[backdated] Thanksgiving weekend

[chanaleh]

I should note that our family Thanksgiving actually started the previous Sunday, when etrace's nearby cousins were having their gathering and invited us to come. I brought a pumpkin pie and we hung out with them for several hours while the kiddos ran around together. It was very pleasant.

About the pies: MomTrace was always the one to make them, with ready-made Pillsbury crusts from the dairy case. I was all set to make them this year, and duly bought pie crusts, only to read the labels once we got them home that they have lard in them! Er, this is what happens when you stop keeping a kosher home and therefore get lazy about reading labels. :-/ Now some of you are jumping up and down saying "BUT PIE CRUST ISN'T HARD TO MAKE!" and you are, of course, right, but I was kind of raised to believe that it is, because my mom is very vain about her pie crust. ;-) Also I swear I once had a pastry cutter (that's the semicircular implement with the parallel blades that you use to "cut in" the fat with the flour), but I hadn't been able to find it in years, and had about broken my wrists one time trying to do it with a pair of knives. So I finally bought a proper pastry cutter, made a proper crust, and now I never have to depend on store-bought crusts again. (Also useful for making turkey pot pie, post-festivities.)

So -- it was the first Thanksgiving without MomTrace. Etrace held up well on the surface; the only obvious moment of struggle was trying to make her world-famous hamburger dressing (a traditional family favorite ground-beef concoction for which the only recipe is a list of ingredients with no measurements or instructions) and being frustrated at not getting it right, although it was still delicious to the uninitiated.

So it was just us, plus cycon who came down from the northern wilds of Chicago to hang out from around noon to 9pm. I need to remember to plan "cheese plate" as basically a separate meal in the afternoon; luckily I had bought some port-wine cheese on impulse, and had plenty of hors-d'oeuvre options on hand.

Friday was Buy Nothing Day; we stayed in, I made matzah ball soup, and Etrace started putting up his Christmas tree. (I also successfully colored my hair during naptime, yesss! -- although not a single person apart from Etrace has commented on it since, so I guess "subtle" was achieved.)

Saturday morning I had signed up to read Torah, so I had a solo outing to shul in the morning. Saturday night was a band gig, and I ended up taking Aria over to the McDonald's playland to run around.

And then the following Tuesday the 28th was Etrace's 48th birthday, with obligatory outing for prime rib dinner. :-) Plus I successfully made him the birthday cake that his mom always made, a chocolate sheet cake ("Cookie Sheet Cake") made with buttermilk, and it came out good, too.

Comments

[surrealestate]

Not that homemade isn't better, but just so you know, there are definitely non-lardy storebought pie crusts out there (check the freezer section), which I know because every one I've personally checked the label on was fine. Not that I've done so very often, because I make my own, but a few times when other people bought them... :)

[vettecat]

I would say there are definitely kosher pie crusts out there, but I don't know what's available in your area. Regardless, I'm sure homemade is better. (Strangely pie crust is one thing I've never gotten into.)

Can totally relate about working with vague ancestral recipes, it can be very frustrating when you want to capture that flavor and you don't know how. Hope Etrace can figure it out!