Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving sucked. OK, not entirely but still. I love my family but I had none of them with me. My dad is in BC, as is my sister and brother-in-law, as is a semi-sister. I have two other semi-sisters, but one is in Edmonton and the other had to work. Although we did get enough time in to have a slice of pie together so I did have a smidge of family time.

What I did have big time was a headache. As a matter of fact I wouldn't be surprised to be told that my MRI revealed a large number of microscopic miners in my head, all of them working feverishly away with their little pickaxes.

Despite the lack of family and the lack of good health I - for no good reason other than I like leftovers - cooked a turkey. With stuffing. And I baked a pie. Which I did get a piece of, as did MayB. I would have had a second piece but in my headache driven stupidity I left the remainder of the pie on the table. And it's a given that anything left on the table will be consumed by the large black beast that roams the house pretending that no one ever feeds her.

The kids think that the little puppy talked big puppy into knocking said pie onto the floor and that he got some but large puppy definitely was definitely doing the "I-just-ate-the-rest-of-the-pie" guilt crawl, so I'm pretty sure she got it all. I suppose that is one way to diet; make sure all fattening left-overs are within reach of the dog.

I was faced the next day with the bird. Or what remained after the carving fight (if I'd filmed my "carving", it would be a hit on youtube. It was a fight to the finish...and the dead bird won). I packaged up enough for two really large turkey pies, and one meal of hot turkey sandwiches. I gave the stuffing to the dogs and then I made stock with the bits and pieces. Lots of stock. Many many cups of it. 32 cups, actually. It's a good thing we eat a lot of soup over the course of a winter, because that is a whole lot of stock.

My main regret is that I made the pie - because I can't bring myself to go the tinned route - with butternut squash and something from the garden. Because I'm pretty sure that big puppy didn't take the time to consider how much better a pie is when you start from scratch. I'm not even sure she took the time to savour it. I've seen her in action, it really is more of a pelican-with-a-fish gulping thing that she does.