2020 Life Logs, Day 330: Thanksgiving Day
Date: Thursday, November 26, 2020
Weather: Rainy; High 59, Low 45 Degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
01 Kevin Carving His Turkey
What a wonderful Thanksgiving Day we had at Heather and Jed’s today. Our ‘pandemic pod’ family gathered for the occasion. This includes Heather, Jed, and the boys, me, and the Simpkins family—Mike, Grace, and their two boys, Robert and Joey. At the beginning of the school year this pod was formed so that Sam and Robert can do their remote learning school days together. So far, all of us have managed to stay healthy and we were all so grateful to be able to spend Thanksgiving Day together. We all contributed food and had a true feast. I’ll start with the appetizers. When we arrived, Heather and Jed had the homemade pomegranate juice and orange juice punch on the table, along with a clever ‘vegetable train’—carrots and celery in green peppers making the train cars with cucumber wheels. There was cheese and crackers, I added deviled eggs, and the Simpkins brought asparagus wrapped in cheese and prosciutto. We snacked while some watched a football game and some escaped to build a marble run. We feared that we wouldn’t be able to eat dinner after such yummy appetizers, but the five boys, three of them teenagers, assured us that nothing would stop us from stuffing ourselves with turkey. And they were right. Heather and Jed provided the turkey. Jed was in charge of cooking the turkey which was moist and delicious. Thanksgiving turkeys are usually dry and just not my favorite meat. But twice in my life, today and Thanksgiving at my sister’s in 2014 when she lived in North Carolina, stand out as memorable. My very good friends, Kevin and Claire, came to North Carolina for that Thanksgiving and they volunteered to be in charge of cooking the turkey using Kevin’s special process. They roasted the turkey early, which involved using a lot of butter and basting, and when it was done, they left the turkey in the roasting pan, wrapped the pan in layers of thick towels, and let it sit for three hours. Jed’s method today was the more traditional method of roasting, carving, and serving immediately. Evidently both methods can produce a delicious turkey! I made Mark’s traditional cranberry salad and my traditional stuffing. Heather made the gravy and roasted Brussels sprouts with a balsamic dressing. Grace and Mike brought mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans and corn, and their traditional stuffing with sausage. And then there were desserts—pumpkins pies, chocolate pudding pie, Jed’s apple cranberry pie, Mike’s pumpkin squares (totally decadent and delicious), and lots of whipped cream. Whew! Lots of food, wonderful conversation, and an after-dessert ‘in plain sight’ scavenger hunt. This is a Goldstone tradition and you cannot believe how it is to find things that are strategically place in plain sight. Jed placed the items and Heather was the first to find all the objects, following by Sam. It took the rest of us quite a bit longer, but eventually we were all successful.
When I first arrived this afternoon, we had a family Skype video call with Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco. Near the beginning of the call, one of their goats wondered into the house and plopped herself right on Justin’s lap. We met Ziggy and Coco’s pet hamsters, and Jed and Justin counted up that they have twelve different kinds of animals at Finca Maravilla, with multiples of most. Heather, Ollie, Jonah, and Coco had a riddle battle, typing their riddle questions in the Chat box. “Why did Pilgrims have trouble keeping their pants from falling down? Because they wore their belt buckles on their hats.” Very silly, but a lots of fun. And then I had my traditional Thanksgiving call from Kevin and Claire. They are currently living in their motor home in Long Beach, California, and loving it. Long Beach is an industrial area and there are sometimes air quality problems, but the motor home park is ocean side and they often see dolphins on their morning walk. The weather is perfect, and they are close to Kevin’s mother, his sister’s family, and Claire’s sister’s family. I was so happy to hear that their new California life is good.
From our Thanksgiving table to yours . . . here’s hoping each of you had a special Thanksgiving Day.
