Goble, Goble, Goble!

Oh, long weekends. How I love thee!

My company gives us 4 days off for Thanksgiving. Plus, since many people took the whole week off, the work was pretty slow. But I started my holiday plans on weekend before.

My girl friends J., M., and T. and I planned to have a little Thanksgiving meal that previous Sunday. We wanted to make the meal together, and since I happen to have the most space in the kitchen, I offered to have it at my place. Some girls were doubtful that we can pull it off and suggested we at least get a pre-cooked turkey, but I challenged them. Since all four of us are single, I thought it would be a good opportunity to cook this meal just for us, and practice for when one day we need to cook it for a larger family.

I got us an organic 13lb turkey from Costco, large enough so that we all would have some leftovers. I figured it would harder to mess up a turkey that is better meat from the start. It was nice to shop the whole week before Thanksgiving, as it was not so crowded. Last year I made a big meal with my brother and sister-in-law, but she was the one who pretty much made the turkey by herself and Zoran brined it for a day before. So I decided to follow a similar recipe.

I found some brining recipes on-line, and Zoran found one in his cooking book. The brine helps keep the meat moist and flavorful. It took some 5 hours to thaw the turkey, and even then I had a hard time removing the neck that was still frozen to the body. The brine used 1 cup of salt, 2 cups of sugar, and 4-5 different spices. I used Zoran's large cheese-making pot and left the bird in the fridge for about 20 hours. then I washed it, filled with some onions, garlic, celery and carrots, brushed with butter, and placed it barest-side down in a roasting pan (that I got on great sale at World Market for $3.99!) with just a little bit of water on the bottom. After about 2 hours I flipped it upside down and continued brushing with pan drippings for another couple of hours. The result: A full pan of awesomeness!

We also made green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, salad, rolls, and pumpkin pie. Now, what more can one ask for!

The actual Thanksgiving day was super slow at our house. We dragged our behinds until noon, which is when my brother decided he'll make crapes for breakfast. We finally ate around 2 pm, and of course weren't thinking about another meal until later in the evening. I also wanted us to go for a walk while it was still day light outside, but since we were slow to react that day, we didn't start making plans till 7pm.

I had this idea to try a black Friday shopping for a new digital camera. Walmart started their sale at midnight Thursday evening, so I figured I'll just got there around 11.30, pick up that one item and be at the counter at midnight when the sale prices begin. How naive of me.

Zoran and first tried Domain for a place to walk, but it was ghostly empty. No cars, no people, all stores closed...I've never seen it like that. Then we drove downtown, and it was the same deal. Barely any cars on south Congress. We saw only one open restaurant. It was quite erie actually, like an epidemic plagued the city. We then went up to Hide Park area, sat at one open desert place until 11.20, and then headed back up north to a walmart closest to the house.

As soon as we got off the highway, near where several retail stores were, the traffic picked up. The Walmart parking lot was completely packed, and people walked toward it from nearby parking lots. Inside, a mayhem. Just like the empty Domain, I've never seen a store this full. C-ra-zy! Lines everywhere, crowds, and tension. My brother immediately said he didn't want to stay there and wanted home. I wasn't happy with it, having to leave now that we were already there, but I realized it would be best for the both of us. Once dropping him off, I left the house around 12.05 and went to a different Walmart. I think the demographics of people at that store was different, as they seemed to behaved more orderly. Plus, the store seemed a bit less crowded, and the midnight sale time already started so the lines were moving.

My entire trip was about 1 hour. Which really wasn't that bad considering how some people sat in front of Best Buys for hours before they could get in. I waited about 10 minutes for a guy to find keys to camera cabinets, another 5 for him to help undecided teenagers, another 10 min for a resolution of some transaction problems for a lady at the head of our otherwise really short line, and some more resolving my own issue where the cashier took some convincing that my camera is the one on sale.

The result: I got this 16.1-megapixel digital camera with 10X optical zoom for $129. A pretty sweet deal! It's a great replacement to my old Kodak that broke on the Adriatic coast. If I had to do it again, I think I'd only do it this way; come on the evening to a store that's open 24/7 so I wouldn't have to stand in line outside.

Late night out meant sleeping in on Friday and another slow day when I could play with my new blue shiny toy!

Giving Thanks

I love that we have at least this one day to remind us that we have so much to be thankful for. I know I needed a reminder lately.

I like to think that we have started a little tradition, to have my brother and his future wife over for Thanksgiving. They both like to cook, and that gives me an inspiration to whip up some of my favorites, too.

A week before we started throwing some ideas out about the menu. We liked all, so we didn't cut any of them from the list! The two of them came over the night before, and we spent good 4 hours in the kitchen on Wednesday evening. The plan was to have dishes ready for dinner, so we were pretty much cooking for another 6 hours on Thursday. It was so nice to do it with dear company, chatting, helping each other, listening to music... It was such a pleasant day! And the weather was unusually warm, it the 80s, until it dropped down to 50s in a matter of couple of hours in the afternoon.

In the end, we made 14 different things, all from scratch! It was a mix of traditional home cooking, fancy vegetarian dishes, and traditional Thanksgiving food. Our menu included:
- Celery Root and Chestnut Soup With Brussels Sprouts
- Prosciutto wrapped asparagus
- Organic Turkey
- Gravy
- Cranberry-orange sauce
- Harvest-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
- Fresh French green beans sauteed with organic carrots
- Fingerling baby potatoes
- Perl onions in bechamel sauce
- Baby spinach, strawberries, and almonds salad
- Red wine vinegar, master seeds and dill dressing
- Cucumber, green onions, yogurt salad
- Ferrero Rocher cake
- Tart cherries pie
- Merlot (Cupcake) wine

Thanksgiving Day South Padre trip

Mom came to visit this year extra early, 6th of Nov, because her visa was expiring on the 10th. And Zoran is finishing his thesis these months, so we can't do a family trip until he is done. So, I decided to give him quiet time and take mom to South Padre Island. Zoran and I went there last year with couple of friends, and I really enjoyed it. We booked a room right on the beach, a one bedroom apartment.
It took us the usual 6 hours to get here, which was good considering it was the busiest travel holiday weekend. We left cloudy and drizzling weather in Austin, and came to an unseasonable warm and sunny weather on the coast. The room was really nice, right on the beach, with large living room and balcony facing the sea. Mom told me she can't remember ever staying in a room this close to the water (but later she remember the one time it happened).

We quickly changed and went to the beach. We ate dinner there that we brought with us. Then we went for a stroll along the miles long sandy beach. The waves were high, and there was breeze, which made a thought of swimming not very appealing at the moment. Since this side of the island is facing east, the beach is all in shade by 5-ish, so we didn't stay too long. Later we drove through the entire island, all the three parallel boulevards, and many sideways streets that are facing the bay. We saw many beautiful homes there, many for sale. Almost all stores and even restaurants were closed, and there were very few people on the street, probably because it was the Thanksgiving day.
The next day started early, since we didn't sleep well - I guess new bed is to blame. We had coffee and went for a walk along the beach,, again, together with many other locals and visitors. We saw a couple with their amazon parrot on the lady's hand, and had a little chat with them. After breakfast, we took our chairs and went to sit on the beach. The wind was really picking up that day, and I was too cold to sit in the swim suite. Even with a shorts and t-shirt I was still too cold when the sun was hiding behind the clouds. So, I went for a walk, to catch up with mom who went beach-walking half and hour earlier. We then went for a drink to a beach bar not far from our condo. I had a crazy idea that we can go for a swim in the 'chilly' water and then run for the jacuzzi. To my surprise, the water was really not that cold, but it was hard to stand, much less swim, because of all the waves. But we didn't need to run out because of the cold (I think it was around 70 degrees water temp). We actually needed more time to adjust to the hot jacuzzi, and I didn't really enjoy it that much. After cleaning up, we had coffee on the balcony, and then went to sit on the beach again for half an hour until the sun was behind the building.
Since it was still day light, we decided to check out the other side of the island to try and find beaches there that would probably have less waves. But, we didn't find any public access. There was a reason for it, we found out later at the visitor's center; the bay side is very muddy and shallow, and is only used by fisherman. The visitors center had a Christmas lights lighting 'ceremony' at 6, which turned out to be not more than flipping of a switch on lights in a small backyard-size park. They also had Santa come with his reindeer on one of those four-wheel, custom, open cars, and then picture op for many kids that were in line (I guess anyone could have had their picture taken). We also used that time to stop at nearby McDonald's that had internet connection (since our condo didn't, at least not the first day, but I was able to connect later to a weak unsecured network for couple of hours), and talk to Zoran, download pictures and Hayat news.
Afterwards, we went grocery shopping for few items we didn't bring with us.
I am glad we have one more full day here, and I hope the weather serves us well like it did so far.