Turkey 2.0 2013

Roasted my own Thanksgiving dinner on Friday…


What I won't do for leftovers and amazeballs turkey soup.

Buncha turkeys!

Happy Thanksgiving!


May there be much love around your tables!

Change of seasons greetings

As we shift from Happy Thanksgiving to Merry Christmas, here are some parting shots of my lovely Thanksgiving dinner company: JD and Kris!

brisk turkey day

The bird is looking good.

And it is a beautifully sunny brisk Thanksgiving Day so I went for a long walk. Guests won't be here for hours yet.


Jive turkeys, both.

Happy Thanksgiving

I've gone from a plan of stress-free solitude (which did have a slight twinge of homesickness) to hosting.

Turkey up.

getting ready for Thanksgiving

Who's hosting and who's traveling?  This is my first year ever without an invitation, and I'm getting kind of excited for the day off all to myself.  Without the homecoming aspect, it is really a lot of work and a lot of pressure just for, you know, dinner.  I've got my bits to bake since I was going to Turkey 2.0 on Friday anyway, and now I am ready to cozy up without pressure and enjoy my backlog of media fun while I play in the kitchen all day.  If something comes up, I'll probably go.  But if not, it's really a win-win for me.

Have a great holiday week!




Update:  I did not foresee a third option: now I am hosting.  How did that happen?

gobble

Clearly, I fit right in here at my new job.  We each own and wore these hats to work.

Although the person who took the photo noted that I was at risk.  She looks so very kind and gentle, but she said softly, "This photo needs a knife..."

Stuff it.

The best Thanksgiving cooking show ever. Eight minutes of joy and all you need to know to make a Thanksgiving turkey, even the vegetable dish should you use her advice on that too. LOVE her. Full of wisdom, not full of shit.

I learned last year at Turkey 2.0 that cooking a turkey is just baking another damn bird, and gravy makes it tastier. It's not stem cell research.

Celebrate with me by watching Chef Tante Marie, AKA Mary Riley of Mary Riley's Cooking School's "Put the Fucking Turkey in the Oven."



Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

soup of the gods

Oh Yeah. I can cook. That turkey soup took two days to make and is pretty incredible. I may sound a bit arrogant tooting my own horn like this, but this is some serious soup.  Hammina.

And again, when certain someones found out it was going to be another day of home cooking at Studio 54(5), they kept me company (they in the living room and and I in the kitchen) while I happily cooked most of the day. All four seasons of Designing Women DVDs and a screening of The Hangover later, we were filled with hilarity and some rocking turkey soup with warm biscuits made from scratch. They did bring their own wine and hors d'ouvres this time as my cupboards were freshly bare. Now THAT was a relaxing way to spend a holiday weekend. No insane Black Friday nonsense for us.

Turkey 3.0. I think we have officially launched a new three-day tradition.

Thanksgiving 2.0

I have been looking forward to Thanksgiving leftovers all week, but disappointed that I would not have any as I wasn't hosting Thanksgiving dinner. I particularly wanted turkey bits and to boil the carcass to make turkey stock and try my hand an creating a turkey soup to rival that of Bread & Company in Nashville.

So the day after Thanksgiving I roasted my own turkey just for the "leftovers" and the stock fixings. And since I made gravy from the pan drippings I had to make some homemade mashed potatoes. Certain friends got wind of this plan and offered to keep my company while I cooked and Thanksgiving Dinner 2.0. Good company and good food. I will say my turkey came out pretty well for my first ever attempt (and I have learned that a dinner party, particularly with family, is NOT the time to try preparing a dish for the first time).




Two seasons of Designing Women and all the white wine I had in the house later, Thanksgiving 2.0 was a roasting success. At one point we all started reading aloud from the giant folder I found on my last trip home containing all the letters I received during my JYA in Scotland, Spring 1992. Some of these (mostly from fraternity brothers) were hilarious, enough so to call up one of the authors on Skype, getting him and his wife out of their EST bed for a quick chat before we went out to the Lookout for a little post-Thanksgiving Friday fun time. But that is what the Command Center is for.




Shout out to Sean & Meg in South Carolina, and to Ryan Donovan for ultimately getting us out of the house and into the neighborhood.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time for family, be they biological or chosen (and it has been a week of comments of enduring the former and celebrating the latter), and I raise my glass and a plate of heavy starches to you all.

Since the second year after my move to SF I have avoided Thanksgiving travel at all costs.  As a local "orphan" I have enjoyed many wonderful Thanksgiving dinners with my local San Framily.  This year's family time was hosted by Daddy Tony and his husband Mikey, and it was a wonderful mix of family, friends, and generations.




Of course, when a professional leather daddy hosts a family dinner, the household "to do" list features some particular additional items.




I love my Framily.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving

We did not have the time to pull it together this year, but Kevin and I have been wanting to plan a combination of thematic bar crawls (a la Guerrilla Queer Bar) and Improv Everywhere.

Tonight we had hoped to put together a little strangeness that will have to wait until next year.

Six guys walk into a bar dressed like turkeys. Not big suits, although that would be funny,
just brown clothes with brown wings, maybe a weird cab with a comb, and a dangling neck thing.

They have to begin and end every sentence with "Gobble."

As in "Gobble I'd like a Red Hook gobble." or "Gobble where's the rest room gobble."

The turkeys hang out and have a drink.

They offer no explanation.

After their drink, they move on to another bar and repeat the process.

Ten minutes behind them to each bar, six guys enter dressed as pilgrims with muskets. Looking for turkeys.


Gobble. Go have fun on the long weekend. Gobble.

A little Thanksgiving help

I will not be going home to Nashville for Thanksgiving as there is almost nothing I'd rather do less than deal with an airport over Thanksgiving.

But in the spirit of the holiday, some helpful tips:

• How to Sleep in an Airport
• How to Carve a Turkey Like a butcher (New York Times)
• How to Eat Less by Eating Earlier (also from the NYT)

Gobble

Thanksgiving day could not have been brighter, meteorologically or emotionally. I started my day with an early-morning call from Lance inviting me for a walk with the dog along Crissy Field and the Marina Green before we went to our Thanksgiving dinner at Jeff and Bill's. With coffee go-cups in hand I was eager to hop in the Crossfire and cruise down to the Bridge. As you can see, it was just an absolutely gorgeous day—cool, crisp, and clear.


I was impressed with the number of people up and about and all athletic on this Thanksgiving morning.

Highlights of the morning included interesting people, scenic views, and as Lance repeatedly pointed out, a parade of hot guys dedicated to their daily workout routines.

Scenic views:






I have no photos of the random hotness. Even I have my lascivious limits (meager though they may be).

And a little bit of oddity for the morning-- the tiny abandoned child:


Just this wee little thing standing alone in the road, immobile.


We ultimately noticed his parents who where trying to get him to come along and were doing the "come on or we're leaving you" sort of thing. It then became this comical little game that even strangers like us started to notice and spectate.

One of my favorite sights from the morning:


No wait, that's just Barney. He biked down to join us for a bit.


I meant this:



A little girl with her mother and a hundred feet of tiny kites soaring on the Bay breeze.

After our morning at the park, Lance and I enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner prepared by Jeff Baker & Bill O'Rourke and hosted in their lovely home perched on the hill between the Castro and Noe Valley. Other than Jeff, Bill, Lance, and me, family around the table included Lupe and Rob Bodzin & Cameron Weston.



Bill & Jeff:


Turkey:


Carved:


Jeff and his table:


Wilson carving his Thanksgiving dinner:


Jack Daniels: the other dark meat.


Dinner was followed by chair/couch naps and conversation, coffee, dessert, and episodes of Coupling.