[Hilde’s log]
We send our best
wishes to all of you for a warm and memorable holiday season! We are
pretty low-key here on Raven, but I do try to cook a bit more
around the holidays. We had a lovely pre-Thanksgiving meal at our
friends’ home here in Pensacola, complete with lovely tablecloth
and linen napkins and roasted Cornish hens. Our actual Thanksgiving
Day meal was a whole lot less beautiful, but made for leftovers
aplenty. No big turkey roasting in the oven – we have a pretty
small oven!
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| Our lovely friends, John & Cookie, who shared their Thanksgiving dinner with us. They've been friends with David for almost 40 years. I am a johnny-come-lately, only meeting them at our wedding 17 years ago. |
The thing about
using the oven is that first I have to unload it. The oven usually
functions as a storage space for baking pans, my cast-iron grill
skillet and other less-used items. All that has to come out and
perch...somewhere. The counter, of course, is awash in ingredients. I
always get everything out of the refrigerator before I start, since
the counter is also the top of the refrigerator. And, invariably, I
forget one thing and then say a few choice words as I balance
everything on the ladder, the nav station, etc., while I go digging.
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| One of my cooking piles...the stuff from the oven. |
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| The rectangular door under my pot and the red dish is the door to the refrigerator. |
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| This is usually the point at which I realize I have forgotten something in the fridge. |
I made three things
this year – a sort of green bean casserole (no cream of mushroom
soup, but some gluten free panka crumbled on top of the green beans
and onions did nicely to distract me from the lack), butternut squash
and small Brussels sprouts, and a gluten free stuffing mix. That
ended up being lunch. That night I made gravy to go with the turkey
breast and remaining stuffing. Sometime later this week I guess I
will get around to the mashed potatoes and sweet potato pie. After
all, it’s just the two of us. So what if we spread the meal out
over a week, right?
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| Thanksgiving meal #1 - lunch! We ate outside in the cockpit under a bright and almost warm sun. The dishes are the Corelle that got replaced the next day (see below). |
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| Eventually order is restored... |
I capped off the
week with my first-ever Black Friday shopping trip with another of
our Pensacola friends, who have been very kind to take us around in
their car for various bits and pieces David needs for repairs and
grocery stops for me. On Friday, Mary Jane and I made a day of it,
stopping at Stein Mart, Sam’s, Kohl’s, Starbucks, etc. At Kohl’s
I found lovely melamine plates for 40% off! I have been looking for
nice melamine plates for a long time and was so pleased to find
these. The fact that I had to wait in the check-out line for 30
minutes didn’t even dim my enthusiasm. I have to say, I haven’t
been shopping in a very long time and the sheer volume of stuff and
the crowds of women (not a man in sight) nearly overwhelmed my
senses. If it hadn’t been for Mary Jane, I think I would have
bolted!
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| Pretty blue dishes! Such a relief. I have been using my old Corelle for decades and am heartily sick of looking at it. |
2 comments:
I had those same Corelle dishes for decades, too! In fact, you probably saw them at one time or another in Brenham. Hey, spreading out the Thanksgiving feast over a few days is actually a pretty good idea. I've not budged from the house since Monday, avoiding the Thanksgiving shopping crunch ... yes, even in our smallish town! -- Betty
I've had that pattern of Corelle since COLLEGE. I finally disposed of it all (I thought) when we left Carrollton in 2004, but when we bought Raven in 2005, she came with dishes. THOSE dishes! I've been looking for some nice Melamine for a couple of years, but none of it appealed to me until this, which looks remarkably like stoneware. Corelle usually doesn't break, but when it does, millions of tiny shards go everywhere. Glad to get it off the boat.
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