Thanksgiving prep

Last year, as you may recall, I moved on the day after Thanksgiving. It sort of threw my holiday for a loop, as it was hard to enjoy the excellent meal and company at my friends' house when I could feel the looming pressure of all not yet done and movers coming in the morning. (Why, yes, I was up most of the night, how did you know?) So the first thing I am thankful for is that this year is much less, well, like that. Instead of the peak of chaos, I am happily looking at a four-day weekend to relax in and enjoy.

The second thing I am thankful for is that tonight, I am making my angel salad. This is a dish that my family, my mother's family, always has at Thanksgiving, for longer than I've been alive anyway. When I describe the ingredients to the fully curious, I am sometimes told it "sounds like ambrosia", which it could be as far as I would know, never having had ambrosia. All I know is that Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving without it, and fortunately my friends let me bring it and don't even try to convince me that it should be a dessert (it isn't; it just isn't).

My wants are pretty simple for this meal: turkey (white meat), stuffing (and nothing "fancy", just basic celery-onion-bread-seasonings), mashed potatoes with butter, and angel salad. I'm not one who needs gravy (unless it's to rescue dry turkey or stuffing), and I don't like cranberry sauce. I'll eat some vegetables, if they're there, but I don't need them, and I don't even like pumpkin pie (forget about mincemeat: what is that, anyway?). I'll happily drink cider, but wouldn't feel deprived without it.

Turkey. Stuffing. Mashed potatoes. Angel salad. Must be Thanksgiving!

I'm going to the same friends this year; they're like my local family. It will be a good-sized group around an overflowing table, and will I have no doubt be a wonderful time, so I'm thankful for that, too. There's only one drawback.

No leftovers.

What kind of Thanksgiving involves only one meal of turkey? It's not that I want to be eating it for a week, but this is one show that should go into reruns, in my opinion.

So here's what I'm doing about it. Tomorrow, I'll bring my angel salad and a couple of other things to their house, and have a fine time. Then, on Friday, I'll cook my own little turkey breast, and make stuffing, and mash potatoes, and have an equally fine time, with the house smelling of turkey and yummy leftovers for the weekend.

Bliss!

The final thing that I'm thankful for today is that I live in such an interesting world. Along with a credit card offer, the Bed and Bath circular, the Consumer Reports 2008 buying guide, and eight catalogs, in the mail today I also received this card:



Yes, somehow, and I honestly have no idea how, I am among the chosen few being entreated to buy the Butter Butler, one of whose selling points is "Set it and forget it". As they say in the South, Do what?

I haven't looked through all today's catalogs, since I do already have a stack to get through, but just at a glance, if I was going to buy anything, it would be much more likely to come out of the Lake Champlain Chocolates catalog. The Chocolates of Vermont, say, or the Almond Butter Crunch. Or simply a Milk Caramel or Dark Peppermint bar. Mmm, chocolate.

Well, I must get angel salad-ing, so happy day before to you!