Bob Marino
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- Jan 16, 2007
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- 3,263
Wishing everyone and their families a Happy Thanksgiving.Cheers to All in and out of the shop.
Happy Thanksgiving
- Thread starter Bob Marino
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Bob Marino
Member
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2007
- Messages
- 3,263
Well, giving this a little more thought, usually Thanksgiving is when we reflect on what we are thankful for, rather to whom we are thankful to. I'll break with that a little and give FOG'S 2 Moderators - Pete and Seth a huge THANK YOU for their tireless and mostly underappreciated efforts at keeping things here on the FOG sailing smoothly.
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- Jan 22, 2007
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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Gobble, gobble.
Cheese
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- 12,507
Untidy Shop said:
Oh boy...ain't that the case. [thumbs up] [thumbs up] [thumbs up]
We've always embraced "the more the merrier" approach when it comes to the holidays and entertaining in general. But that particular mind-set came under considerable scrutiny last Christmas, when I cooked & served prime rib, wild rice with mushrooms, and green beans with prosciutto & pearl onions, preceded with a simple green salad & vinaigrette.
Well...the 15 year old and 17 year olds wanted peanut butter & jelly sandwiches instead. And one of the other adult guests refused to eat anything with mushrooms in it, another refused to eat anything mixed with prosciutto, another refused to eat onions and yet another refused to eat anything green. [eek]
At that point, it occurred to me that had I just driven to the local McDonald's drive-thru and ordered burgers & fries for everyone, the meal would have been a much larger success...how tragic is that. [jawdrop] [jawdrop]
Learning our lesson...we downsized for Thanksgiving this year...just 6 of us but it was really enjoyable. And they all wanted extra doggie bags when they left, for turkey sandwiches tomorrow. [cool]
a few years before i tuned 39, I, along with my brother, had been dropped off at a relative's farm to stay for a couple of weeks. The two weeks got sort of stretched a wee bit into nearly 6 years. I took to the life immediately, most of it due to the attitudes of them that were in charge. The lady mentioned below was to have her 80th birthday many years later when i wrote a series of stories for her memories. The following is one of the chapters. It is about part of the Thanksgiving dinner when i was probably somewhere between 11 and 13 years of age.
Tinker
SEASONING THE COLESLAU
Every year at Thanksgiving, every body in the house pitched in to help prepare the dinner. Mary would delegate chores to each of us and somehow, the entire job managed to get done without any confusion or catastrophe…… most of the time.
All of us kids wanted to do the cranberry relish. It was always so good to nibble on when Mary wasn’t looking. Of course it was not possible for everybody to work on the relish, and there were other projects of just as much importance, which, of course required undivided attention. For some strange reason unknown, or understood, by me, I was NOT delegated to the relish project. How could it possibly be that I was given a big head of cabbage with directions to chop. I somehow felt it slightly beneath my dignity to be performing such a simple and unimportant chore and I must have grumbled. I certainly did not complain. Complaining to Mary would have gotten me exactly nowhere other than into more hot water. Grumbling was at least safer, as with practice, one could grumble without being heard.
As I grumbled away, my elbow must have gone somewhat out of gear and my chopping began to take on a rhythm not associated with vigor. With body language, or more likely, elbow language, I was painting a picture of activity which, in Mary’s eyes, presented anything but joy. In due time, actually, pretty damned quick, she was on top of me and in my face with the suggestion that I quit moping and get busy. Now, when Mary says, Get busy,” one does not continue the self pitty with foot dragging, in this case, elbow dragging. One just naturally gets busy. AND FAST.
I got busy. I willed my dragging elbow to a much greater, and in Mary’s eyes, satisfactory level of activity. I immediately began to weld the chopper with a considerably greater level of exuberance. The shape of that cabbage changed very quickly from the big round solidly packed leafy object to the thin ribbons to be mixed with mayonnaise and other goodies to end up as tasty coleslau. As the pile began to take on the appearance of a finished product, Mary came over to check. Since she had been quite specific in her previous denouncement of my activities, she was just as quick to let me know what a good job I was doing now. I kept chopping away, never daring to slow down at that point.
Suddenly, Mary asked, “Did you already put pepper in the cabbage?”
My reply was, “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Mary kept looking as I kept chopping, still not daring to let up in my exertions. Finally, she laughed and said, “You are chopping up the bowl. Maybe you should not chop quite so hard.”
“Oops!” I slowed down.
“OK. Just get it a little finer and don’t you dare tell anybody what those brown specks are. At least not ‘til after we have eaten.”
The slau actually turned out pretty good in spite of the wood seasoning. As we all sat at the large table in the living room I could barely contain myself. I felt, by that time, the episode with the cabbage to have presented a situation for an entertaining story. Finally, Mary gave me a look, which said, “OK. You can tell it.”
Of course, I was sure that if it turned out that nobody would then eat the slau, I was destined to have one large meal of coleslau all by myself, but I decided to toss caution to the winds and proceeded forward with my tale. Everybody listened and as I finished, all were quiet for a moment or two. Probably not quiet for as long as it seemed to me, as I was not really sure what to expect. Finally, Poppy H....., who was sitting at the head of the table, broke the silence with his trademark, “Well PING. It looks pretty good to me. Let’s have at it.” Whereupon he reached for the not so offending dish and proceeded to heap his plate.
All present followed suite.
Me now in 2016 and back to normal in the time machine
Tinker
SEASONING THE COLESLAU
Every year at Thanksgiving, every body in the house pitched in to help prepare the dinner. Mary would delegate chores to each of us and somehow, the entire job managed to get done without any confusion or catastrophe…… most of the time.
All of us kids wanted to do the cranberry relish. It was always so good to nibble on when Mary wasn’t looking. Of course it was not possible for everybody to work on the relish, and there were other projects of just as much importance, which, of course required undivided attention. For some strange reason unknown, or understood, by me, I was NOT delegated to the relish project. How could it possibly be that I was given a big head of cabbage with directions to chop. I somehow felt it slightly beneath my dignity to be performing such a simple and unimportant chore and I must have grumbled. I certainly did not complain. Complaining to Mary would have gotten me exactly nowhere other than into more hot water. Grumbling was at least safer, as with practice, one could grumble without being heard.
As I grumbled away, my elbow must have gone somewhat out of gear and my chopping began to take on a rhythm not associated with vigor. With body language, or more likely, elbow language, I was painting a picture of activity which, in Mary’s eyes, presented anything but joy. In due time, actually, pretty damned quick, she was on top of me and in my face with the suggestion that I quit moping and get busy. Now, when Mary says, Get busy,” one does not continue the self pitty with foot dragging, in this case, elbow dragging. One just naturally gets busy. AND FAST.
I got busy. I willed my dragging elbow to a much greater, and in Mary’s eyes, satisfactory level of activity. I immediately began to weld the chopper with a considerably greater level of exuberance. The shape of that cabbage changed very quickly from the big round solidly packed leafy object to the thin ribbons to be mixed with mayonnaise and other goodies to end up as tasty coleslau. As the pile began to take on the appearance of a finished product, Mary came over to check. Since she had been quite specific in her previous denouncement of my activities, she was just as quick to let me know what a good job I was doing now. I kept chopping away, never daring to slow down at that point.
Suddenly, Mary asked, “Did you already put pepper in the cabbage?”
My reply was, “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Mary kept looking as I kept chopping, still not daring to let up in my exertions. Finally, she laughed and said, “You are chopping up the bowl. Maybe you should not chop quite so hard.”
“Oops!” I slowed down.
“OK. Just get it a little finer and don’t you dare tell anybody what those brown specks are. At least not ‘til after we have eaten.”
The slau actually turned out pretty good in spite of the wood seasoning. As we all sat at the large table in the living room I could barely contain myself. I felt, by that time, the episode with the cabbage to have presented a situation for an entertaining story. Finally, Mary gave me a look, which said, “OK. You can tell it.”
Of course, I was sure that if it turned out that nobody would then eat the slau, I was destined to have one large meal of coleslau all by myself, but I decided to toss caution to the winds and proceeded forward with my tale. Everybody listened and as I finished, all were quiet for a moment or two. Probably not quiet for as long as it seemed to me, as I was not really sure what to expect. Finally, Poppy H....., who was sitting at the head of the table, broke the silence with his trademark, “Well PING. It looks pretty good to me. Let’s have at it.” Whereupon he reached for the not so offending dish and proceeded to heap his plate.
All present followed suite.
Me now in 2016 and back to normal in the time machine