TG cooking - two tales

First, a tale from a close friend:

We are supposed to be in Shirley, MA at my in-laws getting things ready for the big meal. But a snowstorm hit and they have no power. We have 10 people in our house (Deb & John, Nancy's sister and family from Houston, their son and his girlfriend up from Brooklyn). All the stores are closed and our larder is empty since we were heading to Vermont for a week afterwards.

We were planning on making do with what we could scrounge in the house. We asked our neighbor for potatoes and ended up with a bag of potatoes, a 17 lb. turkey, and the makings for stuffing. So we are hosting a very impromptu Thanksgiving.

It's a Thanksgiving miracle.

He sent along a picture of a nice-looking table ready for the gathering.

And then my story: We were supposed to go to my brother's house for TG but everyone in his household has some kind of stomach virus. My brother describes the scene as "technicolor" and "biblical"... so they cancelled. Fortunately for us, we had just enough notice to run to the fish store and get shrimp, lobster, and snails. And then I spent all afternoon in the kitchen: shrimp cocktails (that was easy), snail with butter and garlic (is there any other way?), and Lobster Tetrazzini (baked in the Le Creuset). I pulled a good bottle of Huet for the occasion.

Dessert was the dregs of last year's Christmas pudding -- a little steam and a little Cointreau can fix up anything!

Happy TG everyone!

Those last minute meals are, in most ways, more miraculous than the well planned ones. Sounds like it worked out well in both cases.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, Jeff, and the rest of you FLDG denizens!

Thanks Mike & Jeff. We wimped out and took ourselves and nine other family members to a local restaurant. We enjoyed a fabulous meal of turkey and fixings, rolls, non-alcoholic drinks, and dessert for $15 per plate. Even though they did not get their power back on till 7 am, the turkey was cooked perfectly, and very moist for our 3 pm reservation. They did not have Red Zin on their wine list which is our favorite Thanksgiving wine with all the varied flavors, and we couldn't bring our own. After we made our reservation, they went out an got us two bottles of Gnarly Head Old Vine Zin. They charged us five dollars over retail which was a pretty good deal for a pretty good wine. We had four wine drinkers, and a good time was had by all, and all got home safely!

Carl, sounds a bargain at twice the price.

No buying ingredients, preparing, cooking , no stress, and no cleaning up afterwards.

And they get wine for you!

I assume you're regulars there

I am glad to hear it worked out for you and your family, Carl. I still remember the year when we had to have our Thanksgiving dinner in a British-style Pub. The food was terrible and the service was horrible (our server told us that half of the employees called in "sick").

We still joke about it but all that was important was that we were together and able to still be thankful for what we had. It was also especially memorable for me because that was our last Thanksgiving with my Grandmother.

The power went off Wednesday night and didn't come back on until 1 AM on Friday. I was discouraged by the long lines at the few restaurants that were open Thanksgiving day, so I got out the indoor butane-powered single burner wok ring and used it to reheat some leftover kung pao chicken. I have GOT to get a natural gas stove to replace the electric one.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Jeff, love your friend's story. That would be the most memorable ever.

Glad you were able to rescue a great holiday evening too.