A Good Day

Thanks to the Sage's help, a nice new place to live, with a nice new kitchen, and a pretty cool new town in Boise, Idaho, Thanksgiving day was in fact a good day.

So, having purchased "all the right stuff" to make pancakes with the night before, and having allowed myself to slumber for a bit, not sleep mind you, but slumber, once I wandered downstairs and ponder the prospect of pancakes, French toast, omelet, and so on, I eventually settled on the making of one pancake, yes I said one. I did not want a big breakfast, which is why I had put the bacon, and the sausage and all sorts of other potential food nightmares back on Thanksgiving Eve, and so I decided I wanted one pancake and only one.

My plan was simple, start backwards, put in an egg, and slowly add pancake mix until I had a bit of a paste, and then add the melted butter and thin with milk until the perfect consistency. The plan worked flawlessly except for the fact that the melted butter alone, I like butter, loosened up the mixture too much...so I added a bit more pancake mix, Aunt Jemima by the way, like there is any other, and then I thinned with milk. So four medium size pancakes without bacon is not so bad for a light breakfast.

I took my pancake pan, washed the dust off, and then heated gently while "greasing" with an appropriate amount of butter. Slowly distributed the batter in four strategically placed locations on the griddle, and away we went. Waited for the air bubbles to pop, turned them over to discover the golden brown tops, the crispy edges, mmmmm. I added the obligatory pat of butter per cake, and then removed them from the griddle. "Drizzled" the appropriate allotment of syrup on top and magic. I sat, I ate, I savored, I devoured.

That was stage one. Then, after cleaning up fro breakfast it was on to boxes of stuff. The goal, essentially, was to clear out the living room, where most boxes were first moved into, and in so doing put things away as I went. Mission accomplished. It was nice to be able to empty some boxes and move some stuff out, even just to find some things that had been missing, or at least not yet found.

Stage three was more food. The ham I had purchased, with the pineapple slices surrounding it, and a homemade maple, honey glaze thanks Gram. I prepared the ham, applied the glaze, figured out how to set the oven that I had not yet used. Did not set a timer because I was going to watch this process closely. I applied more glaze a few times, while continuing to move stuff around and put things away. I quickly checked the movie times and did some math and decided that the first showing would be too early and so got myself fixed on 4:45. Stage four was, had always planned to be, an early showing of The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock, yes she is still on my list, and always will be.

Anyway, the ham was nearing completion, or as best I could tell, so I put the Bush's Baked Beans in the pan, doctored them a bit, some butter and some maple syrup just to sweeten them up a bit, and then it was time. I pulled the ham out to inspect and see if it was done. Seemed to be, looked nice on the outside, a bit of a crispy skin, but looked good. Went to begin carving and noticed a bit of a...well...almost a...shell. The ham had been wrapped completely, and that had all been cut away, the label, instructions, warnings, and so on, only once all that was removed there apparently was a thin wrapping to seal in the juices and such, and that had escaped me. Don't know if it was supposed to come off before or after, but that was moot. I cut that off, sliced two slices of ham, put that on the plate with the beans and the pineapple and there was Thanksgiving dinner.

I am still here, so I would have to say that the ham wrapping thing was pretty much a non issue, especially since I have had it for lunch since as a sandwich, and twice in a fritata, Italian omelet sort of, I will write more on this later.

Making the 4:45 movie was easy, popcorn, Junior Mints, and away I went. Aside from the mother and daughter that I ended up sitting next to and had to keep from strangling on a couple of occasions, this was the perfect end, or almost end, to the perfect day. A great movie about someone nice, and with means, doing something for a person that by all accounts should have been a hard a-- from the projects, but instead was a well mannered quite giant. And Sandra Bullock is awesome.

Came home, lit the fired, well turned on the switch, and had some left overs, played with Bella a bit, and then crashed early. Yes it is hard to not be with family, or friends, or significant other (s) at the holidays, but this was a good day.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.