Okay. That's better.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

I got to have fun tonight baking with my husband in the kitchen (he just does not have luck with dough--it always tries to engulf him like alien sludge), and before that I got to have a good conversation with my kiddo at bedtime. On Friday one of my best friends and his partner are coming down to hang out, and while my mother is sick, I have a plan to send her all the leftovers she likes.

So that is what I am thankful for this year: Scott, the Zweeble, my friends, and contingency plans (zombie or otherwise).

Oh, and pecan caramel bars that actually look like they might be edible.

Ooooooooohhhh ... this is pretty

And it has Tom Conti in it! I love him!

a quiet Thanksgiving

I have not had many solo Thanksgivings ...

The first one was my sophomore year of college. I was going to spend the spring semester in England, and then the summer in Florida, so Scott and I decided to skip the family Thanksgiving (I wasn't going to go home, but otherwise we'd have gone to his family's) and have Turkey Day at his apartment. Of course, that meant his roommate was also having Thanksgiving dinner with us, but whatever.

That was the year Scott didn't get the bag of giblets out of the turkey, so when Curtis sliced the bird, this white plastic bag was revealed, containing perfectly steamed ... well, things. Which Scott wanted to eat, but we wouldn't allow. He's still bitter. ("Yes, I am," he says.)

That was also the year where I made hockey-puck buscuits. Note to self: buscuits don't rise that much. Roll the dough out thick.

There were at least two solo Thanksgivings in Louisiana.* The first one was the time we cooked a regular, meant-for-ten-or-fifteen-people turkey for the two of us because, well, we didn't know any better. A 19-pound turkey is what you buy, right? So we did.

We threw the last of the leftovers away the following March. (It was grad school. He worked overnights. We were lazy. And poor.)

I also remember going to the video store that night, and being suprised that it was open.

And the other Thanksgiving, Scott cooked a duck. Because, 1. We didn't care about tradition, and 2. It was a hell of a lot smaller than a turkey. I recall it tasting fine but being really greasy.

This year we added the boy, and had Scott's new assistant and her little boy, but we did the meal ourselves (though my mom did a good chunk of the prep work and sent her portion of the supplies to us) and it was nice, overall. I missed my family, both blood-and-not related. I was sad that doggiesushi wasn't here to try Scott's mushroom pie, because he's the person who'd probably enjoy it. But I liked the quiet of the house before the meal, and I liked watching Scott work his kitchen mojo without anyone else there to hinder or help.

I love watching Scott cook. It's his thing. Food equals love. If Scott is willing to cook for you, if he offers and makes you something you like, if he piles on the pancakes when you come over, well, you're someone he cares about. I found a stuffing recipe I thought sounded good, and probably the nicest moment for me was when he made it and said it was also the sort of stuffing he'd wanted to try making for a long time. And as much as I adore my grandmother and my mother, when all three of them are bustling around the kitchen, I don't get much chance to just go in and watch Scott cooking.

So cooking=love for Scott, and today cleaning the kitchen=love for me, because I wanted him to have a clean, cleared space to work in, so every so often I went in and cleaned up, washed dishes, tossed peels and stuff. The man can cook in a three-inch block of counter space with one burner on the stove, but come on. The stove was on from 5:30am until about 2:00pm, and the dishwasher had gone through three loads today. :)

The highlight this year was both of us working in the kitchen together last night, just talking and having a meandering conversation. And then the pie crust dough--watching Scott roll it out and then attempting to peel it up ... and it came up in gooey clumps. Baking is not his thing. On the other hand, I made pecan caramel bars with a pseudo-shortbread crust, and that worked out quite well. It's not perfect--I don't have the shortbread crust figured out yet--but it's good. I always find it a thrill when I make something for the first time and it comes together, and you can tell it's going to work.

So, yeah, that was Thanksgiving this year. Oh, well, and the two boys running around the house, one 3 and one nearly 2, and ... well, it was fine, but whenever I have more than one kid in my house at a time, my conviction that one child is more than enough for me is re-cemented. Whew.


*We spent one of those Thanksgivings in Ohio; the last time we were up we found a bunch of pictures from that trip and the ones from when we were in college, and in every bunch there was a shot of me with a notebook, library book, or textbook, sitting and doing work. And it hasn't changed.