Thanksgiving in Retrospect: What We've Learned

     Well, another Thanksgiving has come and gone. I have to say, the meal was a success. The actual process of cooking the meal was fairly non-tragic. After the dishes have been cleared and the leftovers packed away, I have a few observations.

My Mother Has The Supernatural Ability To Break Major Appliances
I wish I was kidding, but I'm being totally serious. Two years ago she came for Thanksgiving and the furnace stopped working. Last year the dryer broke down. This year? The circulator fan on the freezer gave out. That meant that anything from the middle down froze solid, and everything  from the middle up thawed out and hit room temperature. We ended up running to Menard's and buying a spare refrigerator to save everything that couldn't go into the chest freezer or coolers. At the very least, I now have a beer fridge. I love having my Mom over for Thanksgiving, I just need to start taking out extended warranties on everything.

No Matter How Long You Think You Need To Cook The Turkey, You're Totally Wrong
Did the calculations and figured out the time. Which was wrong. By like an hour. It all worked out. I figured I had to let the turkey rest before I cut it, so I had that thirty minutes to cook all the sides built in. It could have been tragic had I screwed up on the planning.

You can never screw up by adding bacon.

Booze Makes The Whole Process So Much Easier

This was a moderately high stress day. The refrigerator blowing up was something I was totally unprepared for. I managed to get through it by hitting the liquor early. A couple of beers after breakfast and a glass of Scotch and I was back on track. I can not reinforce enough the importance of drinking while cooking. 

Good times!