Thanksgiving Highlights

The Lesson 

 

I LOVE this picture.  Actually, I love the story behind this picture.  

The Obvious:: This is my parents with the two little ones and they are making something ... pumpkin pie, the morning of Thanksgiving Day.  Mom had decided a day or two before that we were taking pumpkin pie off the menu.  It wasn't really needed, and no one was going to miss it.  

The Not Obvious:: Wednesday night my father made a banana cake and Sam helped.  Alex really wanted to help too, and I'm sure Anna did too, cause that kid can really crack and egg!  Apparently (according to my father), he was a complete failure at knowing how to have two children help him make something in the kitchen.  So here is my father, intently observing my mother, in order to learn how to have multiple children help him in the kitchen.  He is amazing.  I love that he wanted to learn, that he wanted to be taught, that he made it important to learn. 

The Hootenanny

Many years, when we were young, my mother made this egg/butter/flour concoction and we loved it.  We loved it's taste, but more importantly we loved what it did in the oven.  How crazy is that?  A couple of years a go my brother revived the hootenanny, tweaking the recipe a bit, and adding blueberry sauce/compot to the recipe.   De-lish!  Thanksgiving morning, I made a hootenanny - learning later that 6T of better is better than 8T.  No blueberry sauce for this one, but we did discover than ikea lingonberry jam is a perfect pairing with a piece of warm hootenanny.  


The Turkey

Brined (Whole Foods), bacon wrapped, and smoked.  Yumm!

The simple spread and a few of the guests (and you can see the kitchen paint color). 

The Strategist

My little sis brought her beau for the holiday.  His first big introduction to the family.  He survived and we like him.  My crew can be a bit intense and he handled it well.  Beau is a game buff ... a strategy, game buff.  They were only here for less than a day and half and yet we played lots of games and he won lots.  We're going to have to do something about that winning streak if he's going to last.  Here, we're introducing Beau and the family to Scotland Yard.