Thanksgiving 2019

Start of Teri's family stuffing

It's been several year since we all got together in one house to celebrate Thanksgiving. The original reason,  reasons we started doing separate Thanksgivings was there were too many people and Teri
 wanted to have a holiday at our house.
Over the last few years the separate Thanksgivings have gotten smaller. People have left us but we still kept them separate. That was until Karen, Lynn's sister unexpectedly died last spring. She was only in her fifties and it was very unexpected. Lynn kept up a strong front over the last months, but when it came time for Thanksgiving and we got the usual do you want to come over for Thanksgiving, this year it

Butter, sausage, onions and celery cooking away

seemed the right time. Eric and Lynn this year were down to five, maybe six or seven. We were just going to be five. Amanda and Tony were both working. Which left just Nancy, Teri, the girls and I. We, Teri was making a turkey. She started it at a reasonable hour this year because Eric and Lynn were eating at about four. We always ate at two. Teri took her time because she had lots of time and no she didn't run short of time for the turkey, she ran short of time for the sweet potato casserole. Everyone left for Eric and Lynns with Teri's voice in their ears "I'll be right behind you as soon as the sweet potatoes are done." About forty-five minutes later Teri and the potatoes both arrive. The sweet potatoes were well worth the wait. Teri hit the sweet spot on them and even thought I was full I went back for more.

Nastia and Elena help on Thanksgiving

       Now I don't want you to think the girls didn't help make thanksgiving dinner. I have several pictures of the girls staying out of the way in bed and one of Nastia thinking about helping, then stretching and decided she'd be more help going back to sleep. When she did get up she offered advice on canned pumpkin.
 I wanted to bring a dessert. I thought about a black bottom pie, but that was as far as I got with it. At the last moment I decided to make pumpkin cake. I like pumpkin and we had a can of pumpkin in the cellar. It was of course 16 months out of date. Does 16 months or a year and 4 months sound longer? I was going to use it. I remember before all this sell by date crap things in your freezer and things in cans were good for just about ever. I got the can out and I checked to see if it was bulging, it wasn't. Nastia with all of her soon to be twenty-one years was saying I don't know if you should use it, it's out of date! Around her offering her knowledge of canned pumpkin she did help me make the pumpkin cake.
     Now I don't really like cake and I don't really like cupcakes and each for a different reason. I don't like boxed cake even though they are usually very tasty. I feel it is a cheat. I like doing things from scratch, getting in over my head and then stopping doing the project. Wait how did I get on projects I'm doing around the house. I don't like cupcakes because of their bland flavor, overly sweet icing and this is coming from a guy who complained that cakes in Russia weren't sweet enough. And lastly I despise cupcake wrappers and I really don't know why. Maybe it has to do with overly sweet icing over the bland cake. Well all this is leading up to I decided to make  pumpkin cupcakes. It was a major pain. I started with the regular sized muffins remembering in the past I cooked some cake, maybe Sour Cream Coffee Cake (should have done that) in cupcake form and it went over big. But these cupcakes need to have a pan that was buttered and floured. I start with the regular dozen size cupcakes, I had one tray. I then use the four trays of minis I have spraying oil and tapping flour into each one. Oh and making a big mess. When the cupcakes come out they are too hot to remove from the pan and I say I'm going to take them in the tins. Well lets just say the next day when Amanda comes over to dinner she is given a bag of pumpkin cupcakes. The few I had were good, but too much work.
At Lynn and Eric's we are a group of about ten. Eric and Lynn's group fluctuated. Timmy came late, Billy was without his girlfriend, then she is there. Denis wasn't there then he was. It was a good time. Only once did Lynn let her armour slip, in the kitchen with a tear in her eye she thanked Teri for coming over while they were both cleaning up. I was glad we went.








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