Nov

10 Things to Avoid During Thanksgiving

Louis C.K., the sage of our time.

Here are ten things to avoid during Thanksgiving, the first holiday that sets the tone for all other impending holidays. DO IT RIGHT OR NOT AT ALL.

1) DON’T drink before embarking on the adventure that is a new recipe.

Put the wine glass DOWN. I have learned the hard way: just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean that the Food Network gods have suddenly graced you with culinary gifts. You still have to read the directions like a literate adult and if you have wine in your bloodstream, the ability to read is quickly ripped away like so many appetites upon viewing turkey gizzards.

Case in point: Last year, I tried making a pumpkin pie. I put in baking soda when the recipe called for baking flour… This resulted in an absolutely heinous salty pumpkin cake and also a salty discharge from my tear ducts.

Obviously not a picture of the horrible monstrosity I created. It was truly the Frankenstein of holiday desserts.

2) DON’T make homemade cranberry sauce.

That’s cute and all, but guys, can we all just agree that that canned stuff is AMAZING and King of All Things Cranberry & Delicious? Just because it comes out in the form of a gelatinous cranberry can does not mean it is not both mighty and majestic. It even has ridges to show you where to cut each serving.

Me: “How helpful you are, Canned Cranberry! With your evenly-spaced ridges and Jello-like consistency, I can never go wrong.”

Canned Cranberry: “You’re welcome.”

Mmmmm. Can.

3) DON’T exercise.

Are you serious? That’s what New Year’s resolutions are for, dummy! Why start a habit now when your Old Year’s resolution should be to become a giant sea cow? Actually, sea cows are too healthy – they eat marine vegetation. Try for something larger, like a planet. Become a planet. Mercury, maybe?

4) DON’T spend three-hundred hours blessing the food.

WHAT IS THIS, DAY 1 OF THE PILGRIMS LANDING ON AMERICA?* Please, for the love of all things holy and unholy, this is not the time to list all six million saints in the Catholic canon. Take the time to say your thanks, give the sky a thumbs up, pat your friends and family on the head, and then eat! If you do spend three-hundred hours on something, make sure it is spent being grateful for Kimye and realizing what is truly important in this world: the existence of North West.

Calm down, everyone. The saints will still be here tomorrow.

5) DON’T eat at all except for dinner.

I play a game every year called how-hungry-can-I-get-before-I-pass-out and this year is no different. Time to fast. It’s like a trendy juice cleanse except the juice is air.

I do love a good painted cheese.

6) DON’T send a mass Thanksgiving text.

If you could opt-out of mass texts, then maaaaybe it would make them slightly more tolerable. But inevitably, your phone buzzes nonstop with the tangential side conversations mass texts tend to cultivate: “Who is 454-444-0456 number?” Just send a personal text or tweet. And by tweet, I mean, send a message to your loved ones by carrier pigeon.

7) DON’T talk about Black Friday or lament about the holiday season.

WE KNOW. WE ALL LIVE ON PLANET EARTH IN A CITY CALLED OBVIOUSTOWN, USA.

Black Friday Logic.

8) DON’T talk politics.

Uncle Bob, put down the butter knife and channel your political enthusiasm into aggressively washing the dishes or something.

“We. Are. Trying. To. Have. A. Nice. Day,” said hosts and hostesses through gritted teeth all throughout the land.

9) DON’T be ignorant of American history.

You guys, Thanksgiving can hardly be boiled down to a bunch of white people high-fiving the native population.

10) DON’T be a cynical killjoy.

Wait a second…

– M

* I am aware that Thanksgiving was not Day 1 of Pilgrims landing on America.

10 years ago Short URL 3 Comments

Fail/Family/Humor

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May

Somebody’s Drunk in the Kitchen

I have a recipe that I hold near and dear to my heart. It was passed down for centuries in my family. It represents health, community, and spiritual well-being within my clan. Not really. I just found it this year on a Google search. But that doesn’t make for a very good story.

Anyway, during the last four months of college, this particular recipe has been a staple. It became comfort food. What is it, you ask? Kale and shrimp. It doesn’t sound impressive but this recipe is seriously magical. And, the best part of it is that it is impossible to screw up.

Unless you’re me.

I have made this recipe probably one hundred times. There are less than ten ingredients. It takes a maximum of thirty minutes to prepare and make. You’d think I’d have it down pat.

Mais, non.

I was so excited to cook this meal for my family because for once, I knew what I was doing. I confidently sauteed the kale and shrimp. I disregarded the directions a bit because I added more kale than the recipe called for. Ah, well, I should make more sauce to balance it out!! So, I added more vinegar to the sauce. Worst. Decision. Ever.

Immediately, the steam coming up from the pot turned into a noxious gas that made my eyes water. Well, maybe it’s one of those foods that tastes better than it smells!

Nope, it wasn’t. I put a small sample in my mouth and I might as well have taken a shot of vinegar. Now my mouth was burning in addition to my eyes.

Luckily, my mom came to the rescue and was able to water down the sauce to less terrifyingly-vinegary levels. Nobody died after eating it so I guess I made something edible. Checkmate.

– Daughter

11 years ago Short URL Comments

Fail/Family/Humor

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Mar

Allergies versus Hurting a Waiter’s Feelings

Sometimes, I ignore the fact that I am an unemployed college student and go out to dinner where people make food for me. This reduces the risk of me setting fire to things as I am wont to do.

My roommate and I, intrepid city explorers that we are, picked a trendy restaurant neither of us had tried. We were seated at a table overlooking the kitchen so we could watch everyone else’s food be made while waiting for ours, tantamount to torture when you’re hungry.

Eventually, we got our food and ate our way through three courses very successfully. So successfully, in fact, that at the end, we didn’t have room for dessert. And because of inconvenient food allergies, I couldn’t eat anything on the dessert menu anyway.

And this is where comedy ensues. The waiter handed us the bill for the meal in addition to a crème brûlée on the house. My roommate and I looked at each other as he handed us the dessert; we both happen to be allergic to dairy.

Our shared dairy allergy doesn’t veer into the “life-threatening” category so we occasionally have a bit of ye old cow juice and cow-juice derived products. But only after judging whether or not the food is worth the inevitable stomach ache and digestive issues that follow. However, this was not “a bit” of dairy, it was an entire crème brûlée.

It was culinary blackmail essentially. (Except for the fact that the waiter had no idea, but whatever.) If we didn’t eat it, we’d look like ungrateful jerks. If we did, we’d be consuming something knowing our bodies would ultimately reject it.

We decided to plunge in and eat it because we didn’t want to hurt the waiter’s feelings. He’d been too nice and accommodating to snub him in any way.

The drive back from the restaurant was what could only be expected: misery. My roommate and I exchanged pep talks encouraging each other not to waste our money by throwing up the food we had just paid for. Positive thinking worked! We managed to keep and digest every last cent. We paid for that meal in more ways than one, however.

– Daughter

11 years ago Short URL Comments

College/Fail/Humor/Social Dysfunction

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Jan

Road Trip Diaries: A Daughter-Father Epic, Part V

Welllll. We were going to try for Pennsylvania today but the weather replied, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS,” and snowed us right off the road. Not literally, luckily. My dad tapped out when the snow started to get serious – no more Mr. Nice Snow, as they say (?). My dad had been driving the whole day anyway, it was “too dangerous” for me to drive apparently, so he was glad to get off the road. I was glad to get off the road because I was sitting in abject terror for 3/4 of the drive today; semis were flying around the roads like they were in the Ice Capades. The remaining quarter of the time, I was asleep. Not driving is exhausting! I can only be in a state of pure, unadulterated fear for so long before my body poops out and resorts to its only defense: sleep.

Sneeeew.

We stopped driving early in the day and spent most of the afternoon lounging around the hotel room like we owned the place (we sorta do, right? Maybe it’s considered more of a timeshare). I was supposed to be picking my classes for next semester during the extra time I had today but sitting and looking at funny pictures on the internet won out instead. Clearly, I have my priorities straight. I’m definitely ready to be a Serious Academic again.

Trying to get an artsy angle… aaaand failing.

The Weather Channel was on for a good five hours straight because it turns out weather is an important factor for travel. (WHAT?!) Unfortunately, the main weather lady was making really inane comments and saying things like, “We’ll have Bob Whatshisface, the resident meteorologist, make sense of all of these pretty colors on the Doppler radar in a second!” First of all, I understand there is a limited amount of information and fluff you can work into Weather Channel programming, but those ‘pretty colors’? Yeah, no. That’s like looking at a tornado and saying that you like that little turny-twisty dance it does. Iago is no joke. Except for that name. That’s a joke. It reminds me of an iguana. And iguanas are not that scary. They need to start giving these storms more threatening names. THOR IS COMING, EXPECT ROAD DELAYS. ZEUS IS COMING, 400 FEET OF SNOW EXPECTED. ACHILLES IS COMING, STOCK UP ON EMERGENCY SUPPLIES. Nope. “Iago is coming, expect a shortage of flies and other insects.”

I want to go swimming.

Dad and I spend a good amount of time prancing around taking photos of the snow. In the midst of prancing, however, I discovered one of my boots had a hole in it because water began to seep into my boots and was immediately absorbed by my fuzzy socks – it was straight of a scene from a paper towel commercial, you guys. I might as well have been wearing sponges in my boots. My actual snow boots are buried in the Hoarders-style mountain of things stuffed into the cab of the truck, unreachable by any mortal. This means I’ll be in my holey boots until I get to PA. Such is life.

FOOD.

But to end things on a positive note, we did eat a delicious meal at a “fancy” restaurant. I say “fancy” with quotation marks because my dad had to put real pants on instead of wearing his shorts. They also had those baby forks and little plates – obviously upscale for us plebes. In my fog of exhaustion, I forgot to put my napkin on my lap and Dad decided to point this out to the waitress in order to embarrass/shame me. Cute, Dad.

– Daughter

————————————————————————————————————————-

Not only did we drive thirteen hours and lose yet another hour to time zone changes yesterday (what’s the deal with time zones?), I evidently failed to reserve a hotel room correctly while simultaneously texting, driving, and emailing. How could I screw up something so simple?

So, there I was at the front desk last night, without a confirmation number, but with lots of credit cards. Thinking fast (or as fast as my mileage-addled brain would allow), I winked at the front desk clerk, and she he magically discovered an available room.

Old School Tactic, Daughter.

But it was almost 11:00 p.m. by then, anyway.

And I already knew we could kiss today’s Early Start goodbye. And to add further insult, I was asleep before Daughter.

Yep. It was a long day.

As I anticipated, the Highway Gods exacted their revenge today, even while Daughter “mailed it in” from the passenger seat, the beneficiary of a modified (multi-layer) FaceTent (trademarked). That’s right, when the first driving shift (mine) was over, the second (mine) then started. And Daughter started her second nap stint.

To be absolutely fair, I felt the most prudent course of action was for me to handle the load. The weather absolutely sucked, and got worse from there. No more desolate landscapes with 80 mph-posted speed limits. We’re talking 60 mph max, heavy rain turning to snow, and semi tractor-trailer rigs as far as the eye could see (which wasn’t far).

Quite frankly, I don’t like experiencing life in the slow lane, off cruise control, staring at the butt-end of yet another freaking hideously large truck.

And to continue my rant from my last entry, many of these semi guys simply have no shame. At least that’s the way it appears to me.

Cut in front of a fast-closing vehicle (me) – no problem. Stay in the left lane forever – no problem. Unconsciously annoy Daughter – no problem.

You see, they’ve got it all covered.

But I was more worried about the deteriorating weather and becoming stranded, without access to foo-foo coffee and a semi-warm bed. The sum total of the food stuffs on board was two bananas, an apple, some hotel mints, and half a loaf of gluten-free bread (essentially a bag of cardboard scraps).

After assessing the situation and the possibility would could potentially be somewhat hungry by nightfall (not thirsty – I figured we could melt snow to drink), we pulled off the interstate early (only six hours today) and watched Winter Storm Iago on the Weather Channel, instead of through the front windshield.

Was it the right decision? I’ll know tomorrow if — we finally reach our destination (at least a day late) in one piece, before darkness falls, and Daughter spends more time driving than sleeping.

Hope springs eternal.

– Dad