“The RoseBouquet”

Yesterday, the second Monday of October, was the Canadian national holiday, Thanksgiving. In this area many people pick and choose which day of the weekend they will celebrate it with the big Thanksgiving meal. Married couples have to juggle family gatherings for both sides of their family, usually one day for the wife’s side of the family and another for the husband’s parents and siblings - and their families. If the couple have grown children who are married, they have to juggle schedules to have a gathering for their own family and the families of their sons and daughters-in-law. Some folks eat big meals on Saturday, Sunday AND Monday!

In my case, things are quite simple. Except for my brother Tom, my siblings are too far away. Sometimes in the past they have come “home” for Thanksgiving, but that was because they wanted to connect with our parent(s). In recent years, I prepared a meal and then would take it and Dad into the city to visit Tom and spend a few hours with him. (That was easier than driving into the city to pick him and his wheelchair up, bring him home, and then take him back again).

Now it is just Tom and me right here in Saskatoon, so my routine was even simpler. I checked with him and decided that Sunday supper would be our time of eating the turkey meal together. I prepared it at home, and took it to his place, and because of the much shorter distance, I didn’t have to re-heat it in his kitchen.

My one problem was that since I had bought a very small turkey I started it in a crock pot where it ju-st fit. About 4 pm when I checked it, it was still bleeding when I stabbed it. So to speed things up I lifted the liner out of the crock, covered the bird with foil and put it into the oven. By 6 pm it was done nicely, and I had already mashed the potatoes and put them into a covered dish, made the gravy, and a topping for the pumpkin pie.

I told Tom that I’d heard on the radio there was to be a phone in show the next morning on whether eating turkey makes one sleepy. I felt it did. That night I found out it was so! My head kept nodding off while I tried to finish one regular email I always send out on Sunday nights.

Yesterday and today I’ve been simmering the bones and trimmed meats, and juices in a crock. Just now I’ve added some vegetables. This should make a large quantity of turkey vegetable soup, which I can divide into containers for the freezer, and enjoy quick defrost and heat soups for some time to come.

Then there’s the left over turkey to cut up and squirrel away in the freezer too. That one birdie, costing me 6.80, is going to give me a lot of fine meals yet! Yum, (smacking my lips).

Do you do things that way too?