Get Stuffed!

Today is Thanksgiving. The holiday that celebrates the vice of Gluttony. Growing up, for me, this ment a smoked turkey, cranberry jelly in tube form, potatoes and gravy, and having a few family friends over. I always tried to out eat the adults. Which lead to being over stuffed, then hungry again about 2 hours later (I miss having the metabolism of a 13 year old). Now that I'm older, it now feels so different. First Jake and I go to his family gathering of about 50 people. All somehow fitted into a house up in Holiday with kids pouring out of every nook and cranny. Next we head to either my dad's place or our family friends house. This year we'll be going to one of Janie's friends house, where its a gathering of a handful of adults. Once done there we scramble home to get deserts ready for friends. I've gone from a small relaxing holiday to a crazed people-a-thon. Some years it feels nuts but I'm getting use to it.

So be your gathering small or large, hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!

Suposed Blizzard

The other day we were warned that a major blizzard was going to hit the Salt Lake Valley for the first time in years. Winds up to 50 mph, zero viability, and at least 6 inches of snow in the valley. This of course got me all excited. I love bad weather. So naturally I started to get everything ready: Back up flashlights and candles, soups, and makings for grilled cheese sandwiches. On our way home from one store, we realized that we forgot the bread, so Jake and I stopped at another store closer to our house. Turned out that our roommates had the same idea as they consequently followed us to the store. Once we all met up we found out that apparently we all had the same idea. Blizzard = household cooking experiment. Richard got the ingredients for his spiced punch. John guessed at what ingredients her would need for a chowder of some sort. And Jake and I got bread stuffs. With the impending storm of doom on the horizon we headed home. Richard started off with his punch. This stuff is amazing. I go gaga for it! Its hot cider with OJ and spices. It warms you from the inside out, is sweet, and just tastes like licking the holiday spirit itself. Next up John and Jake took over the kitchen. I asked John where the recipe was for his chowder and he just shrugged and said that he was winging it. Granted, 90% of the time I see this kid eat nothing but fast food. There is the small percentage of the times when he'll go to restaurants with friends. I can't even recall if I've seen him make Ramen. Granted once he did make tasty Spanish food, but that was a long time ago. So I started imagining a watery, potato and bacon soup. After a while the smells of bacon, caramelized onions, and potato started to fumigate the house. Then finally he announced that it was up for grabs. It was thick. It had chunks of bacon. It was amazing! Perfect blizzard food. Thankfully I had grabbed dinner rolls which were perfect for dipping. The chowder was tasty thick. The kind where you can feel it add pounds onto your bones. It certainly surprised me that he pulled this out of his memories from a family recipe. Teach me to doubt my roommates. Needless to say, we hunkered down with our hot punch and bowls of soups and slowly watched the "Blizzard" piddle out into nothing more then a few clouds. I think I'm going to try and convince the house to do more group cooking nights to see what more we can come up with. Minus the lamest blizzard on record.