No no no.... Thank YOU!

I suppose I'll get in on the action of post-Thanksgiving wrap up. When we left off, I was still in the shopping and prepping phase. The day itself began with a brine.


Here's that lovely delicious turkey bath. Water, kosher salt, honey, a lemon, an orange, whole cloves, bay leaves, and peppercorns. After putting the brine together on Wednesday morning, I rushed off to a double shift (on the craziest bar night of the year, in fact).

After surviving lunch and dinner, it was home again to make some stuffing. This is when things got a little tricky. I was a leeetle tired, a touch hurried, and just a smidgeon preoccupied with the desire to get the hell into bed. Add one crusty loaf of sourdough, one dull-ass bread knife, and instructions for a 1/3 of an inch dice, and you get:




A rather nasty slice through my left index finger. The good news: I stopped cutting before I sawed off the tip of my finger. Also good news: my knife-weilding hand is fine (though it would take a really special someone to cut their knife hand... or a really special knife), so my ability to continue in my Thanksgiving cookery role is shaken, but holding on. Bad news: Bleeding. Bleeding a lot. I was luckily too angry by the delay to get all woozy as one might when one sustains a nasty cut to the finger. My anger manifested itself in me running around the downstairs at 11:30pm, clutching a paper towel to my finger, screeching obscenities. It was at this moment that I decided to enlist my mother, a skilled Nurse Practitioner, who'd just gone to bed.

Me: (At the bottom of the stairs, tentatively, but with some urgency) "Mo-om? I cut myself pretty badly."

Mom: (Appearing on the landing in her bathrobe, trepidatious) "What?"

Me: "Yeah, pretty bad. With the bread knife."

Mom: (she has not seen it yet) "Jesus Christ!"

Me: (ascending the stairs, arm outstretched) "Do you think I need stitches? Please tell me I don't need stitches."

Mom: (looking at finger) "Jesus Christ Sheena!"

- It should be noted here that my mother is not a blasphemer by hobby, but rather finds taking the name of the Lord to be steadying in the face of her idiot children hurting themselves, thereby worrying her. Her bedside manner with her real patients is impeccable. With us it's a little adversarial.

My mother ruled that stitches would be useless for the type of wound, a ____ion (one of those medical words she throws around and I forget), expertly anointed and wrapped my finger in bandages, and scolded me soundly. Luckily, my middle name didn't enter the equation at all, so I know I'm not in too much trouble. She warned that the finger would "Throb like a mo-fo" (she was right... ) and told me to stop what I was doing and get some sleep for Christ's sake.

I finished assembling the stuffing nine-fingered (sorry Mom... had to be done) and retired.

Thanksgiving morning, with my finger thumping away, we welcomed cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandmother to the melee of meal preparation. Dad handled the musclework of getting the turkey from its briny bucket to the roasting rack, while I sliced brussels sprouts and Hayley chopped mushrooms. My cousins were put to work on the pies:

Here is Shayne, assembling a Tarte Tatin (with pears instead of apples)



Here, my cousin Corey helps Shayne with the Tarte.


Naomi displays the caramel pumpkin pie filling.


Here's the bird, right out of the oven, perfectly crispy and golden thanks to the convection setting.

And the turkey's friend, Prime Rib:


Here's my uncle Mark, enjoying a prime rib chew:


Generational portrait!



Much food was eaten and good times were had by all. Many thanks to my impromptu army of sous-chefs.

Tomorrow, I'll post about a Joshie weekend, and two new installments of Big Dude, Small Dog.

Diwali is a festival of lights....

I was tempted to congratulate myself on posting so hot on the heels of my last effort, but then I realized that these photos are a week old and, well...

Anyway, here are some pictures of my compatriots at work on the night of Halloween and a few from the previous Saturday, which was Halloween, (drunkenly) Observed For the Purposes of Partying. The chronology may be a little bitched up, but stay with me.

Here's Dan[imal], the nighttime grill cook. His official costume on Saturday night was Clean Sanchez, superhero who fights crimes of the sexually perverse. His Halloween night costume was hat-based to avoid long sleeves catching fire and whatnot, so he sort of looked more like a Gay Mexican. Here he displays a plate of chicken nachos.
















Here's my boss, Aeva, and her mother, Jess. At 14 months, Aeva is deeply enamored of skeletons and scary witches, but Jess's chicken costume was more than she could take. She ran away when Jess made her first appearance....





















Aeva, as you can see, was dressed as a laser of cute. So... much... cute.
















Here's Chelsea, dressed as a pink bunny. Heather, in the background, was an elven archer, replete with pointy ears.




















Jen, a beer wench.




















Mike, sporting another hat-based costume. It's at a jaunty angle, to the north-east.
















Izzy's barber-shop quartet-style hat.
















John, dressed as "Random things found in the restaurant's office." Smashing.




















Josh told fortunes whilst washing dishes.




















Jay, one of the fabulous bartenders, as a sleepy cowboy. Sure can't quit him.




















Amy, a woodland fairy. She also had pointy ears.




















Here's Aeva, again, inspecting our decorations. Note how she's not frightened of the witch hiding behind the tree.
















This is me, perhaps the day after Halloween, sporting one half of The Great American Hat Swap of 2006. Mike took my awesome tweedy hat on tour with his band, and left this Fidel-ish one in exchange. It's a new plateau in our friendship, you see.




















Rewind to Saturday. Bridget, jetlag up the wazoo, dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and ready to party.



















I got all pirated up and off we went to see aforementioned local band play in Manch-Vegas. Here's an extreme close-up at the show.














Juliana, decked out as a fabulous Cleopatra.



















Then I got distracted and didn't take any more blog-worth photos.... so let's fast-forward back to Halloween and the super cute parade of children that went by the restaurant in the middle of the day.

Here's a kid dressed as Gene Simmons from KISS, mugging for the camera.
















A cowgirl, replete with horse. Soooo cute.















Here's another good one... a praying mantis.
















And, the thing de la resistance: a tornado! He has little matchbox cars and whatnot glued to body of the tornado. He was a rather intense little kid, and the costume was a bit unweildy, but I tip my cap to him. Very cute and creative, considering the eleventy billion kids in Darth Vader outfits.