Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. This is my favorite holiday with all of the essential elements of joy: food, friends, and football. As a Bears fan, I get to watch the Packers and the Lions compete today and I am guaranteed to leave a winner.
We are also celebrating Chanukah with my wife’s family — a twofer for the day!
Of course, we begin with our own game. We are starting the day with the 47th annual Turley Turkey bowl. As always, it is the Bears against the Redskins. I am the coach of the Bears and John Rice is the coach of the Redskins. While the Bears have a long unbroken record (at least here in McLean), Rice is an ever-creative coach and Redskins are expected to be a fierce team this year. However, our Bears team remains injury free and will be ramped up with donuts and hot chocolate. In honor of Trestman, we will be trying out our new West Coast offense style.
I am also making our traditional two Turkeys — one in the oven and one smoked on the grill. Both will have an apple-sausage-cornbread stuffing and Waldorf salad. We will have 16 and three dogs over for the dinner.
Now it is off to the gridiron and the annual appearance of the McLean Monsters of the Midway. I will update on the game for those of you who cannot see us on cable.
Until then, Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.
UPDATE: The Monsters of the McLean Midway triumphed again in a spirited game. The final score was Bears 21, Redskins 14. The last play was particularly exciting with an intersection, a recovered fumble, and Redskins touchdown with just 30 seconds remaining on the clock!
Gene,
Nope … believe it or not … good ol’ fashioned Cheese Whiz in a jar … 7 oz can crab meat, 1 1/12 teasp. mayo, 3/4 teasp each of flaked garlic and garlic salt, and a stick of butter … then 6 spit english muffins. Blend all the ingredients then add the crabmeat. Spread on the 12 muffin halves (there is supposed to be a lot on each half) . Spot freeze on a cookie sheet and then put in into a freezer ziplock bag, return them to the freezer and then use as needed. Cut each half into fourths and place under the broiler (not to close to the element) till bubbly. Serve immed.
Trust me … I was skeptical too until I tried it
Blouise,
I’ll have to try the crab muffins. I know you know I love the crustaceans, but I don’t think you know I have an English Muffin almost every morning with breakfast. Combining the two cannot be bad in my book. What kind of cheese is my question. By the description I’m guessing cream cheese?
Annie,
Rewards … you betcha! Now my youngest daughter does Christmas Eve and the oldest daughter does Christmas day.
The other nice thing is that I have managed to clean out all my good china cupboards giving the Christmas dishes, glassware, silverware and various assorted piles of serving and cooking dishes to one and the good china, stemware, silver and assorted serving and entertainment ware to the other. No more washing good dishes and stemware or polishing silver for me!
Gene,
It’s a good thing we don’t live closer together as we would be constantly dropping by each others’ house to eat and both end up as big as a house.
We start early in the morning with juices, hardboiled eggs, sausage, and coffee cake.
Hors d’oeuvres (hot and cold .. this year there was an assortment of 20 with the big hit being “crab muffins” which is a recipe that you have to try) begin at 1:30p which is also when the punch, wine, and beer begin to flow.
Actual dinner is served at 4:00p … 4 salads, 2 vegetables, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing (an ancient recipe that is, I guarantee, like no other stuffing you have ever tried … even those who hate stuffing love it), gravy, turkey, rolls (2 kinds) and butter.
Desserts this year were: Elaine’s almond cake, a chocolate cake with buttercream chocolate frosting, a raspberry and chocolate whipped heavy cream mousse tort done in layers in a giant brandy snifter and almost too dam pretty to eat, then pecan, pumpkin, apple, and mincemeat pies.
The crab muffins I mentioned above are a mixture of butter, garlic, cheese and crabmeat liberally piled on english muffin halves then frozen. When ready to serve, one pulls a number of muffin halves out of the freezer, cuts them into fourths and grills them under the broiler till the mixture bubbles and browns and then serve hot. Incredibly delicious and in that they can be prepared way ahead of time, very convenient for a party. Also superb when grilled and served with a bowl of soup for lunch or dinner.
Blouise,
I love crab anything and so I must try your recipe at my next cocktail party.
Blouise, we paid our dues, now we reap the rewards! My family raved about “Elaine”. it was a big hit!
bettykath,
Sounds as if Corn Hill might be the original Thanksgiving Tort.
AY,
Thanks for the shout-out and I’m sincerely glad that you have discovered a positive way forward.
Annie,
It’s great, isn’t it? I sat in the family room talking with the other guests and only entered the kitchen when called for advice. I also didn’t have to help with the clean up. I even got to watch the parade and the dog show … and, people kept filling my wine glass without my having to ask!
AY,
I’m passingly familiar with REBT from talking to Canadian, Eh! on behavioral therapy in general. She was a big fan of it from her social work. I’m glad it’s working out for you. It’s reminds me of something my grandfather once said. “A man can never have enough tools. If he learns how to use them, there is nothing he can’t do.” May your mastery be swift and total.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
OS,
Absolute agreement on your framework reference….. People do pick and choose what relevant selective passages that they wish to recall. I call them revisionist….. Presently in Texas which sets the book standard for the rest, rejected a factual history book because it had a short reference to evolution…..
We are lucky we know what a library is, how valuable the internet is to research and that everything published is not always factual. We know what indexes are, table of contents, footnotes etc…
They don’t have the same standards today…. I recently purchased a vintage dick and jane book….. I was amazed at the books contents…. Not only TofC but a dictionary included for words used…. It was refreshing…… This book was published in the late 50s….
AY,
Moore was ranting about two things when he said that. That remark is, of course, out of context from a single speech. That was one sentence from one talk, a single part of his years-long narrative about modern racism in America, and the moneyed class’ battle to keep an economic foot on the necks of those who actually make their wealth possible.
Unfortunately, the moneyed classes can now monitor our everyday activities and communications, because they feel threatened. That is necessary for them because they are fearful a day will come when the desperate and hungry break out the pitchforks and torches.
You know OS…. That they are…. History has its bumps and bruises….
Pat is a regular ray of sunshine.
“This country was founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves.” Michael Moore
HAPPY GENOCIDE DAY!
OS,
I didn’t have the benefit of meeting Dr Ellis…. But I am a recipient of his works….. You hit the nail of the head….. And the problem is hard to recognize your own short comings when they have been ingrained as a lifetime…..
Depression in my case was evidently learned and then reinforced by the family upbringing…. Just as any patterned repeated often enough it gets reinforced either positive or in negative manners and then justified as the means to an end….. Because it all seems normal…. I didn’t realize you could be lucky enough to unthink, rethink and relearn how to think in a much more positive approach …. That was the hardest…. I didn’t have the tools…. I will acknowledge that not all have the ability to change without proper medication….
Thanks for your input…
AY,
I knew Albert Ellis. He was a true character. In a nutshell, what he said was that it is not the bad things that happen to you that make you crazy. It is the way you talk to yourself about those bad things.
We used an REBT based approach in both our sex offender and alcohol & drug treatment programs. We had what are called “therapeutic community” programs for inmates. The seemed to work for the most part. There are some people who are resistant to treatment for a number of reasons, but we followed our former inmate/clients after they were released for five years–thank goodness for the NCIC. Our recidivism rate was far lower than the next best program. We were running a 41% success rate, when other “successful” programs had a 16% success rate on five-year follow up.
Gene,
Things are…. That REBT stuff works absolute wonders….. I’m greatful to be introduced to Dr Albert Ellis work…. Maybe OS or Mike can explain it in greater detail…. I think its a philosophy that should be garnered in children early on…. It’d solve lots of issues in the world…..
AY,
I’m glad you hooked up with REBT. It is good stuff and yes you can change, I know because therapy worked for me. Each of us humans has to grow up learning to organize our minds in an ad hoc manner. We learn behaviors that seem to work for us as children but make us poorly functional as adults. We can revise our programming with help and remove the dysfunctioning. I’m so happy you’re already down that road a piece and it shows. I write you as a friend and fellow traveller on the same path.
(Mike, how is this different from cognitive therapy?)
AY,
Straight up noon. I start cooking tomorrow, but I’m making something nice for me and my mom tonight. She’s under the weather so what exactly I am leaving up to her and it is TBD. As for grub though, personally I anxiously await a report from both Blouise and Elaine on their holiday spreads. Those ladies and their clans know good eats. And you’re welcome. On a personal note, I get the sense from your postings of late that things are going better for you and I’m glad to hear it if that is the case. As for my hide? It is as thick as it ever was. The slings and arrows bounce right off. Some people never seem to learn that. 😉
Take care and have a good holiday and try to avoid as much of that insane traffic and horde of cops I know you have out on the roads there.
Happy Chanukah and Thanksgiving Everyone.
The Turkey’s union got a hold of me the other day. They said because they noticed I occasionally have that Wild Turkey gene exposed that they wanted me to represent they’re interests & suggest that at future holidays your families should consider eating Beef. 🙂
And in the case you’re not big football fans, remember Daytona is only a few months away.
Whatever our particular passions are we can all be thankful we are all still able to participate in the grand race of humanity.
If you’ve not seen this movie below, I pre-screened it, it’s pretty family friendly. I don’t think the church lady would object to much.
The Dale Earnhardt Story