I hadn’t planned on doing anything for Christmas this year, but somehow I am ending up feasting again and again, and the day isn’t even here yet.
It started last night with Pasta Night in a Box (a complete salmon pasta dinner that I fixed last night and shared with my landlord), continues this afternoon with lunch with a friend (and the beautiful flowers she gave me!), and will and end on Tuesday after Christmas when I have a tea party with my dance teacher to share a gift basket I received from a relative.
Meantime, there is tonight. Since I hadn’t planned on doing anything for Christmas, I obviously had no intention of cooking a Christmas dinner (Christmas Eve dinner, to be exact), but when turkeys went on sale for so cheap that I could buy a whole small turkey for the price of a pound of ground beef, I went ahead and bought it. I am pretending I don’t know about the horrors of turkey farms, and anyway, the poor thing was already sacrificed, so the least I can do is honor its gift. To that end, I stuffed the turkey with celery, oranges, carrots, and apples, and am currently crockpotting the bird, as well as making turkey soup, and cranberry sauce with oranges, apples, and honey.
That’s a lot of cooking for someone who planned to enjoy a lazy couple of days.
Still, it was fun cooking — I haven’t really had a kitchen in a long time, at least not the sort of kitchen I wanted to spend any time in. (The kitchen in my last place was so encrusted with grease, there was no way to ever get it clean, no matter how much I scrubbed, and when I was on the road, the only “kitchen” I had the use of was my Solo camping stove.)
The one thing I had planned to do — go out to dinner with a few friends, I cancelled out on. I just couldn’t face another long wait standing in line. Maybe not the best reason for saying “no,” but I seem to be doing that more frequently lately. (It’s not as bad as it sounds — for most of the past seven years since Jeff died, I’ve tried to say “yes” to almost everything that came my way in an effort to feel as if I were living, so saying no is a nice departure.) Since I now have the day free (I won’t even have to cook since there is plenty of pasta left, and there will most of the turkey and cranberries), I am considering hiking to a friend’s house to deliver a gift. Six miles round trip. I wonder if I’ll make it, though stoked with all this feasting, I should have plenty of energy.
We’ll see. Meantime, I need to go check on my turkey.
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
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December 24, 2017 at 6:42 pm
Yay for feasting!
December 25, 2017 at 6:18 pm
interesting line you wrote…. “seven years since Jeff died, I’ve tried to say “yes” to almost everything that came my way in an effort to feel as if I were living” How is that working for you? I do it and it is difficult, especially at this time of year. My “yes” is smoke and mirrors.
December 26, 2017 at 3:58 pm
I love turkey done the American way, you sure have a way with that bird,
The turkeys we get in Australia are around half the size, or less than a Yankee bird, and we pay anything up to $A40-50 each, about $A13 a kilogram = 2·2046lbs = about $US4·85 per pound on the current rate of exchange for a bird weighing 7 or 8 lb.
Thought you’d like me to convert it to the imperial weights 😀
December 26, 2017 at 7:37 pm
I appreciate the conversion. Actually, your price sounds like a more realistic price than what we pay, and probably the bird is better. The turkey farms in the USA are truly horrific. If you want a non-farm bird, one that is free to inseminate itself, you can get one for about $150. That’s $15.00 a pound for a ten pound bird.
December 26, 2017 at 10:00 pm
Believe me ours are no better than yours, bred the same way as chickens.and are just as tasteless, the turkey I ate when in Hawai’i was to die for, strangley thsat on the mainland was never as good.
December 27, 2017 at 12:28 am
Have you done a lot of traveling?
December 27, 2017 at 2:21 pm
Sort of, After migrating to Australia in 1950 the only travelling I did was around and in Australia and I’ve still barely touched it. However I’ve seen more than a couple of thousand native born Aussies put together.
I did do some blogs on some of my travels if you’re interested Shay Gap in the search bar should take you there.
In 2005 for my 70th birthday our 3 children sent the War Office aka the wife and me on a round the world trip starting in San Francisco Vegas on to NY across to Europe England back home via Singapore.
In 2008 we went to NY for our youngest daughters 30th birthday, we went via Hawai’i San Fraancisco, Vegas NY Philly Boston and back again to Hawai’i thats about sums it all up in a nutshell.
Brevity is something or other forget now 😈
December 27, 2017 at 4:47 pm
Sounds like a lot of traveling to me! What a wonderful gift they gave you, though I cannot imagine spending all that time on an airplane.
December 27, 2017 at 5:18 pm
Sydney to San Francisco on United was nothing to write home about. Lousy cabin service rude cabin staff, never fly them again. 13 hours flight and we arrived before we left Sydney 😈
Best flight was NY to Frankfurt on Lufthansa, best service ever had absolute joy to fly with. Singapore airlines were very good too.
December 28, 2017 at 4:44 pm
So, if I ever decide to go overseas, I will fly Lufthansa. Good to know!