Chez Grapeshot

Finalizing the Thanksgiving dinner en famille, with a new daughter-in-law this year (yay!) and both sons nearby.  What a reason to be thankful.  Granddaughter will be with us, too.  I believe this is the first ever celebration with all together in New England.

There will be a roast turkey, of course, and some stuffing, my mom's old recipe to comply with vegetarian tastes. 
 Earla's Old Time Potato Stuffing
We'll enjoy gravy, like my Dad taught me to make.  Thanks, Dad.  Not too many people know how to make real gravy anymore.  Equal quantities of fat and flour and not more than your turkey broth can accommodate.  Mashed potatoes.  Trying some squash fritters for the vegetarian.  Made with rice, too, they sound yummy.  A wild rice salad with cranberries, also good for the vegetarian and it sounds tasty.  Maybe some green bean casserole made from scratch.  And Ina Garten's cranberry conserve.  Dessert will be pumpkin  tarts and pecan pie bars. A veritable feast, so be sure, and plenty of work, too. 
 Some of the tasks can be done in advance:   the turkey broth, the stuffing bread, cut up the veggies, cook the squash, cook the beans and rice, make the salad, Make the tart shells and the pecan pie bars.  Enough left for turkey day, plus I'll have some help.  The worst is cleaning up the kitchen and trying to find a place for all the leftovers.  Thanks, too, for the fridge in the basement storeroom.  And the cold garage.

The cats will be thankful for lots of extra laps to sit in.  Share the love, they always say.

Back to my writing, which is nearly 80,000 words in the 1928 Southern California book.  Yowza!

Pensées and other thoughts

The bad cat Thisbe is staring at me with love in her eyes.  She just hurled on the sofa and is asking forgiveness.   That sofa was around when God was a boy.   We're actually thinking of having it reupholstered and  put it back in the living room.  It is an old down-filled Dunbar that we bought years ago ($65) at a house sale in Deerfield, Il.   You are forgiven, Thisbe.

Yesterday I trekked through the Braintree Mall with a 12-year-old young lady, and the term shop til you drop was never more apt.  I was dropping.  She was still raring to go.  We arrived home with lots of parcels, including 2 pieces of cheesecake from (natch) The Cheesecake Factory, and a whole bunch of stuff from The Body Shop til you drop.

I  barely had energy to make lentil soup garnished with homemade croutons and kielbasa.   Tasty.  Today was  Turkey Day - 1, and I did the cranberries, the pumpkin tarts and prepped for the vegetable and the dressing.   Cooked up two kinds of tacos for dinner.    The guest said that they are better than restaurant tacos. I do a whole rigamarole with reconstituted pepper, black beans, red pepper and red jalapeno,  8  garnishes, the whole nine yards.  Now I am yawning, but well situated for the morrow.  We have a mildly ambitious menu, so I should be able to cope.  Now it's bedtime.

I'm reading two of my manuscripts on my Kindle--you email them to your Kindle account and they load them onto the device for chump change.  It is really easy to find typos on the Kindle.  I bookmark them, and then do a scan on the MS as I go thru the bookmarks.  Works like a dream.  Highly recommend.

The formerly orange cat can also be described as kumquat.  This is not the cat who vomited on the couch.  The cats are happy with a new catnip plant.  Many nibbles. 

We are feeding the poor starving squirrels.  Our oaks produced NO ACORNS this year.   A friend brought me a bushel basket of them from New York.  We also bought corn and have been throwing out stale bread.   And the pumpkin has been chewed up royally.  An opportunistc mouse has taken up residence under the front porch to partake of all the sudden delicacies.  I love it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  Tomorrow I'll have a photo of a cat wearing glasses . . . and cattitude.  Can you wait? 

Grapeshot