Last week The Girl and I spent the majority of our free time planning for Thanksgiving by putting together a menu, and a cooking schedule, and by going grocery shopping on Sunday and stocking our refrigerator and our cabinets with more food than might have ever been in our house at a single time before.
The Girl took the entire week off to prep for the big day, and for the arrival of our guests, her parents, and her brother. And so when she called me on my way to work on Monday morning to let me know that they weren’t coming, neither of us were quite sure of what to do. With her family unable to attend, she and I floundered about for the better part of an afternoon, trying to decide what we should do.
We contemplated driving down to Athens, GA with food in tow, creating a sort of Thanksgiving edition of Meals-On-Wheels. We gave it half-hearted consideration, but ultimately we found the idea of carrying two hundred dollars worth of perishable goods, including a fourteen pound turkey in an ice chest, 800 miles south of it’s originally planned point of consumption marginally inefficient, and ultimately unfulfilling. Our original goal for Thanksgiving was to host for the first time, to invite our family into our home to share with them the space in which we live our lives. We decided we were staying put, and damn the consequences
A silver lining was discovered, too. It was to be a Thanksgiving practice run, a chance for us to cook Thanksgiving dinner without the risk of embarrassment of having to order pizza should we fail in our efforts. We decided that we would call around to see in anyone wanted to join us, knowing that in reality everyone would have Thanksgiving plans in place already.
We were wrong. While most people did have plans already, we weren’t the only ones suffering from unfortunate last minute changes of plans. The Dad’s Sister The Cousin’s Mother The Aunt had also seen her plans go awry at the last minute, and was thrilled to join us. And despite the silver lining that we had manufactured to make ourselves feel better about the situation, we were thrilled to have her.
We prepped, planned, and cooked a bit on Tuesday and Wednesday, so that on Thursday morning we were able to wake up at a reasonable hour. Well, I was, at least. The Girl woke up at 6 AM to take the turkey out of the brine. Trooper, she is.
At some point during the morning, I was forced to show the girl the proper way to cook any sort of bird or fowl, when living below the Mason-Dixon line…
After that we were off to the races. We make a good team, The Girl and I, so much so that by the time The Aunt arrived, we had things solidly under control, and after a couple of hours of conversation and oven watching we actually had our feast ready ahead of the schedule that The Girl had so painstakingly created for us.
And Oh, what a feast it was. A bounty. A cornucopia, if you will. The turkey turned out perfectly…
We cooked for five, and fed three, and not a single person uttered a complaint, so much so that we all had a piece each of pumpkin and pecan pie, albeit a few hours later. And it was nice as we sat, and rested our ailing digestive systems, and just were. We are very thankful for The Aunt, and for her presence at our first grown up Thanksgiving. It started out as the Thanksgiving that almost wasn’t, and became the Thanksgiving not to be forgotten before it was over.
See the rest of the pictures here.
