Weekend!
So mom calls and says that we’re doing Thanksgiving with the usual people at the usual house and the usual folks are bringing the usual stuff so… that means that Maribou and I are in charge of the pies and bringing a bottle of Beaujolais.
I’m pretty much thinking “okay, no biggie” when I realize that, HOLY COW, THANKSGIVING IS NEXT WEEK.
So, this weekend, we’re going to the little local place in the hopes that they’re making pies this year (they didn’t last year). They do this thing where they sprinkle coarse sugar on the pie crust for their fruit pies before adding the filling and baking the pie and that makes them absolutely crackle with the first bite.
My favorite, however, is their Pumpkin Pie. Pumpkin is the perfect pie, if you ask me. Seasonal, so you get to come back to it every year, rich, all kinds of sweet and spicy and with a little bit of salty bitter. Mmmmm. And then it goes away, like a tourist at the end of the season, and you wait anxiously until next year when you see him or her walking up the boardwalk grinning like they never went anywhere. Oh, you. Come here.
(We’ll probably also order a Strawberry Rhubarb and a No-Sugar-Added Apple pie. Because, hey. Thanksgiving.)
AUGH AND THEN WE’LL HAVE TO START THINKING ABOUT PRESENTS AUGH
So… what’s on your docket?
There are four kinds of pie: pecan, apple, peach, and pecan.Report
Putting nuts in dessert has always struck me as some vaguely anti-social move on the part of passive-aggressive people out there.
“Oh, hurray! Brownies! Bleh! Ptooey! Ptooey! Walnuts!”
I mean, why would you do that?
Pecan pie seems to be a little bit better insofar as it’s in the name and all so it’s not like it sneaks up on you but I can’t help but look at that and think “but… but… I was told there would be pie.”Report
You are definitely not from down here. Nuts are one of the four basic food groups (with grits, sweet tea, and fried stuff).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESnl9U6LwLYReport
Also, I picked that video because it’s the only one that wasn’t all about the Confederacy. (The tune was, as the penultimate verse suggests, a Confederate marching song.)Report
I am at this moment eating baklava therefore your argument is invalid.Report
I am with you, Jaybird. I like brownies. I like nuts. I do not like nuts in my brownies.Report
I don’t understand why you would NOT put nuts in brownies, for partly the same reason you put pickles and raw onions on a burger; the crunch is pleasing. Otherwise you’re just chewing on something vaguely spongy.
To be fair, if brownies are cooked correctly, the exterior should be sort of crispy and this can fulfill the same function. But a lot of times they haven’t been cooked correctly, or aren’t fresh enough for this to be the case.Report
I do not mind nuts as nuts. Hey, look! Nuts! Yum. The problem is when you start saying “hey, here’s a lily, let’s gild it!” and put nuts in foods such as brownies or jello or something.
I mean, seriously.
I have stopped being vaguely irritated by the whole peanut allergy thing and started asking those people to hate walnuts too. They explain something about “legumes” to me and other French words for “I can’t really help” but I hope that it results in a widespread social change on their behalf anyway.Report
I’m just giving you a hard time. Still, pecan pie is awesome.Report
This sounds to me like the the complaint of someone who dislike proper bread, with seeds and bits of nut in it, because they grew up on tasteless, white mush.Report
I’ve grown to appreciate nuts in things like cookies and brownies and, of course, baklava. But in a pie? No no no!Report
Baguette with crust that can cut your cheek but innards fluffy like a cloud is preferred to the bread that requires disclaimers such as “this is good for you” and “seriously, this is good for you”.Report
A baguette’s primary purpose should be whacking Inspector Clouseau; not chewing, unless you have an afternoon to kill and the jaw muscles of a water buffalo.Report
I like mashed potatoes, I just don’t try to fold it around some lettuce and turkey and call that a sandwich.Report
True story, my father successfully indoctrinated all of his children to hate nuts in brownies, cookies, candy, etc.
He did it by an extended misinformation campaign that started at birth and didn’t end until it was too late. In ensured that there would always be snickers in the pantry and we’d eat the brownies without nuts, but he’d get the ones with the nuts in them.
None of us liked nuts in anything until we broke the conditioning. I like Snickers now but walnuts in brownies is still right out.Report
No Pumpkin?
Die Heretic!!!!Report
You only say this because you have not had my mother’s lemon merengue pie. It’s silky folds of heaven.Report
In a proper lemon merengue pie, the lemon part is so sour that you can’t eat it without the meringue. (In other words, that’s how my mother made it.) That’s almost impossible to find in a bought pie.Report
And both kinds of pecan pie should, to be proper, not include corn syrup, but maple syrup.
And less sugar. (I use 3/4 cup of maple and 1/4 cup regular sugar; not so sweet.)Report
I was with you until “less sugar.” That’d be like puttin’ less sugar in sweet tea, which would defeat the point of it being sweet tea. I mean, ya heat it up and supersaturate that tea with sugar, and then you put some more in!
Down here those two words are never spoken in succession. Someone might say “Less worryin’ ’bout sugar,” or some other phrase that includes both of those words, but you cannot put them next to each other. Ever.Report
@chris, the ‘less sweet’ is not so much about sweetness, as it is about the kind of sweetness from maple syrup. Too much sugar with it is overpowering sweet. I do not know why, but this is so.Report
Drinks with friends. Doctor Who special. Dinner with a friend from high school and her girlfriend. I’m meeting the girlfriend for the first time. Talking with my girlfriend (she lives in New York grumble LDR grumble).Report
My daughter (AKA my pie-making partner) won’t be home until Thanksgiving afternoon, because she has to work. (It sucks to have no seniority.) This could seriously affect pie quality.Report
Baking was the one thing we did not do at Thanksgiving, baked goods were purchased. Everything else was made. This is the first year we are going somewhere else in a long time.Report
The conversation I had with Jaybird’s mom about the Beaujolais about a week ago:
Mom: “We all demand that you bring pies, but (Host) says she has plenty of wine, so please don’t bring any.”
Me: “I can pass that message along to Jaybird, but you know very well that when he gets it into his head that something should be Done Proper, that is how he will do it. I take no responsibility.”
Mom: “Well, I suppose considering where he gets it from, I can hardly blame *you*.”
Then we started talking about, like, how much fun we will have when I’m not in school anymore. Jaybird’s mom is the best.
My plans for the weekend involve taking a half-day vacation tomorrow and using it to work on the Python program that I will also be spending the rest of the weekend writing. Except when we use the excuse of needing to find out about the pies to go have breakfast. Oh, and gaming on Saturday. And a couple of other convenient procrastinations. But seriously, I need to be able to pass this code off to my prof on Monday and right now I just have a few scripts … that I just decided tonight I need to completely rewrite using a different module as a base. GOOD TIMES. (*mutters about how much fun she will have with Jaybird’s mom, and IN VIRTUALLY EVERY OTHER CORNER OF HER LIFE, once she’s not in school anymore*)
Oh, and I need to write my ask so I can start contacting local college libraries about internships …. *sigh* I miss my summer weekend comments that were all like “reading! hiking! new zealand!!”Report
The movers come on Monday so I’ll be finishing my packing this weekend.Report
Weekend swim meet in Grand Rapids, celebrating middle daughter’s birthday, eating Thai food and visiting the Dutch store to stock up on all of the traditional holiday sweets and Indonesian ingredients to get us through the next 6 months until we journey back for the next swim meet there.Report
We are going to the lake with my family this weekend. There will be fishing. Possibly some board games.
We do not get BBC America there, so no Doctor Who special until we get back.Report
Given the informal solution to swearing on this site, I have to say that I find that declaration troubling.Report
+1Report
Civ IV gamers:
I was going to wait for the Saturday “what are you playing” thread, but this question affects my weekend plans. I’ve been trying to figure out how to play 18 Civs, vanilla, with teams. (I want to have a battle royale against the computer.) I can’t seem to set teams for a custom game or custom scenario through any conventional menu. Any ideas how to do this?
And again, thanks for the suggestion to buy this game. It’s a blast.Report
I haven’t played IV, but in V I think the only way to set teams is in multiplayer.Report
At least in Beyond the Sword, in the Custom Game screen, there’s a drop down menujust to the left of where you define the civilization for each player that lets you set a team number.Report
Go to single player / Custom Game then in Settings. In the top screen where you see your name, on the other spots which should say closed, click the drop down and select AI. Do that for the 17 spots. Then in the next tab column you set up what players are each team. Example 1, 2…ect. Each on the same number ends up on the same team. Then you can do all of your other settings from there, what nations…etc.Report
So we have no plans for Thanksgiving! Ugh. We thought that moving out here would help with that because of family within driving distance.
To be fair, we do have plans tomorrow to go visit my aunt and cousins and having a “Thanksgiving” dinner there. But I think Thanksgiving Day will be, yet again, Walmart Turkey and Chicken (I really need to work on my cooking acumen).Report
If you’re just doing Thanksgiving at home with wife and child, might I suggest you go and find a couple of Cornish Game Hens (in my experience, most grocery stores carry them around Thanksgiving)?Report
You should get turkey… WILD TURKEY!!!!!
Make this Thanksgiving your own. Make Steak-um sandwiches or something. Tell little Lain about the Cheesesteak Thanksgiving you had when she was a baby.Report
Being in Canada, Thanksgiving was over a month ago. This weekend is just a weekend, with accordingly modest plans.
Further attempts to turn our skulking delinquent of a basement into a presentable looking and contributing part of the house. I might stud some bicycle tires this evening. I already had my first winter spill; I don’t want too many more. A friend is coming over for dinner on Sunday.Report
I’ve been so busy; the holiday — even with its load of cooking — will be a blessing. A day off.
I had four designs commissioned by a yarn company, and not just any, but my most-desired-company-to-work-with yarn company. So in the last month, I’ve produced designs for a baby blanket, a cowl, a child’s sweater, and mittens. All small things, yet a lot do get done in a month. I’ve also had a design that will be in a book unveiled, and well-received by the hand-knitting world; book comes out in December. (All this work is why I’ve not been here much; it’s too nice a place to spend time that needed to go into work.)
We’ll go to my sister’s, I’ll bring the pies. I wrote a post on apple pie last year, I hope someone bothers to dig it out if they’ve that job on their to-do list.
And if you want to see my book design, look here. This is a very big deal for me, achievement of one of my major goals as a designer.Report
And look what google gave me:
https://ordinary-times.com/blog/2012/12/30/as-american-as-apple-pieReport
That’s lovely, zic. Congratulations.Report
My docket includes: (a) about 8 hours of online CLE credits; (b) no Bills game this week; and (c) taking the Wife’s car in for scheduled maintenance at the same time as the American Derby is being played in the Premier League (Stoke City v. Sunderland). At some point, I’ll need to figure out what we’re making for the day after Thanksgiving when my brother and his family come over (we’re going to the in-laws’ place for Turkey Day itself).
The good news is that I’m making beef tournedos tomorrow night with my legendary Roasted Potatoes. So there’s that.Report
My son and I have a shared birthday on Monday (who knew I’d make it to 60?) so the family is getting together Sunday afternoon for cake. Since there’s a new little girl in the family now (3-month-old granddaughter), I’m breaking out the teddy bear cake pan to begin practicing. Teddy bear cakes were a small tradition for my daughter’s birthdays. I recall teddy as a bear, baby teddy in diaper, Girl Scout teddy, Frankenteddy and Count Tedula; there were probably more. I’m planning on fencing teddy this time, with silver sugar for the foil lamé.Report
Sunday is The Garage Sale.
I’ve been working on Kitty for ten years to get this sale done. You would not believe how much stuff is on the chopping block.Report
Life will be simpler when you’re down to one kid.Report
Trying to stay warm Oklahoma winter has started cold and freezing rain
also trying to figure out what my contribution to Thanksgiving will be I have been asked to bring an appetizer and have already run through my limited repertoire Any one have a good vegetarian appetizer recipe they’d like to share?Report
Carrot sticks and wine.Report
Thanks JB why didn’t I think of thatReport
A less-usual one I make sometimes is cornbread bites. A box of Jiffy corn muffin mix, a third-cup of shredded cheese (assuming vegetarian stretches that far), and a tablespoon of crushed red pepper flakes. Bake in thin layer using whatever greased metal pan accomplishes that, turn out, cut into bite-sized pieces (there will be some breakage). The first taste is just cornbread with a bit of cheese; after several seconds the red pepper bites back.Report