Evo said:
I'm cooking this weekend at the spawn of Evo's place, but I'll take some of that cranberry sauce!
Great! It seems the group I ate dinner with weren't really cranberry fans...they didn't even try it! There's no way I can eat that much cranberry unless I make it into jelly for my toast every morning (though that would require making bread so I have toast
...I never have much bread around here).
Thanksgiving dinner turned out way better than I was prepared for...being the grad student's first ever Thanksgiving dinner, I was expecting either over- or under-cooked turkey, at least something done late or not at all, etc. There certainly were some good stories to go with dinner (apparently she cooked the entire dinner with her mom on the phone guiding her through it
)...her mom told her to remove the bag of gizzards and then told her to remove the neck, but she didn't realize she had to reach in the
other end of the turkey to do that.
She was already pretty grossed out by having to stick her hands in the butt of the turkey (not the word she actually used
). She did cook the turkey upside down, which her boyfriend noticed when he went to carve it.
But, it turned out pretty juicy, so as long as nobody cared about presentation, it was fine (he wasn't exactly an expert at carving either...it's so cute to watch a young couple make their first attempt at Thanksgiving dinner). Oh, it didn't help that they were cooking at a friend's place, and he's a bachelor, so you can just imagine the kitchen is somewhat like enigma's kitchen.
I told her she really should have just called and I'd have brought over extra pots and pans if she needed them.
Not to mention one of the post-docs was already there just to take a hot shower...her landlord left on vacation and for some inexplicable reason, turned off the hot water heater when she left! And of course it's below freezing (we had snow all day). It's one of those houses with two apartments attached, so it's all one hot water heater for the landlord's house and the two apartments. I told her she should demand a month's free rent for that! What if she didn't have friends who would let her shower at their place? If she doesn't get it, she should report the landlord to whatever agency is in charge of rental units here (there's some agency in charge...I know there's a place for the students to report the slumlords, though I don't recall where).
Well, now I'm going to make my own pumpkin pie (we had some no-bake version...it was very tasty, but not real pumpkin pie, so I have to make the real thing for myself).
MAJOR yum! 
I told him next year I'll make sure he has some real pumpkin pie. 
