The very first thing you all should know is that the turkey? It turned out great. Cooked away nicely in its little bag and yielded enough food for 11 folks, along with enough leftovers to keep drunken Steph and me picking at it for any number of hours later.
My lovely assistant Eric showed up Thursday morning, and we cooked and cooked like nobody's business. I assume that everyone else was doing the same, and the final menu ended up as:
Us: Turkey, stuffing (both with and without yucky things like celery), mashed potatoes, cheddar-sage biscuits, and a sweet potato-apple bake that was mediocre.
Tara: Superfantastic rice pilaf, which I want the recipe for right now.
Jeff: Cranberry sauce.
Kathleen: Cranberry-orange relish.
Lee: Braised sweet potatoes.
Oscar: Pumpkin pie.
Steph and Ryan (I don't know quite who made what): Green bean casserole and pineapple bread pudding.
And so, so much alcohol. Everyone who has come over to my house in the last couple of months, looked in the fridge, and gone "wow, samantha, that's a lot of beer" can now be silenced because it's gone. All of it. And so are the five bottles of wine that we killed.
At one point people just sort of suddenly started going home, and Steph and Ryan and Eric and Jeff and I were left to do the burden of the drinking and make the handturkeys. The usual hilarity ensued and altogether it ended up as a splendid day. With a dog. Did I mention that Oscar and Lee brought their dog? Because they love me and want me to be happy? Well, they did, and she was perfectly behaved even with all the turkey floating over her head.
Final head count? 12, including the dog.
Eric was only in town Thursday morning through last night, and he's never been to Seattle, so we had to sightsee like it was going out of style. And did we ever.
The last few times I've taken people down to the market, nothing's happened. It's ended up being me pointing and saying things like "Usually, they'd throw fish over there." So I was pretty pleased that just as we walked up this lady asked to take a picture with the fish guy, and he picked up this fish and made her hold it.
We went to most of the usual places, and I even managed to put us on a bus going the opposite direction I wanted to be going in, so Eric got a little tour of some plain old neighborhoods without any public art at all. It was a splendid time, and he was a great houseguest (and, you know, incredibly hot).
In the end, I can honestly tell you all that this whole weekend has hit the top of the charts both for Thanksgivings and weekends in general. It surpassed my expectations and was exactly what I needed. I have the greatest friends, and I'm even more thankful for you all now than I was before the holiday. I am a lucky, lucky girl.
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