Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Remember This Game

Hello from the calm before the cooking storm, chez Bionique. My mother is here, which has forced us to begin to make inroads in the junk filling the "spare" room (of course, no room can ever be truly spare in a New York apartment), at least to the extent that the aerobed can be jammed in there. Tomorrow, I will wear myself out cooking Thanksgiving dinner, as I love to do. I am still trying to decide which sweet potatoes to make: Sugar prefers them savory (being sufficiently sweet enough on her own, I reckon), but while I like them savory, I LOVE cold leftovers of sweet potato pudding, gobbled on its own or as a dense layer in the "Thanksgiving sandwich" I look forward to all year. (A Thanksgiving sandwich is turkey, sweet potato pudding, cranberry sauce, gravy, and any other leftovers you care to stick in there, all cold.)

Besides sweet potatoes of one or more kinds, we'll have turkey (we are not vegetarians, only lesbians), cornbread and pecan dressing, biscuit, maybe some mashed potatoes (lest we die of carb deficiency at table), a few pies, a non-wheat dessert (the surprisingly lovely almond cake from IKEA? candied pecans and baked apples?) and whatever other oddments occur to me in the next 24 hours. (Gravy, ice cream for the pies, and other such condiments are implied, of course; and cheese, bread, nuts, and pear paste to build the appetite. Can't be too careful.)

The Dane-stralian family will be bringing green beans, cranberry sauce, and their very scrumptious nearly-3-year-old. I've been a boorish hostess and made it clear that no orange nonsense is welcome in cranberry sauce at my house, thank ye. Another friend is bringing a mushroom dish that apparently cooks for nine hours. I reckon we won't be TOO hungry after.

Meanwhile, what are YOU making (or eating) for Thanksgiving?

I thought perhaps it might be nice to play our old Come And Eat game this weekend, with posts about what you eat at Thanksgiving dinner or what you eat instead or what you do with the leftovers -- or what have you, my dear, benighted, unAmerican friends. (I admit that those of you with antipodean addresses are likely too high on the coming of spring to need a big feast to cheer you on, but the rest of y'all in northern climes must be dreading the dark, too. Nothing like a few thousand calories shoveled down in a single sitting to take the sting out of the coming of winter and/or prepare you for hibernation.)

So. Come And Eat, would you? Sign up below with the address of your food post, any time this weekend. Please paste the address of a particular post, not just your whole blog, so folks know where to comment.

7 comments:

  1. mmmm. can i come to your house? i vote for savory sweet potatoes!

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  2. So now I'm drooling at the computer reading your post.

    Because my parents are divorced (and remarried) and yet still live within an hour of each other, Thanksgiving weekend for years has meant this frantic shuffle between houses. Most years that means we end up with two Thanksgiving dinners- one memorable year my sisters and I managed to somehow miss the main event in both households. We decided that the calorie-laden stupor of dual dinners was a better option than that!

    At my mum's we always have turkey, cranberry sauce, boxed stuffing (which my little sister loves), mashed potatoes, broccoli with cheese sauce, turnip, usually some other veggie (green beans often), and pumpkin pie.

    At my dad's we have turkey, my step-mother's sweet potato casserole (which is to die for), her amazing stuffing, some traditional Portuguese soup made by her family, Portuguese sausages, mashed potato, some sort of pie (not always pumpkin).

    Plus nibbles and drinks at both houses including (at my mum's) my grannie's patented spinach dip in a pumpernickel loaf.

    Basically it is a giant carb-fest all weekend.

    Ooh- now you've got me looking forward to Christmas!

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  3. Mmm, your feast sounds delish. C and I are opting out of Thanksgiving with her brother and his 6 kids + 2 stepkids (not a hard choice) and having Cornish hens and all the standard Thanksgiving fare. Assuming I can cook it up without too much nausea-- raw meats are grossing me out even more than normal these days. Will try to remember to do a food post and add it here. :)

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  4. I'm going out to dinner with friends, and feeling happy that I will be with friends, but a little wistful that I'm not cooking up a feast. I think next year I'll do the feast thing. And I'll do it right: Green bean casserole made from cans. Mmmmm gourmet, hoosier style.

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  5. Cupcakes.
    Not an euphemism.
    Not t-day related.
    Log your lunch.

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  6. sadly no personal post i can point you to but when i was hanging out at L&D a few weeks ago i was watching the food network and saw a recipe for maple roasted sweet potatoes. (see all the hidden benefits of trips to L&D). maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, and caramelized onions. they were incredible! sweet but not too sweet. Hope you ladies had a lovely day!

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