Not Much Going On

It's warmed up to -11°F today and there is a suggestion of warmer weather from the National Weather Service for the coming week. I won't be around to take advantage of it. Last week, my father passed away at the Veterans Home in Oregon. I will be coming down to Oregon for the service later this week and spend the weekend in Corvallis visiting with my family before heading down to San Francisco for the AGU Fall Meeting. The cold temperatures ensured that it was a very quiet Thanksgiving weekend around our house. Or as Bobskoot put it Nada, nothing, NIL. My wife took her younger son to visit a music school in St. Paul, MN, then spent the holiday weekend visiting her oldest son in Grand Rapids, MI.

This year, after seeing the show a number of times over the years, I tried the Good Eats Roast Turkey recipe from Alton Brown's show on the Food Network. We picked up the smallest turkey we could find that still met Safeway's free turkey offer, brined it overnight using boxed vegetable stock and roasted it stuffed only with an onion, a cinnamon stick and an apple. My youngest son declared it a success as the white meat was as moist and tasty as the dark meat. Around our house, I could just hack off the white meat and throw it away since no one even touches it. (Actually, I usually sneak it into other dishes) Making Thanksgiving dinner did bring back some memories as my dad had showed me how to make the dressing back when I was about 12 years old. I'm reminded of it every time I smell the onions and celery sweating in the pan with lots of butter.