Today’s Activities
- Shower. DONE.
- Cat duty. DONE.
- Wash (3) loads of pending laundry. DONE.
Log
06:15 AM: I rose early to put the turkey in the roaster that sister Mary Ann and her husband prepared last evening.
06:20 AM: I’ve placed the turkey in the hot box. Since this is a 26 pound bird, it should take roughly six hours to cook through. In the meantime, I’m going back to bed. Good night.
06:25 AM: Good morning, and happy Thanksgiving! Just put the turkey in the roaster at 325 degrees. So it should be done by 1:00 PM, and we’re planning on serving dinner at 2:00 PM. That should allow plenty of time for trimming and other preps. Yum!
09:30 AM: I’m up, this time for the day.
09:51 AM: For those of you cooking your turkeys in a roaster this year, you’ll probably be pleased with the results. We’ve done ours in this 18 quart Nesco roaster for the past twelve years and have never been disappointed with either the flavor, moistness, or ease of trimming.
My only complaint about the roaster (and it’s a minor one at that) is that you don’t get the browning effect that you would in a traditional oven. Not that that matters so much really. But the brown makes the bird look a bit more enticing even if it actually does not taste any better. We’ve never learned how to get that deep brown color in the roaster, but the increased tenderness and overall taste makes sacrificing the brown highly worthwhile. Enjoy!
10:30 AM: Helped Mom to the bathroom and gave her her morning meds. She decided to go back to bed until around 12:30.
12:30 PM: So, in the meantime, I Facebooked and got caught up on my blogging.
01:00 PM: Got Mom from her bed into her wheelchair. She wants to prepare the white sauce for the cauliflower for this afternoon’s Thanksgiving meal.
01:20 PM: With the exception of Mom being confined to her wheelchair, she’s busily cooking the white sauce and helping out with some of the other dishes in this meal. I’m glad she could be here for another holiday season. For a while there a couple months ago, we didn’t think she’d ever be able to come home from the nursing facility. But here she is, and she seems to be getting stronger. That’s nice.
02:10 PM: The meal is ready, and we’re only ten minutes late; the goal time was for 2:00 PM. Like last year, we’re dining in our living room. However, unlike last year, we’re not using our very large party tables because bringing them and the chairs that go with them down from the attic is a royal pain; particularly since there’s so much stuff in front of them up there these days. Besides, we only have ten people this time, and our usual dining table is big enough to accomodate that many once we put its extensions in.
03:15 PM: The meal is over. We’re all stuffed. Now, we’re putting away the leftovers and cleaning up. Fortunately, we washed the pots, containers, and utinsels as we went today so that there really isn’t very much that piled up to wash at the end of the meal.
04:30 PM: Then, we all just hung around the living room and Mom’s sitting room, watching football and catching up. Some of these folks I’ve not seen since last Thanksgiving! So, there was lots to say.
05:15 PM: Yes, now there’s an idea. Someone on Facebook suggested that you can cook the turkey in the roaster until it’s pretty much done, and then throw it into the oven at 400 degrees or so for a half-hour to get the browning effect. She said that this is what she was going to do. So I invited her to let us know how the oven-browning at the end turns out.
05:20 PM: No whole milk. But had half & half and skim. So those eating our white sauce on the cauliflower knew no different. We just mixed in some of each. The meal turned out spectacularly even with the improvisations. Sometimes (though rarely) I even impress myself. 
I just wish I could have eaten more than one measly plate though. It was sooooo good!
06:00 PM: Sisters Jojo, Diane, and Christine arrived with their families for dessert. We have pumpkin pies, oatmeal swirl rolls, Breyers vanilla ice cream, cheese cake, and assorted other treats that folks brought but which I did not eat, and so do not remember.
09:30 PM: We continued watching football and conversing with a house full of twenty people in total. Needless to sau, I don’t think the furnace ran once this evening because all that body heat made additional warmth unnecessary.
09:45 PM: Everyone began leaving. Eventually, all left except for nephew Grant (Christine’s youngest child). He decided to spend some time with Mom.
10:30 PM: Grant’s girlfriend arrived, and the two of them kept Mom talking and she really seemed to enjoy herself not only at this moment, but throughout the entire day.
11:55 PM: [Emmy] and I watched the Christmas Vacation movie on the DVD player. I’ve sure gotten my money’s worth from that DVD because I know I’ve viewed it at least five to ten times by now.
12:00 AM: Grant decided to spend the night here. So I got him some clean pillows and blankets.
12:05 AM: Throughout the evening, I washed three loads of rags, dish cloths and towels, bath towels, place mats and table cloths.
12:20 AM: Thanks Jojo, for all your assistance. Things really turned out grand. I’m still stuffed, and loving the feeling. Good night.
12:25 AM: I helped Mom to bed and gave her her bedtime meds. I’m beat as well. Hey, it’s hard work preparing a thanksgiving dinner. True, it was most definitely a team effort with sisters Mary Ann and Jojo, Mom, Mary Ann’s husband, and myself the key players. But there was so much to do that each one of us got played out, just as though we’d prepared the entire meal ourselves. So, I’m quite bushed and am headed to bed. Good night and I’ll have more to say tomorrow. Take care, and happy Thanksgiving.
Tom Hesley
Received Mail and Shipments
No mail is delivered on the Thanksgiving holiday.
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