Five Things, Thanksgiving Edition

Estea tagged me!

The Rules:   

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

Check.
 

2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

Five random or weird things about me? Isn't every post pretty much a weird or random thing about me? Thank god it's Thanksgiving.

one big bird, Kosher this year, so no brining--yay, less work!

1. Thanksgiving is my very favorite holiday. I'm happy to make Halloween costumes, get presents at Christmas, eat chocolate for... anytime, but Thanksgiving is my favorite. I love the huge production of the meal. I love cooking for friends and family, eating and drinking wine and eating some more. I love watching the high school marching bands from all over the country parading past Macy's on TV, and seeing the first airing of It's a Wonderful Life each year. I love that it's just all about being home and  knowing that you have it pretty good. I can complain with the best of them, but really, I've got it pretty good.

two issues of Cook's Illustrated to get me through the hard bits: butterflying the turkey and turning out a decent pie crust

2. Least traditional item on my Thanksgiving menu: burnt caramel ice cream. (Yum!) I was angling for some baba ghanouj, but Michael said no.

three pickled veggies: beans, beets, asparagus (only the beets are homemade)

3. Three random places I have celebrated Thanksgiving: Plymouth, Massachusetts (not at Plimoth Plantation though--I hear the food there is pretty, er, traditional); in a huge fancy hotel in Osaka, Japan (the food was not particularly traditional, as I recall, but I do remember that it was good); with my Palestinian-American insurance agent and his family (I was stuck in D.C. alone that year. I was working for my uncle at the time, and he went to my parents' house in Indiana and ate my mom's Thanksgiving dinner while I stayed behind to work on Friday. Hmph. I had a lovely time with Fouad's family though--the food was excellent, and I had never smoked a hookah pipe before.)

four discs of pie dough: two for a covered apple pie (in the oven now), one for pumpkin, one for pie crust cookies

4. Thanksgiving dish I'm grateful I couldn't find the ingredients for: Grandma's Cranberry-Orange Jell-O. My sister, who's coming up from California to be our first-ever, my-side-of-the-family holiday guest (the lure of my mom's cooking is obviously very strong), asked for the Jell-O. Mom told me to buy the cranberry-orange relish in the freezer case, and I checked three supermarkets. No dice. Sorry, Meg.

five 1-pound potatoes--that's probably enough for seven adults and three kids, right? then again, I do want leftovers, so I'll probably use the other two in the bag

5. Ben was almost 3-years-old before I ever saw his blood. The kid was charmed and rather graceful, I guess. He didn't fall a lot and just never got hurt in a way that drew blood. When he finally did bleed, he had tripped, running on an unfamiliar path and fell down on his chin, I think. He still doesn't get hurt much, except by Lyra, who can be quite the tormentor. But today, I got a call from the school nurse--my first one ever! I'm officially thankful that this black eye is the result of a gym-class collision with his best friend (who got a big goose-egg on his forehead) and not a playground fight with some bully.

3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

Umm, this part makes me feel very shy (What if all these ladies hate chain letters? What if they all start to hate me? What if they have better things to do with their time?), but OK, here goes...

Marnie

Rashida

Michelle

Mary Beth

Whitney

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Check. 

5. Don’t break the chain!

My first chain letter. My mom will be so proud.

Happy Thanksgiving! And thanks, Estea! For the record, I don't hate you even a teensy bit.

Comments

[Michelle]

I don't hate you. ;) But, I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to this. The Etsy shop opening stresses me out a bit. I don't get a lot of time to do things where I actually have to focus.

Now I want to make cranberry orange Jello something-or-other -- sounds yummy.

[whitney]

I don't hate you, either ;)

But I, uh, broke the chain. The tagging, it stresses me way too much.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[estea]

no haters!

you need all the potatoes. heck, my chickadee eats 2 of the pounders.

i'm just sayin.

and shoot me an apple pie fedex, kay??

;)

[supa]

Thanks for the tag, Jen!