thanksgiving (one last splurge)

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you are all full, thankful and ready to eat leftover turkey for the next week or so. RC and I hosted our first thanksgiving in our new house! His parents, grandpfather, sister and her boyfriend all came over. I’ve made a turkey for RC and I before but there was something about the pressure to feed other people with the turkey on THANKSGIVING that brought a whole new level of anxiety to things. It worked out with only a few hiccups and points of confusion.

Confusion point #1- stock vs broth. What the hell is the difference? I finally found out (google, my boy) but when looking up brining recipes each called for something different- broth, stock, just water, wah wah wah. I forgot what I ended up with but either way, when the brining bag collapsed about a gallon of it ended up on the floor, counter and bar stool.

If you’re not familiar with brining, and not a turkey cooking pro like mio, it’s basically a shit ton of salt, stock and water that you soak the turkey in overnight. It makes the turkey super juicy and delish. Look how pumped RC was about it.. don’t you want to have this much fun?

you know you're only a pseudo adult when you brine a turkey with a hangover

 Confusion point #2- poultry seasoning. I had never heard of this, if it’s not hot sauce, tobasco, buffalo sauce, siracha, red pepper flakes, I want no part of it. If it doesn't burn my tongue and make me tear up, I’ve never heard of it. So when RC’s dad sent us the stuffing recipe it called for poultry seasoning. RC told me it was the same as season-all (howeveryourspellit). Wrong. It’s not. It wasn’t until his parents came to our house that we (HE) realized it wasn’t so off I went to the grocery store at 3pm on Thanksgiving and shocker, they didn’t have ANY! Note- stock up on poultry season and sell it on the black market the week of thankgiving.

Confusion point #3- maybe it’s a Maryland thing or a southern thing or just NOT a New York thing but there was a point in the grocery store when we were talking about who was going to peel the potatoes, basically the worst part of Thanksgiving and my arch nemisis. RC kept mentioning how he was in charge of the “dressing” so he couldn’t and I kept asking “you’re making a salad?”. He then kept saying in a progressively louder tone, as if the louder he said it the more I would understand “NO, E. THE DRESSING. The point of thanksgiving”. All I could think was Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?! WTF is dressing and why do we need it?! The people around us must have loved us because it was a pretty heated conversation about how we weren't having salad on Thanksgiving. Anyway, after about 2 minutes of the same conversation and RC’s frustration reaching an all-time high I finally figured out that he meant STUFFING. Which makes about as much sense as Kloe Kardashian being the host of X Factor. For the record, my first thought was gravy..doesn’t that make more sense for a dressing synonym?

Other than that it was a wonderful day, filled with wonderful people. I didn't take a picture of the finished turkey but trust me when I tell you it was probably the best looking turkey in all of Canton, with the most delicious stuffing this side of the Mason Dixon line and the most perfect apple crisp to finish it off (thanks to RC's mom!).

 I’m off to Wales and London for work tomorrow night and leaving RC to finish all leftovers by my return on Thursday evening. The line is Wednesday for when he’ll be done with everything. I’m taking the under.. what do you think?