In a few minutes, the Very Tall Husband and I are off to beautiful Cave Junction, Oregon to spend turkey day with his parents. Updates from me will be sparse (if not non-existent) until I get back on Sunday night.
So, to all our readers in the US: Hope all of you have a safe, fun, food-filled Thanksgiving, and may your relatives be minimally difficult and/or embarrassing. If they aren’t, then can I recommend the Seventh Generation kitchen cleaner with hydrogen peroxide as an EXCELLENT way to remove difficult and hideous stains, up to and including blood? Just keep spraying and blotting, spraying and blotting….
And Sarah adds…
I am hosting Turkey Day at Chez SB Sarah, since really, no one is coming for the food OR to see us. They all want to visit and hold and cuddle and keep awake for endless hours the adorable Mr. Freebird. So Happy Turkey Day, and here’s some unbelievable cuteness to make up for the indigestion.
Oh dear. Would you believe I lived in Cave Junction once? I seem to remember lots of pot and guns. And we lived across from a petting zoo with large cats. And were once told to stay inside because a wolf got loose. Of all the places I lived, Cave Junction was the most umm…interesting. And colorful.
but I really miss the blackberries.
Okay. Enough about that.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Best Thanksgiving greeting, ever! Freebird is too cute – I don’t blame the Turkey Day visitors. I’m fond of cuddling babies myself. Just so long as I can hand them back…
Thanks SBs!
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. As for me – I could hike across the Sahara with no provisions except water and still be overweight on the other side.
Nicole: Holy crap. The Very Tall Husband’s parents live just down the street from that petting zoo. I can hear the lions grumbling and roaring some nights.
Did you attend Illinois Valley High at any point? And if you did, did you remember a really, really, really tall guy with curly hair named Michael?
Stef: Ooof, I hear you about the overeating. I had two servings of rum cake. TWO. And I was already full. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. Something along the lines of “Oh, cake doesn’t count as REAL food. I have a separate cake compartment!”
I was wrong.
Owwwww.
That is one very, very cute Freebird! Apart from an underdone turkey (I *told* mom not to take it out of the oven until the meat thermometer said 180!!!) it was a good day here—ate too much, had a nap, ducked some family drama, taught a kid how to ride his bike, did some edits on one book, finished writing another. I’m tired now, wonder why?
Oh, and I feel like a huge fat pig because my “fat jeans” are now TIGHT. Waaah, I’m a cow!
Dude, if I was faced with rum cake, I’d most likely eat three pieces – that stuff is unholy delicious.
My downfall was the mashed potatoes.
Well, and the dressing.
And the corn pudding.
And the….
Mother of God, stop me. I’m going to have nightmares about yams, chasing me through ginormous pens of gobbling turkeys…
It’s 12:50 in the a.m. and I’m finally out of the kitchen and done looking at food. But it was a great Turkey Day. Good friends, good family, lots of fun, and we got a chance to work the Harry Potter movie into the mix. And tomorrow we’ve got all those tasty leftovers and a second bourbon chocolate pecan pie waiting for the knife. Yum!
What a gorgeous baby!!!!!
Happy Thanksgiving –
There is So much to be thankful for I don’t know where to start – but thanks Smart Bitches for making my morning blog hopping more fun!
Bitches,
Thank you for not being complete tight asses. I’ve been loving this site for a few months now.
Happy Thanksgiving
We Smart Bitches could never be accused of having tight asses, but after Thanksgiving over-indulgence, we sure do have tight pants.
In Casa SB Sarah, we had deep fried turkey – and man was it good. And I still ate too much of it. Uuuurg.
And thank you for the compliment on my very cute baby – he was the highlight of Thanksgiving, especially since he didn’t want to be in his pack n’play during dinner, and insisted on being held while we ate so he could stare at us. Aaah. cuteness.
Candy, I lived almost directly across from the petting zoo back behind some trees. There’s an access road that ran right by our home that the zoo used to walk llamas down. It was the weirdest thing to look out the window and see llamas walking down there (since you couldn’t actually see the guys walking).
I was only there in the late eighties for maybe a year and a half and *laugh* only went to elementary school there. I still remember that a friend I had there was named Janessa. But the experience living there will definitely stay with me forever.
man, there’s nothing weirder than going to sleep with lions roaring at night. And I’d still love to take Nick to the Oregon Caves. I only saw it once, but would love to go back if it’s still open.
Erm…I seem to have gotten chatty. You’re just the only one I’ve ever met who has ever been there. And knows about the zoo!
“I can hear the lions grumbling and roaring some nights.”
Lions? in a petting zoo? Bloody hell, everything really is bigger in America. Or is this to toughen up children so they can withstand the rigours of frontier life? Once you’ve stroked a lion at age three, rampaging grizzlies are no threat…
Please tell me you’ll start the innocent (and very cute) Freebird off with fluffy lambs or something.
we have four cats and a dog, and so far the cats are uninterested, while the dog is like Nana from Peter Pan and looks after young Freebird at every opportunity. And when there’s crying that we don’t respond to fast enough, the dog comes running to get us. This was rather interesting this morning when I was in the shower, Freebird woke up, and Logan (said dog) came into the bathroom to alert me. Not only was it suddenly very cold, but the dog paws on the bathroom door and the whining scared the crap out of me.
No lions, though. Hubby wouldn’t allow it.
Okay, just a few questions.
1. If you have deep fried turkey, where does the gravy come from? I need homemade gravy and make turkey stock up during the week to baste the turkey, stuffing and make the gravy. How do you test for done-uh-ness?
2. Have we seen a picture of Logan? What a good boy, give him an extra bickie for me! Our friends who have had pets and then had babies have had families that insist they get rid of their pets when the kids show up. Blows my mind every time. None of them gave up their pets but all the same, I couldn’t image someone telling me to move my cats and dogs along!
Glad everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Oh, and Stef, I could do the Sahara thing with you (I would bitch, moan and be a general pain in the ass) and not lose any weight either. God save those waiting for us on the other side.
CindyS
Re: deep fried turkey. Alas, the one drawback is no gravy. I used to cook the bird in the oven, fully stuffed, and it made for juicy stuffing and great gravy, but it took me all dang day. The deep fried turkey is done in 45 minutes or so, and it’s crispy on the outside, very juicy on the inside, but no gravy.
This year I used canned/jarred gravy (not as good) and I am told I can boil down the neck and the giblets to a nice broth reduction and use that, but I didn’t have a chance to try it this year. I do love the fried turkey, but I also make some kickass gravy and miss my gravy on the stuffing.
Testing for doneness: same as with a regular turkey. We have a meat thermometer to test the meat temp, and a high-temp candy thermometer to test the oil temp. You lift the turkey out (it’s on a big hook) and jam the themometer in it to test the thigh and breast.
Re: dogs & cats: I would never get rid of my animals unless there was some lethal allergy involved, or some uncorrectable behavior. As it is, the cats are utterly uninterested in Freebird, and the dog thinks Freebird is his puppy.
Oooooooh, Mr. Freebird is a total cutie!
We roast our turkey, 20 years and never a bad one (Joy of Cooking has directions). Cooking takes awhile, but luckily hubby lives for leftover turkey in all its variations (really), so we cook a big one and eat on it all week.
Hope everyone’s thanksgiving was fun, filling, and safe!
Happy Thanksgiving. WHEW. Thank God it’s over.
Now. GO Enter my contest.
SBitch, did you put freebird into a turkey costume? (Or are you one of those people who don’t like putting poor defenseless babies into silly costumes? I still have great pics of my boys as rabbits)
What a cutie! That’s such a sweet picture. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!