Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Thanksgiving Part II - "Be prepared"

Saturday (Halloween) David and I got up early and I dropped him off at the gym and I did the last of the shopping. When he got home from the gym he was astonished that I was in the kitchen cutting up the vegetables (for the veggies and dip), he didn´t understand why I was doing that Saturday instead of the same day as the dinner. He ate lunch and then was kid enough to come help me. After we cut, washed and bagged up all the veggies I looked at him and said, "That took 2 hours...do you still think we should have waited until tomorrow to do it?" He of course replied, "No." and didn´t complain the rest of the day as we kept preparing things.
He really was a good helper. Of course he would help and then take a break and then help and then break (while I kept working the whole day)...but at least he helped and was happy about it!
My mother-in-law is always in charge of the turkey...she buys it (I wouldn´t know where to go to buy a turkey) and cleans it up and worries about it while it´s cooking!! Between going to bed late, her SNORING (seriously, her snoring abilities are up there with Aunt Lu´s!) , thinking about what I still needed to do the next day, getting up to put the turkey in the oven and the fact that I had to go to church, I didn´t get much sleep!
5:30am, the bird came de-feathered, but it ain´t no butter ball, so we still had to do some last minute plucking!
We don´t usually put anything inside the turkey, but this year Julia decided she would try it out.
What´s funny is that one of the MANY times she woke up to check on the turkey she decided that it wasn´t cooking fast enough and the stuff she had stuffed it with was the problem so she took it all out! When she told me what she had done I asked her how long the bird had been in the oven when she took the stuff out...it had only been in for 2 hours...of course it doesn´t look "cooked" after 2 hours! SO FUNNY!!!

The turkey turned out just fine...thank goodness after all the "stress" it caused Julia!!
Saturday I also made an apple pie and a pumpking pie. Both turned out pretty good, and the pumpkin pie most everyone had a piece of, but the apple pie was too cinnamon-y for them (they don´t use cinnamon much in Spain...I don´t know why? it´s soo yummy!!!). But that was fine with me....I get the pie all to myself!!
Since it was Halloween I bought a pumpkin and carved it to have as a decoration. Everyone was so impressed that I had carved it myself. It´s interesting with different cultures...something so ordinary, for us, like carving a pumpkin for Halloween, is so "amazing" to them.

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