Giving Thanks
We had a lovely Thanksgiving meal yesterday. I made my usual hot punch consisting of apple juice, cranberry juice, and a large tea ball packed with cloves, allspice, cinnamon sticks, candied ginger, dried orange peel, and peppercorns. It's especially good with dark rum (Jamaican, of course).
As D. and E. don't eat meat, we had no turkey, but a variety of delicious vegetarian dishes. I cooked acorn squash stuffed with mushrooms, water chestnuts, shallots, herb stuffing mix, vegetable broth, nutmeg and sage, as well as mashed potatoes with a carrot-cumin gravy. D. cooked oven-roasted brussels sprouts and black beans with shallots, poblano peppers, and "soyrizo," a meatless version of chorizo sausage. I got full and couldn't even clean my plate, let alone have room for apple pie (Mrs. Smith's; I am too intimidated by her formidable talents to make a pie of my own). I baked the pie anyway and had a slice later on.
We raised a glass in thanks for Varda's life and exchanged some memories. We listened to Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Bruckner. Later, Stephan and I watched one of the Planet of the Apes movies someone had given us on DvD. Not exactly high art, and the plot was definitely secondary to the philosophical points the writers wished to make, but I had never seen that one so it was interesting to put another piece in the puzzle.
I think I'm about to raid the fridge for some yummy leftovers.
As D. and E. don't eat meat, we had no turkey, but a variety of delicious vegetarian dishes. I cooked acorn squash stuffed with mushrooms, water chestnuts, shallots, herb stuffing mix, vegetable broth, nutmeg and sage, as well as mashed potatoes with a carrot-cumin gravy. D. cooked oven-roasted brussels sprouts and black beans with shallots, poblano peppers, and "soyrizo," a meatless version of chorizo sausage. I got full and couldn't even clean my plate, let alone have room for apple pie (Mrs. Smith's; I am too intimidated by her formidable talents to make a pie of my own). I baked the pie anyway and had a slice later on.
We raised a glass in thanks for Varda's life and exchanged some memories. We listened to Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Bruckner. Later, Stephan and I watched one of the Planet of the Apes movies someone had given us on DvD. Not exactly high art, and the plot was definitely secondary to the philosophical points the writers wished to make, but I had never seen that one so it was interesting to put another piece in the puzzle.
I think I'm about to raid the fridge for some yummy leftovers.