chomiji | Thanksgiving (Reply)

It was mostly low-key. We went to my sister's house for the actual holiday.

The meal began with an appetizer course consisting of a sumptuous array of roasted vegetables with an aioli dip, plus a cheese platter with quince paste and crackers. The turkey they ordered proved to be too large for their roaster, even laid diagonally, so being the intrepid gourmet types they are, they boned it and made a ballotine of turkey with a filling.

I can't tell you whether the filling was any good because it had liver (which I really, really don't like and can detect in very small quantities) but the turkey was tasty and moist. There were also Brussels sprouts sauteed with pecans, mashed sweet potatoes and carrots with ginger (my contribution), homemade creamed corn, bread dressing baked as a casserole, and no fewer than five kinds of cranberry relish, from the traditional jellied canned rounds than the Mr. likes to my sister's mom-in-law's bright pink fluffy stuff made with sour cream, horseradish and garlic. Dessert was a choice of pumpkin pie, my sister's chocolate pecan pie, and the Mr.'s applesauce cake with homemade spiced applesauce on top.

Friday the Mr. went to work, and I noodled around aimlessly on the computer before making myself clean up the basement guest quarters for my sister-in-law E and 19-yr-old nephew B, who showed up around 3:30 p.m. after having had dinner and spent the night at her stepsister's. They accompanied us to my friend Kat's house, where she served her traditional after-Thanksgiving turkey vegetable soup along with an array of leftovers. Then she drove her oldest daughter off to an informal high school reunion while her in-laws, son, husband, our nephew, and the Mr. played Apples to Apples. I hung out and talked to E.

Saturday, we walked our visitors down to Busboys & Poets for brunch, and then we did some shopping in our town's Old Town. E drove to Rockville in the afternoon to do some more shopping with her best friend, B hung out with his computer and some DVDs, and the Mr. and I went off and had some quality time by ourselves. We all went out for Korean BBQ when E came back.

This morning I fed people pancakes and scrambled eggs, then accompanied E and B to the farmers market (cold and rainy, and not all the vendors were there, which made me sad: I had wanted to show her the newest addition, a pickle vendor). Then we sent them on their way back to western Maryland, and now I'm doing the usual weekend chores. And feeling rather over-socialized.

Everyone else have a nice weekend?