For the first time in my life I have poured boiling liquid onto my hand. I don't know how real burn victims cope. I only had a proto-blister and a reddened hand, but it hurt for at least six hours and was excruciating. I was trying to hurry up making the gravy and getting it on the table, because someone else needed the oven, and I was kind of taking up all the space on the stove and in the way of the oven. So, as I was ladling up the liquid, I poured boiling gravy, fat and all on the last two finders of my left hand. I kept the gravy boat steady, though, and got it filled for the table, so at least it was only my hand rather than having boiling gravy splashed all down the front of my body. So, the moral of the story is don't rush. And don't drop the dish.

We had a houseful this year. We were able to arrange bedrooms and sleeping bags, and get everyone settled in for the weekend, though. On Thanksgiving day proper, we had 20 people, our leftover day party ended up being around 52 people. My breakfast plans for Thanksgiving were modified, because we were up until 4:00 a.m. making pies. Rich was supposed to be available to help me with the children and cleaning so I could nurse the baby and cook, but he ended up working over 18 hours on his "vacation" days that week. So, Arthur made breakfast for us instead, which was quite nice.

My father in law and Arthur both brought wine, so I think we only ended up putting out one of our bottles. Maybe two. We had a nice relish tray that Rich put together, no deviled eggs this year. Arthur actually didn't bring the cranberry relish, but since we had everything to make it, he put it together for us. The turkey was perfect. After Friday, there was none left. We still have our extra turkey in the freezer, though, so we will be roasting that sometime this month, and Rich will get a roast turkey sandwich for the first time in probably three or four years. Except for the gravy mishap, the meal went well. I made both dressings, the sweet potato rolls, the brussels sprouts, directed the making of the mashed potatoes, our friends brought a Waldorf salad, cranberry-cherry sauce, two ducks, a sour cream apple pie.

Alexander did make the gingerbread, and it was very well received. He did a great job following the recipe himself, though we did have to rescue him from ruining a bowl of ingredients in the microwave. Somehow, Rich's job of cooking the pumpkin and making the pumpkin pie filling ended up my job this year. Along with those, I made two apple-quince pies (we used the remaining filling which wasn't enough for a pie in oatmeal), two cranberry-cherry pies, two Nantucket cranberry pies (cranberry walnut cake cooked in a pie pan), two chocolate pecan pies. We served all of this with sweetened whipped vanilla cream and ice cream.

There was lots of sparkling cider and sparkling apple-cranberry, but we discovered last week that Martinelli's makes an apple-pomegranate sparkling cider, which is wonderful. Buy lots so they keep making it. We are.

Our day after Thanksgiving party went well, lots of people came, lots of food was eaten, games were played, lively discussions were had, children were not too injured by the end of the night. Rich set up the foos ball table in the basement, we had Boggle playing in the living room and Scene It going on at the same time. Outside, there was a football game going, not to mention the general playing on the play structure and in the play house. We still have two pairs of children's socks and a size four, blue, child's jacket here. I think we have returned every thing else to its rightful home.

Funny thing. When Kim was leaving, she forgot her purse. When she returned for it, she said that she wanted to make sure she had it in case I asked her out to dinner again.

Labels: Family, Tales from the Kitchen, Thanksgiving