Greetings And Salutations

How goes it?

I hope you are all well, and for those who actually celebrated the holiday known as Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope you were all able to enjoy good company, good conversation and good food, without too many fights over religion, politics, whether you really had to say out loud what you were thankful for, or who got to break the wishbone.

Is breaking the wishbone still a thing? I don't think it is, really. Do turkeys still have them? If they do, our turkey's wishbone gets thrown out way too quick each year, because I never see it so I can break it.

Due to the fact I'm still working off my own Thanksgiving food coma, this edition of Grandpa Gotta Eat is going to be more of a question and answer session. Since no one's around to ask the questions, I'll simply make some up as if a group of readers were asking me them (using deductive reasoning, logic and science, of course), and then answer them (with that same aforementioned deductive reasoning, logic and science).

I'll take my cues from the pictures I managed to remember to snap as the dinner preparation and cooking rolled out. Since I wasn't the main chef this time around (for which I was most thankful for), it was harder to keep up with the food prep. My wife has prepared meals so often, including Thanksgiving Dinner, that it always resembles low level chaos to me. Somehow, she pulls it all off masterfully, even if we do have some "what the what?" kind of moments.

Is that foreshadowing? I think that's foreshadowing.

I'll ask the questions, thank you very much.

Well, then, get on with it.

Celery, eh?

A little known fact about Thanksgiving meal preparation. Start with cutting celery. Apparently, it goes with the turkey, and gives it that extra special pizzazz that celery gives to every meal it's cut for. Makes turkey taste, well, turkier.

Oh, and it also goes into the stuffing (aka dressing), especially if it's the dry, not homemade kind. Celery makes stuffing, well, stuffingier.

Those Don't Look Like Your Hands

No, that's a hand model I hired for the occasion.

Okay. Not really. They belong to my wife, who, unlike me, is obviously a woman, originally from Mexico, and on the smallish side. Unless you cross her. Then she punches above her weight. Let's just say, you won't like it if she's crossed.

As you can see, she's using the two-hand crosscut technique particularly useful when cutting celery. Or most anything, come to think of it.

So, Peeling Potatoes

Yeah. Since I was second fiddle this go around, I got relegated to potato peeling duty. Which is fine. Except, the peeler and I have an ongoing feud going way back. It likes to peel my fingers, too, and I like to just confine the peeling to the produce being peeled. As you can imagine, that difference in objectives has driven a wedge between us.

Unfortunately, the peeler did manage to catch me a couple of times, but somehow, to its chagrin, did not break my skin. I'm rather surprised by that myself. I must be toughening up in my old age or something.

Now, as you can see, the idea was to peel the potatoes into the right sink, and then quarter them and plunk them into the pot with water in the left sink.

This is something my wife prefers to do. Me, I like to peel the potatoes directly into the garbage, and then quarter and put them in the pot. Less clean up that way. As I said, I was not main chef on this meal, so when it's not your kitchen, you do as you're told.

So, I did.

Turkey. Kind Of On The Smallish Side, Ain't It?

This particular bird weighed in just over 13 pounds, and yes, it's a little undersized for what we normally do.

Here's the deal.

Larger birds take longer to thaw.

Larger birds also take longer to cook.

My wife is rather impatient when it comes to either thawing or cooking.

So, even though we had a free bird someone gave her, she went and bought this one, hoping it would already be thawed when she bought it (and sure enough, it was frozen), and thus wouldn't need to be thawed for a day and a half.

At any rate, one out of two isn't bad. The turkey only took 3.5 hours rather than the four to five hours turkeys we've cooked have taken in the past.

As you can see, there's some celery under the bird, along with some carrots. That actually might be some onion, too. Turkey needs some help in the flavor department is my take from all of this. I mean, its relying on celery to flavor it up a notch.

Is That A Pre-Cooked Ham? In The Oven?

You know, you really should put some spoiler alerts with these questions.

Let me explain.

Remember when I said it wasn't my kitchen?

Well, I asked my wife at the beginning, when we were looking at the precut, soon to be glazed ham, "Isn't this already cooked?"

To which she replied, "No. We need to bake it." Then she said, "Look up how long we need to bake it."

I went to the bag the ham came in first, since the turkey had instructions, so should the ham.

Red flag number one when contemplating baking a ham—The packaging didn't say anything about cooking times. So, I went and looked it up. If I remember correctly, it was roughly 15 minutes per pound. I think the ham was ten pounds, so that meant 150 minutes or two and a half hours.

So, I warmed up the oven and set the timer for two and a half hours.

Red flag number two—Half way in, at the hour and fifteen minute mark, she checked the ham. She made this sound that's hard to write, but basically, it meant that she was both in disbelief and dismay. I asked her what was wrong and she basically said that the outside of the ham was burning.

I'm not really sure what she said. When she doesn't really want to tell me what went wrong, she kind of says things under her breath, and doesn't exactly choose her words properly. English isn't her first language.

Well, to make a long story short, in case you're wondering or in doubt, it turns out that the information about how long not to cook a pre-cooked ham isn't on the outside packaging. It's on the glaze bag inside the outside packaging. This very helpful and well meaning bag had this to say about the whole matter in big bold letters:

This Ham Is Already Cooked

Of course, since the glazing wasn't supposed to take place until the end, neither of us bothered to look at the bag for ham burning, baking instructions. Or rather, more aptly put, the non-baking warning for morons and the rest who should know what stage of done their ham is in when they buy it.

Fortunately, the ham was actually up to the challenge and was able to take an extra hour of heat, and still taste great. Especially after the glaze was put on and we heated it for another seven minutes or so.

What On Earth Is That!?!

What? Never seen a turkey neck before? That's pretty much what they look like on the inside. I imagine your neck wouldn't look much better from the inside, either. Well, turkeys have long and slender necks, probably so they could be lopped off at the proper time and season. Got to love nature. Otherwise, we'd be eating some other beast that wasn't so pencil-necked and thus easy to lop.

Did You Eat That, Too?!?

You really sound disgusted by it.

Actually, indirectly, yes. That turkey neck got boiled, then pulled apart, and what didn't get consumed by a couple of the grandkids (not sure why my wife decided to feed them that), became part of the gravy for the mashed potatoes, etc. It turned out pretty tasty, by the way. So, get over it, okay?

Baked Bananas?

You really don't know a lot about Thanksgiving food, do you?

These are the sweet potatoes. Or what I call sweet potatoes. I grew up being told that's what they were, only to be corrected a year or so ago. It was kind of akin to the dress is blue/the dress is white kind of moment for me. Reality bent, space-time rent, and I didn't know who I was for at least a couple of seconds.

Needless to say, I'd rather not relive it.

At any rate, these have the texture of a potato, but they're sweet. And I like them. A lot.

You add a little butter, some brown sugar, and voila, they're as good as it gets.

Aha! More Celery Bits

Personally, that's not what I see when I stare at stuffing (ahhhhhh, stuffing...), but to each their own.

For some, the stuffing is the actual centerpiece of the meal. If it's not prepared, entire Thanksgiving dinners have been boycotted. Look it up. It's a fact.

Why Do Some People Call It Dressing?

Well, see, stuffing is actually supposed to go inside the bird, which they did for centuries until the CDC or the FDA or the FFF came out and said, "Thou shalt not put stuff in the bird, because you might inadvertently poison yourself and all your dinner guests, making it tough to have Thanksgiving next year." They put it on official letterhead and sent it out to all the news outlets and the next thing you knew, stuffing was no longer really stuffing.

As far as dressing goes, it just depends on how fancy your stuffing is. If it's run of the mill, but still flavorful, it's stuffing. If it's more uptown, maybe with hazelnuts and raisins, I don't know, it's dressing. See the difference?

That Just Looks Like Corn. From the Can.

Very observant, my dear Watson.

Little known fact. The first couple of centuries worth of Thanksgivings was celebrated with Maize, or corn on the cob, rather than store bought corn in a can.

You see, it took a while for stores, like Costco, to be thought of. Cans, however, we're a little easier to think about, so they came earlier. Fortunately, there were other stores that were easier to conceive of so the cans could be properly stocked on shelves.

I also detect that you are somewhat of a cob snob. You prefer your kernels straight off the cob. In fact, you like to physically remove them yourself. You are not alone, my dear reader. Personally, I don't like the cob things that get stuck between my teeth, and really, with some butter, I don't taste the difference.

Wow. Fancy.

You might say our table was well dressed this year.

I was told that we went all out with the almost fine china, seldom used silverware, burgundy linen tablecloth and matching corsaged napkins, along with the wine glasses (to put the even fru fruier cranberry ginger ale from the cans in), because my Dad was coming to dinner.

Now, nothing against my Dad. He's a fine, upstanding fellow. Well read, witty, etc. He's just not fru fru, or even fluff fluff. More blue collar than tuxedo, if you get my drift.

I think it was just my wife's excuse to break out the dishes I've never seen since our wedding, nearly 31 years ago. I think we've got another half a dozen sets of dinner plates we got as wedding gifts still to go.

Typically, we eat off of the Fiesta plates from the Macy's collection, which would have worked just fine.

Are Those Dark Brown Bespeckled Things Rolls?

Yeah. Made by The Cheesecake Factory, bought from Costco. Who knew? They kind of look like brownies or something, but taste like rolls. My wife ended up getting two bags of it because she bought the first bag a week too soon.

Finally! Pies!

Yes, finally.

As you can see, the pumpkin and dutch apple pies were more highly prized over the blueberry one. I actually tried the blueberry one, and other than a little too sweet, it didn't really taste like blueberry. I'm not an apple pie fan, per se, so my favorite was the pumpkin, with a glop of Cool Whip.

Seems Like Thanksgiving Is Misnamed—Shouldn't It Be Food Coma Apocalypse Day?

Well, for those who fixate solely on the food, it probably is.

For me, since I was very young, while the food has always played a prominent role (mainly, because I could just pig out well into second and thirds), getting together with extended family was what I remember the most. We used to gather at my Grandma B's house for Thanksgiving, and it was one of two times that I really got to see my cousins (from my Mom's side of the family).

Fun times, fun times.

For most of our married life, though, except early days, we've held Thanksgiving at home. Sometimes my parents and sisters have come, sometimes friends, sometimes, just us. Now, it's our sons and their families.

This time around, though, was historic because it was the first time that all four living generations of our peculiar strain of Albrethsen has been under the same roof. My Dad got to see his great grandchildren in person for the first time, and he got to hold the two youngest (one eventually got away but the other couldn't—actually he didn't seem to mind).

My youngest sister was also there. She wasn't sure she liked the idea of being a great aunt. Made her sound older than she was. She thought she should be a grand aunt, to be on par with Grandpa and Grandma.

Maybe we'll get the youngsters to call her Grand Aunt.

So, for me, Thanksgiving has always been more about family and reflecting on the blessing and bounty one has in their life, and being thankful for them.

Then, comes the apocalyptic food coma, or whatever you called it.

And the NFL.

Or the Hallmark Endless Days Of Christmas Movies Apocalyptic Countdown.

It depends on who has the clicker and if they can keep control of it or not.

Anything Else You'd Like To Add?

The food was delicious, as always. My wife did a great job, even if I couldn't follow the rhyme or reason, and despite the cooked ham extra baking incident, which I'm probably not supposed to be shouting to the ether, but hey, I'm not in her kitchen right now.

I'm in mine.

Until next time...

...Enjoy!

_{All images courtesy of Glen Anthony Albrethsen}

Grandpa Gotta Eat is published in conjunction with @foodfightfriday a weekly contest for lovers of food. If interested in participating, simply write about food, post it on a Friday, use the tag #fff, and then go and read the posts of other participants. Winners are chosen by their peers. Prizes are now in STEEM and provided by @appreciator.