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Category: Holidays

Turkey Day recap

Good Thanksgiving Day, all told. Spent a fair amount of time (after sleeping in) running about and tidying and getting things ready, such that Margie and I were still in…

Good Thanksgiving Day, all told. Spent a fair amount of time (after sleeping in) running about and tidying and getting things ready, such that Margie and I were still in our grubbies when folks started arriving around 2. 

Had a good crowd — Lee/De/Rachel (who arrived first, roasted coffee, and then Lee and De stayed the night at Doyce & Kate’s, letting Katherine have a sleep-over with Rachel), Dave/Jen/Ana Sutherland (who it was great to see), Jackie (pumpkin roll!), Doyce/Kate/Kaylee, Angie, and, of course, Jim & Ginger (who did a lot of the work while Margie and I socialized).

Margie made her usual fried onion rings and mushrooms (since we had the oil heated for the turkeys), which she got the batter just right for. 

Dinner was faboo as usual — fried turkey, stuffing, gravy, two types of mashed potatoes, a sweet potato dish, a pumpkin-squash soup from De (who also sharpened knives), a carrot souffle from Kate … and for dessert, pecan pie (by me), apple pie (from church), a chocolate torte from Ana and some sort of yummy coffee cake / pastry from Dave, and pumpkin roll (yay!) from Jackie.

And I’ve probably left something out.

To go with the food was plenty of drink, from the standard beer and sodas (though we really need to stock up the variety in the drink fridge again), to margaritas (with limes brought from California), to some very nice bottles of wine for dinner (if I do say so myself), to yummy coffee courtesy Lee.

Lots of fun chit-chat, a few post-dinner rounds of “Werewolf,” and folks were rolling home around 9. We did some basic straightening, Jim & Ginger retired, Margie & I played some CoH, then we went to bed.

And china and crystal fairies came overnight and cleaned everything up. At least that’s what it looked like when I got up this morning. 🙂

All in all, a very satisfying (in many ways). And for the family and friends here, I was most thankful.

“They stuffed and roasted me with Science!”

Fascinating article from Wired on the agronomic evolution of the components of the Thanksgiving meal — from turkeys … Anderson, who has bred the birds for 26 years, said the…

Fascinating article from Wired on the agronomic evolution of the components of the Thanksgiving meal — from turkeys …

Anderson, who has bred the birds for 26 years, said the key technical advance was artificial insemination, which came into widespread use in the 1960s, right around the time that turkey size starts to skyrocket. The reason is that turkeys over 30 pounds are “inefficient” breeders: It’s difficult for them to actually perform the natural mating act. With artificial insemination, the largest birds can still be used as sires, even if they have a hard time walking, let alone engaging in sexual reproduction.

“You can spread the one tom around better. It adds a whole new level of efficiency. You can spread him over more hens,” Anderson said. “It takes the lid off how big the bird can be. If the size of the bird keeps them from mating, then you’re stuck.”

This process, compounded over dozens of generations, has yielded turkeys with genes that make them very big. In one study in the journal Poultry Science, turkeys genetically representative of old birds from 1966 and modern turkeys were each fed the exact same old-school diet. The 2003 birds grew to 39 pounds while the legacy birds only made it to 21 pounds. Other researchers have estimated that 90 percent of the changes in turkey size are genetic.

Perhaps the most obvious change in turkey genetics is that, unlike the colorful pictures we all drew in elementary school, modern, factory-farmed birds are all white. The Broad Breasted White turkey became the dominant commercial breed in the middle of the 20th century.

 

… to corn …

 

That original sweet corn was only about 10 percent sugar, but it also was about 25 percent phytoglycogen, lending it a nice, creamy texture. In the next major corn transition — to supersweet corn in the 1970s through a variation in the Shrunken2 gene — that creamy texture was lost, even as the sweetness of the corn skyrocketed.

Among the thirteen genes known to affect corn sweetness, however, industrious agronomists have found an even better gene to work with, called SE, and they made “sugar enhanced corn.”

“That’s the most popular for fresh market today,” Tracy said. “It gives a sugar level of 20 to 25 percent and it turns out to be very tender.”

… to potatoes.

Potatoes are now driven by a decidedly nonfestive activity: the making of french fries and potato chips. Almost a mirror of corn genetics, agronomists have ratcheted up the starch in potatoes and turned down the sugar, said Gregory Porter, a potato specialist at the University of Maine.

“High-starch french fries, when they fry, don’t get soggy,” Porter said. “Low sugars are important because high sugars in potatoes would result in a dark brown discoloration. High-starch potatoes result in a nice golden-colored fry.”

 

I’m certainly not going to turn my nose up at Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow … but I may see if I can find some of those heritage turkeys the article talks about, to see what the taste difference is.

Just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside

Sarah Palin, doing the traditional gubernatorial “pardon” to a potential Thanksgiving turkey, decided to hold a press conference on various matters … in front of a guy who was slaughtering…

Sarah Palin, doing the traditional gubernatorial “pardon” to a potential Thanksgiving turkey, decided to hold a press conference on various matters … in front of a guy who was slaughtering other turkeys. Nice!

 

MSNBC’s Countdown lingers over this for a good four minutes, with loving attention to the screen labels describing the goings-on, even as Palin seems natteringly oblivious to what’s going on right behind her.

Some screen caps (if you don’t want to sit through the video) can be found here.

Visitations

And so we proceed into the holiday season, which will entail many visits Hither and Thither. Coming Hither we start with my folks, who arrive in town tomorrow and…

And so we proceed into the holiday season, which will entail many visits Hither and Thither.

Coming Hither we start with my folks, who arrive in town tomorrow and go home on Tuesday. It’s a bit later in the year for them than usual, so we’re pondering what sorts of entertainment to provide them with. We have some good places to eat, but that only takes up so many hours of the day …

Following that, Margie’s folks arrive the following Friday (or perhaps Thursday), and stay through one weekend, and then through Thanksgiving weekend. A few small projects are lined up, but nothing particularly earthshattering.

That brings us to December, and a scant few weeks until we go hieing off Thither to California for Christmas and New Years. Somewhere in there we do Christmas Cards and Christmas Shopping and, I’m sure, many, many, many other things. Margie’s office has a party (a murder mystery dinner), my office has a party (something cowboy themed), our dojo has a dinner (“See what people look like when not in their gi!“), and probably others besides that — church Advent party, etc.

Busy times …

Halloween retrospective

There are dribs and drabs of this on posts over the past weekend, but here’s the summary. First off, we had “trick or treat” at the office — you…

There are dribs and drabs of this on posts over the past weekend, but here’s the summary.

First off, we had “trick or treat” at the office — you signed up, brought in some candy, a balloon and poster was put outside your door, and employees were free to have their kids come on (this was Thursday afternoon) between 2-4 p.m. to trick-or-treat. It was fun, it got rid of some of our plenitude of candy (while also leaving it sitting in a too-convenient bowl by my computer for the afternoon).

Friday rolled around, and I spent an hour-plus out front getting decorating done. We put some of our lantern hangers out along the new steps from the sidewalk, hanging our Halloween tea-lights from them. Ditto over on the end of the patio, where there are some stepping stones down to the grass. 

I used some of Old Tree Trunk’s copious early leaf-droppage to fill several Pumpkin Bags with leaves, which went along the edge of the patio to discourage stepping off into the darkness. I filled up the rest of our outdoor trashcans with the remainder of the drifts of leaves (testing out my old new leaf blower in the process, to clear off stuff from the new terraces).

The weather was nearly balmy Halloween night, which was a huge contrast to the usual bitter cold and/or snow. (The weather during the week was quite warm, which took an unfortunate toll on our jack-o-lanterns, carved Wednesday.)

Margie took the first stint with Kitten, joining with some other neighbor families wandering the length of the Circle. That took maybe about 90 minutes, but Katherine was still raring to go when the got back. So I took her on Phase II, along with Kendall and Tyler, across the street to the Trophy Club, hitting up the houses on the main street through that neighborhood. Figure another hour of that.

Katherine ended up with at least two plastic pumpkins full of candy. We, alas, had at least that much left over. We had fewer kids than usual, especially older kids; I fielded maybe 15-18, tops, while I was at home. I was expecting it being on a Friday would mean folks out later, but evidently it meant more Halloween parties.

So now we have candy in the house. Oops.

On the bright side, we had several neighborhood families complement us on the new front yard. Which was unexpected, but nice.

‘Tis (no longer) the Season

For the record, Christmas is now officially put away….

For the record, Christmas is now officially put away.

Party time!

Well, this weekend was the big Twelfth Night party at our house, Saturday night.  This is our annual post-holiday holiday party, which works out a lot better than it…

Well, this weekend was the big Twelfth Night party at our house, Saturday night.  This is our annual post-holiday holiday party, which works out a lot better than it sounds, and a lot of the folks who were there commented on how nice it is to have it as a sort of winding down from the holiday season (and a last chance to see Christmas decor up).

We had about 25 people, I’d say.  There were some from Margie’s office, though none from mine; a passel of folks from the church; the usual circle of other friends.  My old college bud Keith showed up, too, which was nice.  People seemed to have a generally good time, ate a lot (though not enough) and drank convivially but mostly not to excess.

Margie did her usual faboo job with the food.  My job is to get the place cleaned and decorated and generally looking nice, but she does the stuff that everyone talks about afterward (and rightly so).  This year was “can I wrap bacon on that?” hors d’oevres, but there were plenty of other goodies for folks to nibble on, and glögg (and punch and beer and water and soda and wine) to wash them down with.

Things wrapped up in the late evening, and most folks left in about a half-hour period, with Stan and Randy and Dave S. wrapping up the evening with us chit-chatting in the family room.  Sutherland crashed in the guest room overnight (showing remarkable restraint when being presented with the graphic novel collection).  Margie and I were in bed around 1.

We skipped church Sunday morning, and instead did a bit of post-party clean-up.  Dave left around Noon or so, and then we had a few friends over for “Thirteenth Night,” the official post-part eat-leftovers gaming day.  Stan and Randy were there for most of it; Doyce came over with Kaylee for a few hours, too.  We played some Catan (since Margie got me Settlers / Seafarers / Cities&Nights for my birthday, plus the 5-6 expansions for each), which I inadvertently won.  Then we did a bit of Secret Santa gift exchange (including some Katherine and Kaylee gifts). Then we broke open the Turbo Cranium game — which Katherine insisted on playing along with us, and surprised everyone by doing impressively well.

Kicked back and chit-chatted, after getting Kitten to bed, then booted everyone out by 9, and hit the sack by 10, a long and exhausting, but fun, weekend completed.

47

Yes, it is a magical number. Had a nice, quiet day yesterday.  Opened some gifts (and a cute “follow the treasure trail of posters” that Kitten did) from Margie and…

Yes, it is a magical number.

Had a nice, quiet day yesterday.  Opened some gifts (and a cute “follow the treasure trail of posters” that Kitten did) from Margie and Katherine, as well as handed off some late Christmas gifts to them in return. 

Did my MT4 upgrade into production.

Ate too much at the Brewery Bar.

Started to downloaded a trial of LotRO. 

Sat on the couch with my lovely wife and watched a Poirot movie.

Went to bed.

Not a bad day at all.

Out and about in Faerie

Another day lost in the mists of Faerie … Up just after 7 a.m., and wandered downstairs, helping with prep for the one event a year the Ks watch their…

Another day lost in the mists of Faerie …

Up just after 7 a.m., and wandered downstairs, helping with prep for the one event a year the Ks watch their TV set: the Rose Parade.

Kids were all up in time, so kicked it off at 8 a.m.  Standard fare to nibble on — coffee cake, juice, coffee — and a pretty standard Rose Parade (with standard “Get the car, Virgil, we gotta move us to California and away from these here snow storms!” weather). 

We usually watch KTLA, and Bob Eubanks (of Newlywed Game fame) is still one of the parade announcers, having drunk of the same Dorian Gray potion as Dick Clark once did.  His previous cohort, Stephanie Edwards, though, was nowhere to be seen — after many years of (unintended) buffoonery and petty sniping, last year she was banished from the booth down to the street, and this year was vanished entirely.  It was a good riddance (though not everyone agrees), but it did make things a bit duller.

After that, it was time to venture out to the wilds of Office Depot.  Ginger (with our guidance and actual purchasing services) got Jim a Brother AIO Printer/Scanner/Fax for Christmas — the same model, basically, as what we have.  After further discussion, they decided to upgrade to a color unit (that also does Legal-size).

We had just one problem — in all the Christmas wrapping and cleaning and shuffling about, we couldn’t find the receipt.  Still, I had the credit card transaction number (from the credit card site), it was registered on the Office Depot membership card, etc.  No sweat, right?

Well, sweat.  Without the receipt, the store would only refund us the lowest price the printer had been in the previous 90 days.  And, alas, it had been in a $100 discount somewhere relatively recently, because that was the delta.

Kudos to Margie and Jim (who are the customer service wranglers supreme), for some polite arm twisting, and to Roxanne, the assistant manager (I assume) at the Orange Office Depot, who got the date of the transaction, and managed to pull the records from the register.  I got my full discount, and after a visit to another OD (since Roxanne’s didn’t have the printer we wanted in stock), we got the significantly larger-and-heavier box home.

Then a quick change, and off to Eric and Janine’s house, to drop off the boys and to have some tempura for dinner.

Then back home to … well, blog about it (etc.).

Good way to start the new year

Happy New Year 2008, too!

And to all a good night….

And to all a good night.

Happy 2008!

Kitten made it to Midnight. Alex and Nick, alas, did not….

Kitten made it to Midnight. Alex and Nick, alas, did not.

Quiet day

Christmas was the usual hectic swirl.  My folks stayed down here at the Ks, after Christmas Eve dinner, so we got to have them here for first-thing Christmas Morning…

Christmas was the usual hectic swirl.  My folks stayed down here at the Ks, after Christmas Eve dinner, so we got to have them here for first-thing Christmas Morning gift opening, which was nice.  After that, they headed up for Mass, while we bummed around a bit, then eventually followed up to their house for more gift-giving (and partaking of Mother’s Recipe), followed by a jaunt off to my brother’s house for dinner and still more gift-giving, wrapped up with a jaunt to the Dellis’ for dessert and still more gift-giving.

Gifts were involved, as you can tell — and I won’t go into detail, because I will certainly leave something/someone out, but it was a very nice time.

Today was more of a quiet day.  I mostly sat around reading, watching Katherine swim, and trying not to be too anti-social.

Tomorrow, and Friday, I swing into the office in Pasadena to catch up on Stuff and save a bit of PTO balance.  It’s the classic 90-minute-each-way commute, so wish me luck. 🙂

 

Merry

Whether Christian by faith, by culture, or not at all, may the spirit of Christmas — love, togetherness, and joy — be upon you all this night, this day,…

Whether Christian by faith, by culture, or not at all, may the spirit of Christmas — love, togetherness, and joy — be upon you all this night, this day, and beyond.

Surfin’ Santa

Katherine got a power boat from Rich, and Ginger helped her rig up an inner tubing Santa ……

Katherine got a power boat from Rich, and Ginger helped her rig up an inner tubing Santa …

Christmas cheer

As in Frosty has had a bit too much of it ……

As in Frosty has had a bit too much of it …

What does Christmas mean to me?

There’s the religious aspect, of course. Ironically, though we are regular church-goers during the rest of the year, we never go on Christmas, since we’re usually out of town, and…

There’s the religious aspect, of course. Ironically, though we are regular church-goers during the rest of the year, we never go on Christmas, since we’re usually out of town, and … well, Christmas services are usually big and difficult to park at, and it would be a strange church anyway, and, well, we’re a little lazy …

But, yeah, there’s that religion thang. Regardless of how one feels about the historicity of Christ’s life, or the accuracy of the Biblical accounts of His birth (and all the accreted mythology that’s been added to it), the symbolism of renewed hope in that little manger on a dark and frosty night is damned powerful. And the admixture between that humble beginning and the celebration in the heavens, from Luke 2 (with the inevitable recitatives and choruses that Handel crafted for it in his Messiah):

8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Beyond the religious — and part of it, perhaps, as well as parallel to it — there’s the giving — the joy of being given things that I don’t have (and, in some cases, actually needs and/or want), and the equal, even greater joy of giving something to someone and seeing on their face and hear in their voices that same first joy.

And there’s family, and tradition, and comfort, and coming-together. There’s the smile at a stranger and the nod at someone doing me a service, and just the inexpressibly neat idea that, no matter how marred by commercialism and hubbub, the gifting season of Christmas time is a moment where I and everyone else can stop, step back, put aside the usual commercialism and hubbub, and think of others. I stop and have a drink of mulled wine with a friend, exchange a gift with a family member, look at my daughter’s eyes light up at something Santa brought, and know that it is, indeed, a very special time —

— and a time that is both part of the Christian faith and that transcends dogma and doctrine and ideological competition, something that can reach out and embrace believers and disbelievers, Christians and non-Christians alike, not in some evil, assimilating, proselytizing way, but in happiness and acceptance and mirth and camaraderie, fellow travelers in life recognizing that it’s easier (and far more pleasant) to help each other along than to fight, even if it’s just for one month, week, day.

… and on earth peace, good will toward men.

A most merry Christmas Eve and Day to my readers here, those I know and those I don’t, however you celebrate the holiday, mark its passage, or let it go by. Peace, good will to you all.

UPDATE: Les posts an interesting commentary by Ayn Rand, of all folks, on Christmas from a very similar perspective. Worth reading, even if it strays a bit too far over (as is typical with Rand) into the utilitarian.