Last year I wrote about listing your Thanksgiving “Lessons-Learned” to track those once-annual thoughts of adjusted recipe measurements and where the fancy serving platter is stored. (Mine was in the guest room closet. Obviously.) I’m sharing my notes from this year’s feast, because sometimes the best you can be is a bad example.
Accept your assignment gracefully.
Mom asked me to bring stuffing and cranberry conserve. I agreed. Then I made my first mistake. “Anything else? I have new Pyrex.”
“How about Gramma’s fruit salad?”
Unsatisfactory. Gramma’s fruit salad is too easy. “Is anyone making carrots?”
A long pause. “Nooo…”
“I have an amazing recipe! It has horseradish, but you can barely taste it—“
“I’ll take your word for it,” she said.
I pouted momentarily. “I like it.”
“Well, I make green bean casserole and I’m the only one who likes it.”
“I’ll use my little rectangle Pyrex!”
Thus, I talked my way from two dishes into four. The stage was set.
Don’t wait to shop.
In my defense, it takes time to match coupons to sale prices, and if Mahjong wasn’t so addictive, I’d have finished earlier. Nonetheless, I hit the supermarket with a fistful of coupons at nine o’clock Saturday night. Few shoppers weaved between dozens of restockers shelving pallets of goods.
Thanks to my precision-honed shopping methods, I only circled the store four times. At the check-out, I fell in line behind a couponer. Well, no problem. It would be my turn soon. People have to wait behind me sometimes. When the Lord wants to teach you patience, He sends you trials.
“I need an override,” the cashier said.
A manager entered the code so she could continue scanning, and the woman scored $290 in groceries for $17. Amazing!
Let’s just say I’m not quite as amazing, but I completed my shopping at the eleventh hour. Literally.
Run your kitchen like a well-oiled machine.
Straight to work: chopping, sautéing, mixing. My slick clean-as-I-go operation incorporated peeling veggies directly into the garbage disposal. Around two in the morning, I started my vaunted carrots. Peel and chop carrots. Mince onion. Add onion to carrots. Check recipe. Pick minced onion out of carrots.
I rinsed onion juice off my hands and ran the disposal. Then I went downstairs, interrupted my husband’s video game and said, “I think I broke the disposal.”
He’s a patient man, my husband. Can’t imagine why.
Unclogging efforts failed, so he made the service call and I finished cooking without the workhorse half of my sink. I never wanted to rinse goopy dishes so badly in all my life.
Bring various-sized containers.
Hubby had been fighting a cold anyway, so he stayed home to meet the repairman as I left to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. I felt terrible – no joking about that – but he just asked me to bring back goodies and sent me on my way.
He texted me when the repair was complete, and I made sure he had a plateful of Thanksgiving dinner coming. I brought larger containers, so Mom loaned me a single-serve for his fruit salad. I wrestled with the lid, which wouldn’t quite snap into place. Definitely not Pyrex.
We shared incredible food and family time, minus poor hubby. “Good carrots,” Dad said. “Is this what broke your disposal?”
“Yes,” I muttered.
Afterwards, my sisters and I divvied up leftovers, traded hugs, and went our separate ways. Back home, I unloaded hubby’s bounty and found Gramma’s fruit salad had spilled, leaving fruit goo everywhere.
Remember to be thankful.
At least with the disposal fixed, I could rinse dishes again.
Happy Thanksgiving!
