing, which I should really put together tonight. The cornbread dressing is somewhat of an experiment since I've never even tasted it before, I just got the recipe, the things we will do for friends. It's going to be a fairly long night.
At this point, you're probably thinking that I'm lying and pulling your leg or I've finally gone completely insane. Neither actually, there's a perfectly logical explanation for all this. Years ago, when I first moved to Seattle, I didn't have family here; no one with whom I could spend Thanksgiving. There were a number of us who were single and without local family and we decided to spend Thanksgiving together. [still following here?] After a few years of this, some of us have either developed other relationships or now have the means to fly home for Thanksgiving, so it seems that year after year the crowd becomes smaller and smaller. Not to say that I get depressed during Thanksgiving; I don't. However, it dawned on me that I don't get to see the friends that I used to see during Thanksgiving, and I missed them…
This is the part that people think is a bit unorthodox. It would stand to reason that any day is a good day to give thanks. The logical thing to do is to celebrate another Thanksgiving, where I could invite my friends for dinner when they would not have family commitments. Since then, to my guests and I, Thanksgiving is a semi-annual event. This is my fourth semi-annual Thanksgiving. No joke. I was actually debating whether or not to have it on June 20th, but I decided against it… Read on.
I head home and start cooking. It's about 2am and I'm starting to cook some of the things for tomorrow. I just got the recipe for the cornbread dressing a few days ago and have never tasted it and don't know what it looks like either. Why am I making it? I have a couple of friends, Trudy and Aaron (siblings by the way), who have both voiced that it just isn't Thanksgiving without cornbread dressing. [Picky Southerners] So I decided that I would try to make it this year and e-mailed their mom for the recipe, and got the recipe and self-rising corn meal. [Thanks, Mrs. C.] The first step to making cornbread dressing is, as you might imagine, baking the cornbread. Now, I'm in my kitchen, mixing the contents for the cornbread with my electric hand mixer. [Incidentally, you have put together the fact that I'm using a hand mixer past 2am… you're right, it is quite noisy, I'm surprised none of my neighbors have ever complained] As I'm adding ingredients, I realize that one of the beaters on the mixer is not working. Terrific… I have about twenty guests coming tomorrow. Could I make this up? After careful inspection, I realize that it simply won't stay in place and I need to hold that beater flush to the bottom of the mixing bowl. Not catastrophic, but certainly a setback. Eventually, I manage to mix and bake the cornbread and let it sit for cooling.
Okay, now for the cheesecake… I'm known for my cheesecake. Why would I lie? I've baked dozens of them and have been known to bribe people with it. I also have the baking of the cheesecake down to a science, if you ignore the hideous crack across the top. First, you have to bake the crust. While you're pre-heating the oven put the packages of cream cheese in the oven… yes, whole. Why? The batter is much easier to make and will rise better and more consistently if it is warm. Warming the cheese will also make the batter much easier to mix; I have toasted hand mixers trying to mix cold cream cheese. If you have your timing down, you should finish putting the crust together to bake right around the time when the open is pre-heated (and the cream cheese is warm). Now you can start to mix the batter together. Keep in mind that, from the cornbread incident, one of my beaters is not working properly. [Sigh] Again, if you have your timing down, the process of baking the crust, letting it cool a bit, and setting the oven to the new heat settings should take about as long as preparing the batter. Since I'm working with a defective beater, it takes me a little longer. The cake goes into the oven without incident. Oh, if you want the recipe, send me mail.
The cornbread is now sufficiently cooled and I can continue the preparation for the dressing. This means that I have to crumple the cornbread. I have to do… What? Yep. Crumple the cornbread. So I'm sitting there past 3am, crumpling cornbread to make dressing. The things we do for friends. Some of the other ingredients to the dressing is chopped onions and chopped celery. Those are no big deal. I can chop vegetables without any problems. Hard-boiled eggs? So I put a few eggs to boil. Okay, this next one is going to seem silly to a number of you. Right about the time that the water starts to boil I realize that I have no idea how long to boil the eggs. None. Zilch. I can speculate that the recipe calls for hard yolks and have no idea how long that takes. I can bake two or three types of cheesecake, do an entire Thanksgiving meal, lasagna, pot roast, meatloaf, etc., but I don't know how long to boil eggs. I venture a guess at about four minutes, and it was a little premature… the yolks were still a tiny bit runny. I continue cooking… [chop… boil… crumple… mix…] and in the end I get some mass that has the consistency similar to meatloaf. Keep in mind that I've never cooked this before and don't even know what it looks like. I proceed to put this jumbled mess on a cookie sheet and put it in my refrigerator to bake for tomorrow.
The cheesecake is finished baking. Cooling the cheesecake is as important as baking it. First, you have to cut it around the edges of the springform pan, which I forgot to do by the way, and thus it cracked. Second, you loosen the springform pan. Third, you have to make sure it doesn't cool too quickly, which you can normally take care of by turn off the oven and leaving the door ajar. The crack on the cake is something that has haunted me for years. However, when I sent the mail with the invitations, I dared to say that I had figured out the final details to avoid the crack. Naturally, my friends would not stop with the comments on the crack. [Sigh]
The remainder of the night is spent cleaning up my place, which was in a particularly bad state of disarray. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say I stayed up until 7am and still wasn't finished. I decided I better get to some sleep or I would be totally incoherent tomorrow. I wake up at about 10am to finish cleaning up my place…
So the first thing I do is prepare the stuffing for the fifteen pound turkey. As I'm stuffing the turkey, my pager goes off. Hmm... someone has left me voice-mail at work. The chase begins. I first get a call from someone at work telling me that they need me to come in and take a look at something. After calling her back, I eventually get on the phone with my boss, who asks me if I could come in for a few minutes to drop something off. Okay, now do you think I'm about to tell them that I'm in the middle of cooking Thanksgiving dinner? Hmm… that would be a no. I did however mention that I was having a dinner party and I couldn't come in for very long.
I then get a call from my friend Carlos, who asks if I wanted to go on a bike ride. Are we forgetting something? I snap at him and ask him if he has forgotten dinner. You see… Carlos has a somewhat unreliable attendance record for such events, which is precisely the reason why I sent him reminder mail everyday for the past week. Naturally, he was just being a bonehead and wanted to irritate me. With friends like these…
After I get off the phone with Carlos, I finish stuffing the turkey, put it in the oven, and head to work for a few minutes. I got one of those turkeys that has a little spring loaded gadgets that pop up when it is ready. Those things are wonderful.
Once I get to work, the first thing I do is check mail. No (other) urgent issues. Thank goodness. I drop off what I needed to drop off and have to double check a few things with some folk to make sure they have everything they need from me. I give them my phone number and ask them to call if they encounter any problems. Escape! I head back home; the whole ordeal took about forty minutes including the trip.
Naturally, the first thing I do when I get home is check the turkey. It's doing okay; still too early to start basting. Now to continue cleaning up… I thought I had a vacuum cleaner somewhere. Oh, yes, there it is. So I start to vacuum my place. I have one of those canister vacuums that has an attachment with a revolving brush.
My roommate Magic just watches me do all this stuff and monitors my swift approach to the threshold of panic. He never helps me cook. He keeps complaining about the utensils. Truth be told, I don't really think he can cook, though he'll never admit it. The one thing to remember about Magic is not to ever play chess with him when money is involved.
As I'm vacuuming and Magic continues to get underfoot, the revolving brush on the vacuum cleaner stops working. Now, I'm thinking… This is an omen. Okay, not quite that melodramatic, but certainly it is going to be one of those days where Fate stops by and… tickles you. Or in this case gives you a solid slap on the face… with a dead fish… that weights thirty pounds. In any case, I finish vacuuming with one of the other attachments.
Just about the time that I finish vacuuming the door bell rings. It's about 2pm and this is around the time when I told folks that they could begin to arrive. It's Jim. I welcome him in. He helps me put the last minute stuff away. [Thanks, Jim. I owe you!] He also looks over my collection of videotapes and picks out a movie, Back to the Future. Actually, it is somewhat of a tradition. Right about this time, Carlos arrives. He sits down and starts chatting with Jim, and proceeds to be well, for lack of a better description… Carlos
Back to dinner. Now the key to a good dinner is timing. Frankly, I don't know how so many homemakers manage to do it everyday. The one instrumental problem with Thanksgiving is the turkey. The cooking time varies way too much to synchronize to, you can just hope that it finishes at roughly the time that the directions say. Figuring that it should be done at about 4pm, I should start the potatoes soon. I make the standard mashed potatoes and scalloped potatoes, the latter being a microwave recipe. I can just see some of you wincing out there wondering if I'm really going to serve frozen food. I'm not I'm one of those folks that believes that you can cook things from scratch from the microwave. I know microwave recipes for meatloaf, pot roast, lasagna, and others. I'm boiling the water for the mashed potatoes, putting together the sauce for the scalloped potatoes, and I'm peeling potatoes. Some potatoes will have to be diced and others will have to be sliced, and hopefully, all my fingers will stay intact. Just kidding about that, I'm quite handy with a cleaver as well… Butterfly knives are a different story.
As more guests arrive, I remind them that there are a number of things that Lucas is not aware of so they should try to avoid them. First, I have a tattoo; not that I'm ashamed of it or anything, but I don't want him to get one simply because I got one. Second, this home page, the Lair, exists, not that I think there is anything wrong with what I say here, but I'm abiding by his mother's wishes. Finally, I carry a butterfly knife, not particularly constructive to an impressionable teen either.
As the first movie, Back to the Future finishes, we pick a new movie. We decide on The Princess Bride; it is simply a charming and wonderful movie. Very tongue-in-cheek and fun. One of my favorite movies as a matter of fact. So we plop it in and start watching it.
Somewhere around this time my friend Jim has to leave. Unfortunately he misses dinner and the remainder of the good stuff. He has a friend flying in from out of town. [Sorry, Jim] It's a shame, he has been a pretty consistent guest at Thanksgiving.
I normally do all the cooking, but there are a number of things that I normally have people bring. Bread for instance. I've found that fresh bread is particularly good for such a meal and I normally ask someone to bring some; today it was Len. When he arrives, he shows up with three loaves of bread and a mysterious brown paper bag. [Yes… I found this a bit curious, but I didn't ask any questions] Salad is another, I asked Dalia to bring a green salad and she obliged. Oh, and last but not least, I asked my friend Tom to bring an additional dessert, since I was afraid that the one cheesecake may not be enough dessert for this many folks.
The turkey finishes a little early, but use it as a head start to bake the cornbread dressing and the Honey Baked ham. They bake for about forty-five minutes. This also gives me a chance to finish off the rest of the dishes. The scalloped potatoes are nearly finished, I still have to mash potatoes and prepare the gravy. They all get finished without much incident… although I think I may have made the gravy a bit salty. Everything else turned out fine.
The dinner is buffet style, since there's no way I can sit that many people around the table, which normally sits four. There are about twelve guests. I have my friend Ted carve the turkey. Why? I don't know; I just always found all the turkey carving rituals as a bit silly and outdated. My guests seemed uncharacteristically apprehensive about getting food. This worried me at first, but they were just waiting for someone else to be first. So we eat, chat, and watch the movie. [Like what else do you do for Thanksgiving?]
About the dressing… For all you Southerners out there, you probably realized from before that cornbread dressing is supposed to have the consistency of about cornbread… maybe a little moister. You have probably realized by now that I had inadvertently baked it wrong. [Sheesh] I had this mass that is supposed to resemble moist cornbread and instead bears a striking resemblance to brownies. [Did I mention that I didn't know how this was supposed to look or taste like?] It was still delicious. Though next time I'll make sure that I bake it correctly… maybe I'll invite Aaron for a trial run. Dalia helps me out with some of the dishwashing to make sure everyone has enough plates and silverware and also starts to clean up some of the pots. [Thanks, Dalia] She is truly a blessing.
Some additional guests arrive a little later… Rich, Marty, and their families (wives and kids). The kids seem to have a delightful time playing with Magic. Although certainly sociable, he seems lack their… enthusiasm for fun and games. Now, I won't say that he is child-phobic, but maybe a bit terse around kids. Eventually he retires to one of the other rooms for a bit of peace and quiet. Unfortunately, right about this time, Dalia and Lucas have to leave. Obviously, I'm disappointed, but naturally I understand. They too had other commitments. I walked them out.
Tom arrives with his wife, and joins in the festivities. They were at their kid's baseball (or was it tee-ball?) game and it was running a little late. No big deal. There's plenty of food. We all continue talking and chatting about what has been going on and what we were all working on. After sitting for a while, on the verge of a tryptophan-induced coma, someone suggests dessert. Naturally. After all, what would Thanksgiving be without one of my cheesecakes.
As I'm serving the cheesecake, I remember something… I had asked Tom to bring some other dessert, which he seems to have forgotten, but it is not really a big deal. That's about the time I started to hear the singing. You know the one… "Happy birthday…" Actually, it is not my (thirtieth) birthday yet. Not for another six days; it's on the nineteenth. Terrific This is precisely the reason why I didn't want to do it on the twentieth. I figured someone was bound to remember. Doing Thanksgiving a week earlier would almost guarantee it being overlooked. No such luck. Don't get me wrong. I'm touched that they remembered; I just didn't want dinner to be about my birthday. I got a very cool cake by the way, with a Mickey Mouse cake decorations. [Thanks, Tom] Len and company proceed to do an impromptu decoration of my place with birthday stuff… a banner… balloons… you get the idea. That explains the mysterious brown paper bag. I even got a few gifts. The loot is as follows:
- A Seattle Mariner's baseball cap (from Scott), one that commemorates the winning of the American League West.
- A book (from Len), A Magic Season: The Year the Mariners Made Seattle a Baseball Town
- A magnet sign (from Erin), "We the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing!"
- Big 30 Age Amnesia Pills (again from Erin) - These pills induce instant "AGE AMNESIA". You will have no recollection of how OLD you really are. Directions: Take them as often as necessary to forget the many hard years that have rendered your face, body and mind to such a pitiful condition. Side Effects: May cause strong sexual desires and delusions of youth and vigor. Caution: While under the influence of this pill… STAY AWAY FROM MIRRORS! (Especially if you're nude), The shock could be fatal! [Thanks, Erin]
Well, after the traditional making wishes and blowing of the candles, we continue with cutting the cakes… both of them. And the birthday festivities continued. All in all, it was the typical Thanksgiving-in-June/six-day-early-birthday celebration. Nevertheless very fun. I do regret the fact that Dalia, Lucas, and Jim missed the festivities, but would later be able to celebrate my actual birthday with them. One by one, my guests start to leave, and I see them to their cars and bid them farewell and thank them for coming to Thanksgiving.
I had an incredibly good time doing this again and look forward to the Thanksgiving in November. Although, I'm toying with the idea of making that one a barbecue. I would like to thank all my friends for making this day such a happy and memorable one… even if it wasn't actually my birthday.
Of course, now comes the worst part of Thanksgiving… cleaning up. Every Thanksgiving I have to learn to use my dishwasher again, since I normally wash my dishes by hand. [Really] Today, I think I'll take a nap first. I still have other things that I need to attend to. I should check on the status of what's going on at work. Eventually, I should get my vacuum cleaner fixed and replace my mixer.
Damn! I forgot the peas and the cranberry sauce.
June 30, 1998