Thanksgiving

Last week, my mother, father, and sister came to D.C. to visit me and do some sightseeing. They arrived Tuesday evening and left Sunday morning. While they were here they saw a bevy of attractions and are already planning a trip back. Aside from showing off my nuclear sweet office, I would say that the highlight of their trip was me cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

This is the first Thanksgiving dinner I have ever prepared and I was a little bit nervous. To make matters worse a Monsignor friend of mine, who was unable to go home for Thanksgiving, joined my family. I say to make matters worse because, in the words of John Lovitz from Newsradio, he is a bit of a foodie. Additionally, he and my sister took turns gently mocking me. Such is the way of the world, I suppose.

Now, for the important information. My meal consisted of turkey, asparagus, yams, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, and apple pie (with optional espresso (served on the side of course)). The following photos are the documentary of my monumental feast. (Authors note: Sorry if you have seen these before, but not everyone is on teh facebooks.)

This is the first picture of the day. It is me preparing the turkey. You'll notice a turkey, a lemon, an orange, sage, rosemary, and oregano. All of these things went inside of the turkey, as well an an onion.

This is the turkey after I took it apart and rinsed it. You'll notice the neck was included but the giblet was not. Both my father and my sister were offended by this. They thought that I, perhaps, was playing some manner of goof on them.

These are the aforementioned lemon, orange, and onion that were cut into wedges and inserted into the turkey along with a few springs of the aforementioned spices.

This is the turkey prepared for the oven, almost, I had to let it rest out of the fridge for thirty minutes so it would reach room temperature. You'll notice that the turkey is now stuffed and coated with an herbs de Provence butter.

These are the pots and pans I used to fix my sides. I actually used five but only four fit on the stove-top at any given moment. If you look carefully you'll notice that there is a probe thermometer in the left of the photo. That one's for you Alton Brown!


This is the final product. The hand showing off the feast is that of the Monsignor, no I did not wear a suit for dinner. I had on a nice green sweater vest and red/brown corduroys (thanks Dan!). I was trying to be autumnal.

This is a close-up of the finished bird. You'll notice its rich color as well as the twin towers of cranberry sauce.

Finally, what is Americana without a pie cooling on a window sill? This particular pie happens to be apple, mostly because I am a magnificent brother and did not bake a pumpkin pie because my sister abhors it.

So, there you all have it. This was my first attempt at a Thanksgiving dinner, and if I might be a braggart for a moment, it went quite well and tasted as good as it looks.

In unrelated news, the gym was very crowded today and there were no treadmills open, so I ran home after I finished lifting. I feel like I accomplished something--leaving all of my things at the office like a moran.

Smell ya later.