Yes, we’ve arrived at the Monday before Turkey Day. Have you finished your shopping? Are you having a socially distanced get together? What time do you eat – lunch or dinner? Growing up, we never called it Thanksgiving – my mother never forgave the Pilgrims/Colonizers for what they did to the Native Americans, so she actually referred to it as National Slaughter Day. On that note, let’s talk cashews – it is National Cashew Day here in the US after all.
What feels like a nut, but isn’t one? A cashew. It is actually a seed. Enjoy this weirdly amazing song about cashews by Chavski & Keesh
Deadsplinterians – How is your Monday going? Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you’re just not one.
Kudos to your mom. I have always called it Thankstaking.
Happy Thankstaking week everyone! From Kanata.
Wow, your mother was woke! I love cashews, I buy the giant jar at Costco and it lasts about a month with me eating some every day. Like the fruit debate of the other night, we should probably do the nut one too.
This will be the first Thanksgiving ever that it will be just my wife and me. Our daughters left today to drive down to California to be with family but we can’t do that and will be quarantining them when they get back. I’m scared of how this will go and if it will be a test run for our future once the girls leave home for good. Wish me luck that we don’t kill each other.
Cashews are the best nuts.
I think you and the wife will be fine. You may even find it’s nice having fewer people about no matter how much you love them.
I learned a few Thai stir-fry recipes that can use cashew nuts in them, and they are hands-down my favorite thing to cook. Especially after dry-roasting a pound of cashews in preparation for the cooking where only about 1/3 of a pound makes it to the wok after I snack on them while prepping other ingredients.
There’s a reason why it’s called Thanksgiving Dinner and not Thanksgiving Lunch. People who eat the big meal any time before 5:00 make me crazy. Particularly because, if you’re roasting a turkey (especially a stuffed turkey), that shit takes forever. You truly don’t need to wake up at 5am so you can have Thanksgiving Lunch. Just have dinner and wake up whenever you like.
Incidentally, my understanding is that not that long in our past, dinner meant lunch and supper meant dinner. And luncheon I think was something fancy people had with tea?
My family usually ate around 4ish. It’s such a long meal, if you start much later it goes too late.
What about elevensies?
Also, Second Breakfast!
Dinner is the main meal of the day, it doesn’t matter when you serve it. When I was living with my parents I hated having Thanksgiving late in the day, it meant I was stuck at home longer. Now that I do the cooking I prefer having it in the evening.
Happy National Cashew Day! I love cashews and eat them pretty much everyday.
This Thanksgiving won’t be much different for my family. We always keep it small and this year it will be my grandparents, dad and I. I work from home and my grandparents and dad don’t go out much or work so there is little risk in us getting together. Plus, we all live next-door to each other and have been mingling this whole time anyway. I will be seeing my mom this weekend which will be nice since I haven’t seen her in two months. She also works from home and we will be having a socially distanced outdoor brunch so I’m not too worried about it. Not being able to hug her is going to suck though.
We usually eat at around 4pm. The only reason we eat so early is because growing up my dad always had to work on Thanksgiving evening so we would eat early so he could be included. Even though he doesn’t work anymore, it just feels right to keep it early.
It had been our plan to eat at my MIL’s, as we always do, but with not much of anyone else. She’s been in our bubble. But my SIL just moved back to the area and entered the bubble, and they’re all starting to relax their standards… Meanwhile the country’s rates are scary. So we called it off, and might be kicking them out of our bubble altogether…
I usually only bring green bean casserole and pumpkin pie, but I’ve decided to make a few of our favorite dishes just for us here. It’ll be a new experience to make several labor intensive dishes haha. I’ve decided on the green beans, carrot casserole, mashed potatoes (which I’ve weirdly never made before??), crescent rolls, and pumpkin pie. Maybe also roasted Brussels, but it’ll already be a good amount of veggies… We’ll see.
Good decision, there will be other Thanksgivings.
The secret to excellent mashed potatoes is butter, and not to put too much milk in there–you don’t want them runny. Also, as much as I generally look down on the use of a garlic press, this is an excellent application for pressing a couple of cloves and stirring it all around in there.
I put my boiled potatoes through a ricer. It makes more work but I can’t stand lumpy mashed potatoes. And Pet Milk is the secret of Southern cooks.
Heh, I like mashed potatoes to be a little lumpy. I think I have a ricer somewhere and was debating using it, but I think that’ll make them smoother than I’d like. Maybe I’m just weird though! I also plan on leaving skin on. We’ll see how it goes! I plan on roasting a bunch of garlic to throw in, so that’ll probably salvage whatever other mistakes I make.
If you’re leaving the skin on anyway then you wouldn’t want to use the ricer. Roasted garlic = YUM.
If you’re going to use the skin (which I recommend), then be sure to use a thin skinned potato, like a red or gold. Don’t use the russets.
…okay, that threw me for a minute because I have friends who buy some sort of special milk for cats…& I wasn’t familiar with the brand
…but I guess today I learned what the difference is between condensed milk & evaporated milk?
I was afraid that might be misunderstood. I also don’t know why you couldn’t just use Borden’s or some other brand of condensed milk but I mentioned that one time and the suggestion received a “bless your heart” reception!
…not sure I can answer that but it looked from my somewhat cursory reading as though the PET brand was of the evaporated variety…& that condensed milk has added sugar that evaporated milk does not?
Borden’s makes both kinds. I think it’s just a weird brand loyalty thing.
I just mash the shit out of them and then whip them with a whisk for a few minutes. Takes the lumps right out without any extra fuss.
I may try the whisk method this year. I’m just not into the holidays this year and want to get through them with as little effort as possible.
I can dig that.
I’m usually finished with my shopping by Thanksgiving but not this year. And as much as I hate giving Jeff Bezos my money it’s looking like it will be a Very Amazon Christmas.
I like and shop Amazon because of their high-quality website and for their top-tier delivery and return policies. I also don’t mind Jeff Bezos (at all); he earned his money the old-fashioned way, so (I say) let him spend it as is his wont.
…I don’t think I could say (hand on heart) that I like the man…but my tendency to wish for an alternative source than amazon for things has less to do with any personal antipathy & more to do with the tax-avoidance/not-so-great-treatment-of-workers/stuff-like-that?
…he may have earned his money & be entitled to spend it but I don’t know that I can buy anyone manages to amass wealth on the scale he has without pulling some shit that probably shouldn’t be allowed
…so, all in all I think I’d prefer to have another option even if I can’t very well deny the extreme convenience that amazon offers?
I’m with you. No one gets that rich without pulling some shit, and a lot of his shit has to do with worker mistreatment. I can’t get too high and mighty about it though, because I use Amazon for a lot. Convenience, free fast shipping… It’s hard for anyone to compete.
I did recently find a better option for buying books, which is kind of hilarious given that was all Amazon used to be. I recommend it – they support local bookstores:
https://bookshop.org/
It’s almost impossible to not shop at Amazon any more. Especially now.
My problem with Amazon is the same as SplinterRIP’s. Poor worker treatment being high on my list of grievances. I also prefer to support local companies but sadly many of them haven’t survived the first Covid wave. But I’ll get what I can from the ones who are still here.
I worked at Microsoft in the late 90’s & the guy I replaced had left for Amazon right at the start of the company. About 6 months into the job he calls me and tried to recruit me to go work for them. I laughed, why would I leave MS to work for this online bookstore? I’m an idiot and would be rich if I left since they had great stock options back then since they couldn’t pay that well.
Thanksgiving this year is just going to be the 7 of us here… but I’m cooking a 22 lb turkey and the standard sides and will be dropping off meals for my mom and stepdad, my sis and her bf, and O-H’s mom and brother. My mom is making a cake and sending pieces round to everyone. In theory, we’re going to set up a Skype call so we can all chat while we eat. We’ll see how that goes!
We usually have anywhere from 10-16 people here… family and friends… although there was the one year that I temporarily lost my mind and invited a family (of 11!) I had never met before because the lady told me how their house had just burned down when we were chatting at the food pantry. (It ended up not happening… she told me that she didn’t think I was serious when I called that morning to see what time they were coming. We had leftovers for like, 3 weeks that year because I had cooked for 25 people.)
Anyway, it’s going to be weird having just me and the husbands and our 4 boys here when I’m used to the whole damn circus being here. Oldest’s gf is going to her parent’s house (she still hasn’t told them she’s enceinte… they are NOT going to be happy and she wants to tell them alone.)
You’re a good person, Smacks.
Thank you, Hannibal. I try to be… not sure if I always manage it, but I try.
I ordered dinner for two to pick up for myself lol.
And I’m going to make some pies to deliver to a few people. But other than that I am looking forward to 4 days in a row off (is that the first time this year? Might be…).
Might be watching a lot of bad holiday movies.
I’m by myself too on Thanksgiving (and Christmas) this year. I’ll make something nice to eat and then enjoy some sports, martial arts movies and strumming my steel guitar. I’ll meet you here, Meg.
…ooh…kung fu flicks…whatcha got in mind?
You’re going to want leftovers so two meals makes sense.
I thought there was a Mr. McGee…
Having people over is now on the naughty list in IL. Not that I was planning on leaving the house. My step-mother has 2 people in her inner circle recently dx’ed with covid, though she says she hasn’t seen either in a month. I told my dad she should get tested anyway. I am hoping to go to the store after work today since some shopping simply must be done last minute. But I guess one of the new rules is 50% capacity for stores so I don’t know what that’s going to look like. I am wondering if I should try to get everything or just what I need :/
welp…i didnt get myself killed this morning…so i guess i have something to give thanks for
i’d really rather not take that trip without lights again…
on the whole i’d say my monday could have been worse.
I’m glad you’re still among the living, farscy!
me too lol…tho this morning i might have disagreed…i woke up in an epically foul mood…but that seems to have worn off now…back at regular levels of grump now
I second the use of bookshop.org! I’ve been using them for most of my book purchases (except the ones that they do not stock). The delivery fee is a bit hard to swallow since the books are also more expensive than those on Amazon. I mentally justify not going for the cheapest deal by remembering it supports small businesses.
My trick for mashed potatoes is to heat the milk before stirring it in. This might be the norm but I only found out about it a couple of years ago.
It’s true, you end up spending more. But that’s kind of the thing about amazon; they can afford to take razor thin profit margins because of sheer volume. It varies though – some books I’ve shopped are relatively close in price between bookshop and amazon, and some are wildly different.
I heard the same about the milk and the butter too!