Turkey Day lineup

It's about time I make a food post for once (dying laughing)

It's hard to believe this is the 7th Thanksgiving Jennie and I are having together. It's probably my favorite home-cooked meal of the year, other than maybe the decadent shrimp and grits that I occasionally bust out for major birthdays/anniversaries. It's one of Kira's favorites too.



Last year we had a great time, though we need to remember to crack a few windows as we keep cooking as this kitchen gets too hot when cooking a turkey. Jennie's best friend Kate took the train up from Louisiana and we had a grand old time. Sadly, no visitors this year. Here's the rundown

• Definites:
  
  
  
  • Turkey Breast - Aside from the enormous size of most turkeys you can buy, Jennie and I found this is a great solution because we both hate dark meat. They're easier to cook, and we get more white meat than the full turkey we would normally get.
    
  
  
  • Mashed Potatoes - Jennie makes delicious ones. Also, there's nothing more amusing than watching a dog try to eat mashed potatoes and get confused.
    
  
  
  • Chestnut Dressing - I found some chestnuts at Trader Joe's this week and picked them up, remembering that Jennie's family has a legendary chestnut dressing recipe. This is the first time I've seen them sold anywhere I shop. I'm really excited!
    
  
  
  • Potato dinner rolls - Another family recipe of Jennie's that I'm a huge fan of. Maybe I just love baking though.
    
  
  
  • Obligatory Cranberry Sauce from a can - It's not thanksgiving without it. Bonus points for keeping as much of the can shape as possible on the plate
    
  
  
  • Spiced Peaches - Another thankgiving staple - delicious. Basically you cure some peaches in vinegar, sugar, and spices and end up with pure win
  
  
  • Cranberry Daquiris - per Klaw, these are delicious but can get you drunk in a hurry.
    
  
  
  • Apple (probably) pie - I used to be a HUGE pumpkin pie fan but that fell by the wayside for some reason when I was in high school. I love making (and eating) pies though so I'll probably bang out an apple pie tomorrow night. I might end up making some sort of berry pie instead though - they're my favorite but fall always makes me hungry for apples.
    
  
  
  
  


• Maybes:
  
  
  
  • Regular Dressing - I think I'm going to make the chestnut dressing the day before and see how it turns out. I don't think we'll have enough energy to make two. We sure do LOVE our regular recipe too so it's a tough decision
    
  
  
  
  


• Not this year:
  
  
  
  • Sweet potatoes - I despise the usual sweet potato recipes that make the rounds - they're usually candied or caramelized and have cornflakes and/or marshmallows in them. I had Thanksgiving at my Aunt Jonette's house (she's considered the best cook in my family) my freshman year of college and while the rest of her food was outstanding, I was floored that she would ever make a recipe with marshmallows in them. Why add all that to sweet potatoes? They're already delicious! My mom's recipe is taken from a Colonial Williamsburg cookbook and is closer to mashed potatoes in spirit - it uses butter and brown sugar with nutmeg and is quite delicious. Sadly it misses the cut behind all the other must-have foods, but it will be back on the menu when we have more guests (and/or a larger family!).
  
  
  • Green Bean casserole - This felt the axe of too-many dishes too, but will be back someday. We've made it a few times in the past but somehow our recipe is always a bit off. One thing that bothers me about it is that it doesn't keep well.
    
  
  
  
  
• Non-food: This is the only day of the year when I wish I had a TV in the kitchen.
  
  
  
  • Macy's Parade - I dislike parades in general, but I've come around on the thanksgiving parade a little. The commentators are incredibly insipid and I hate how scripted all the parade performances are. But since I'm usually cooking during most of it, no big deal
    
  
  
  • Dog Show - I'm always rooting for the Cocker Spaniels, of course. They got little to no face time 2 years ago but I think one of them won its group last year.
    
  
  
  • Packers - Lions - Something tells me I won't be hanging on every play of this game. Now that Madden is retired I wish that Fox could bring back the Turducken leg as the game MVP as opposed to the incredibly stupid looking 'Galloping Gobbler' trophy.
    
  
  
  • Miracle on 34th street (the original) - another Thanksgiving tradition. My wife always cries when Santa talks to the Dutch girl in her native tongue.
  
  
  
  

Should be a good time!

Book review: The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Tedium book 12)

I was very excited when I went to the bookstore last week and picked up a copy of The Gathering Storm. I hadn't even realized it was out yet - we were there buying the last of the Meg Langslow books that my wife (and I) have been reading. When I spotted the book I thought "this is it! Finally the last book in this series!". It turns out I was wrong - it was merely 'part 1' of the last book in the series. The author died a few years ago but he and his wife (who is also his editor) passed on his notes to another fantasy author to finish it up. After you've already written 11 huge books in a storyline you need some kind of closure.

I've got a long history with the Wheel of Time (aka Wheel of Tedium). It was one of the first mainstream fantasy series that I began reading back when I was 11 or 12 years old. The first three books of the series are very good - it's your usual epic tale of three youngsters in a fantasy world with Destinies and Magic and all the usual stuff you expect to find. Then Jordan was hit HARD by plot bloat. Too many storylines spiraled out from his main story, and at times you lost sight of the original three main characters that started off the piece. In later books, it was not unheard of for one of them to not appear (or at least not have a POV at all), and it was hard to keep track of many of the marginally important peripheral characters who kept popping up.

As far as the new book goes, it was a good read and grabbed me in a way the last few books did not - I read the last 300 pages or so pretty much in one sitting. I can pick out a few reasons why:

1. Stuff actually happened in this book. Several of the recent books (most notably, Crossroads to Twilight) were very light on both action and plot points. You can only read so many impromptu planning sessions where everyone disagrees with each other and is always glaring and getting nothing done. Everyone in this universe is incredibly convinced that they are Right and everyone else is Wrong (and generally, idiot children for doing/thinking what they do) and never bends in their judgement. This time around people actually made decisions and confronted their enemies (or did stuff despite the objection of their allies). Of course the bigger thing was that people didn't spend as much time fuming over what everyone else has done. Basically the outline of the last few books has been:
   
   
   
   • First 600 pages - eveyone fumes and argues over the Major Event that happened at the end of the last book and tries to figure out how it works to their advantage
   
   
   • Next 50 pages - people start making plans
   
   
   • Next 50 pages - one of the POV characters does something
   
   
   
   It could just be that new the author is pressed for time/space now (since presumably he only has a book deal for these last three books, but whatever it is, thank goodness we're getting more plot points now.
   
2. This book largely consisted of POVs that I actually gave a crap about (and in one case, changed my opinion of one of the other major POV characters). Honestly, I think one of the main reasons I enjoyed this book was the total lack of Elayne Trakand in it. I've never really liked her, but was okay with her when she was a secondary character in the B storyline of Egwene/Nynaeve/Elyane, even though that storyline wasn't really my favorite either. But Elayne has always had that whiny-princess-who-is-'actually tough' but is really just incredibly bitchy/catty vibe that drives me nuts.
   
   Of course, that's kind of a problem with all of Jordan's women from what I can tell. I don't know if he hates women or what his deal is. Almost all of the women in this series are incredibly bossy and opinionated, which is fine, since women absolutely should be assertive and have opinions. However, nearly all of them can be incredibly catty with other women and think that all men are idiot children who can never make a single decision for themselves and require the guidance of a woman just to tie their shoes, and are always seeking to manipulate everyone around them in any way possible. Some of that has to do with the Aes Sedai in these novels - there is a big large-scale power imbalance because for the past 2000 years women have been the only ones who can work magic in this world, and those who can live centuries-plus long lives and are experts in scheming. However, this is true of women even outside of that community as well (see, for example, Faile Bashere) and can be incredibly frustrating. The main character (the Dragon Reborn) is a kind of messaianic figure who's supposed to lead the forces of the world against the forces of darkness in an armageddon-ish battle, and all everyone (various Aes Sedai factions, other empires, all led by women) can think of is how best to get him under their control so they can be the ones in charge.
   
   Anyway, I did change my views on one of the POV characters in the series. In the last few books one of the main characters was raised to be the leader of the rebel faction of Aes Sedai, despite (or really because of) her youth and inexperience. They wanted a leader they could use as a puppet but found an actual leader who actually led them, which is a real rarity in these books. In this book she had been captured by their opponents and their batshit crazy leader and managed to undermine her entire regime by merely being the bigger person for once, instead of the usual route of skulking, scheming, and arguing with everyone about semantics for pages upon pages upon pages (there's a reason why the series is nicknamed the Wheel of Tedium).

Anyway, long story short (heh), I did really enjoy this book and I'm tempted to re-read all of them again. I sold all of my copies when I heard Jordan died a few years ago though. As I've got plenty of books yet to read (and my dissertation...) I guess it will just have to wait.

World Series preview

My World Series preview is up over at ACB. The short version: Yankees in 7

Another anniversary

Thanks to waxpaperbeercup for the reminder - 6 years ago today was the Bartman game, where the Cubs were 6 outs away from their first WS appearance since 1945 before coughing up a 3 run lead in the 8th inning. I've always thought that this game was the one that changed the fanbase, and wpbc agrees. He hit the nail on the head with this statement:

The days of the ever-optimistic Cubs fans have gone away. Many Cub fans now feel as if they are owed something because of what happened that night.

That's pretty much it. Many of us (myself included too) now feel like we are somehow owed a successful team, since victory was snatched from our grasp in such an excruciating fashion. I know I wasn't all-in as a Cubs fan until after that postseason. I was pretty devastated, though I didn't realize it for weeks later when my now-wife pointed it out to me.

In some sense, it is a good thing, as it put pressure on the Trib to actually spend money on the team - for example spending money on Lee, Soriano, and Maddux and keeping Ramirez and Z around when the old TribCo would have let them go, Greg Maddux-1993-style. But man, at times it makes it very hard to interact with other Cubs fans. At times we're just as bad as the Red Sox fans that I roundly despise.

It still sucks, 6 years later. FWIW I don't blame Bartman for anything, and when the Cubs are back in the NLCS, I hope he throws out the game ball for the next game 6 (or in the WS!)

Random thoughts on Iowa-Wisconsin

Wisconsin plays Iowa this week in Camp Randall, a huge game for both teams.

For the Badgers, they really need a bounceback win after last week's loss at Ohio State. That was an incredibly frustrating game. I don't think I've ever seen a game where the final score and the state sheet were so far apart - Wisconsin really dominated that game (especially the defense).

For the Hawkeyes, this might be their toughest game of the entire season (excepting maybe a bowl game). After watching UW's defense completely shut down OSU's offense and seeing Iowa's defense (especially their D-Line) shut down Penn State, Iowa should run roughshod over the Buckeyes, in Colombus or not. They're a really good football team.

I'm kind of torn here. Of course I want to root for the Badgers. But I also think that Iowa is easily the best team in the Big Ten, and they need to go undefeated to have a shot at making the National Championship game (which they've already been hosed out of playing in once - I forget the year). Having the Big Ten win something for once would be huge for the conference in general. Ohio State will never be a championship team with Pryor at QB, and they don't have Beanie Wells to bail out the offense anymore either. So I guess I'm just going to root for a great game and see what happens.

NLDS Previews

Can be found here and here. I'm too lazy/busy to do any of the ALDS ones - this was a rough week. I might bang something out for those, but I'll probably just wait for the Championship Serieses (sp?) to write those

2009 Playoffs mini-post

I'm pretty swamped with work/job applications/my thesis right now, but I'm going to write some stuff over on ACB soon previewing the various playoff series, which I'll link to when I write them. I'm rooting for the Phillies in the NL and the Yankees in the AL.

How about that Tigers-Twins game last night? What a game!