Is everyone getting ready for....

Avatar for shirley_v
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2000
Is everyone getting ready for....
14
Mon, 11-19-2007 - 9:46am

Thanksgiving on Thursday? Does this mean that it's just Nora and I who will be here on the board this week if everyone else is busy busy busy doing whatever for the big day?

What are people doing for Thanksgiving? I assume it's having the family over but any details of preparation to divulge to us here on the board? Do you like to decorate the table for the occasion? Just wondering if it will be a 'quiet' week on the board with just Nora and I to talk between ourselves if everyone is occupied with the upcoming event?

I hope it's going well for everyone but please, come by and let us know what's going on to prepare for the occasion or anything else that's in the works.

Shirley

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-14-2005
Mon, 11-19-2007 - 11:45am

Let's see... the turkey is in the refrigerator thawing out a bit.

Avatar for merriweather
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2007
Mon, 11-19-2007 - 11:49am

I don't have to cook, but its still going to be a busy week.

First, we are going to the university and pick up the kid on Wednesday. There and back will take a total of about 6 hours.

For Thanksgiving dinner we are going to SIL's place where she will be feeding a house full of HER relatives. I don't know most of them.

Our nephew is becoming an Eagle Scout the day after Thanksgiving and I said that I'd bake a cake for the ceremony. SIL really wants a fancy cake for it, but I can't do that. DD will be home, she can do anything art. DH is good at art too, maybe one of them will decorate it, if I do myself it will be iced and that's all.

DD is going to be on a local morning news show early the 23rd too. They are interviewing her because of that contest she won in August.

We want to put up the Christmas tree this weekend when kids home. We cut down a tree at a tree farm, so we still have to call them and arrange to get the tree.

The next day, we have to take the kid back to school.

Oh, I almost forgot, I am making a twin bed size quilt for mom for Christmas. I'm hoping to have the top done by Wednesday, so I can begin hand quilting it and get it done on time. I've made quilts before but only about 3X4 feet, and I've always machine quilted them. (whoosh!)

I'd better get busy too. Today is bill paying day also.

Oh, I usually decorate a little for every holiday with a different table cloth in the dining room at least

Avatar for susiegail
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 11-19-2007 - 2:20pm

Michael and I went shopping yesterday. The turkey is brining in the fridge (fresh, organic 14 lb. birdie). My "dream team" and I made a fall fruit salad for the dinner we catered last Friday, and it was so good that I bought all the stuff to make one for T'giving. It has pink grapefruit sections, fuyu persimmons, mandarin orange sections, arugula, pomegranate seeds, julienned Belgian endive leaves and a honey-mustard type dressing...it was yummy and with all the colors, it looked like a stained glass window.

 

Avatar for shirley_v
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2000
Mon, 11-19-2007 - 2:40pm

Oh Sue, your salad sounds absolutely exotic (to this Canadian!) and I can usually imagine how a dish tastes if I know all the ingredients but I don't know how persimmons taste. (Maybe you read my post that was a reply to your Saturday post, I think?). I wrote how I once tasted one, but I don't think it was really ripe enough. I haven't had the opportunity to taste one since and I won't buy another one after that first experience! I haven't had my lunch yet (though I am overdue at this point) so I am very hungry and your salad sounds so delicious...LOL. And please...what is a persimmon pudding (as you mentioned in the other post)...you don't have to outline the recipe, just give me an idea what goes into it?

Hope you don't mind my bothering you with the question - I probably could Google it, but?
Shirley

Avatar for susiegail
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 11-19-2007 - 3:21pm

Oooops, Shirley, my bad...I missed your post RE: the persimmon. Actually, I have only learned the finer points of persimmons in probably the last five years. There are actually two kinds, at least that I know about. One is called Fuyu and is about the size of a slightly flattened tennis ball and is pale -

 

Avatar for elc11
Community Leader
Registered: 06-16-1998
Mon, 11-19-2007 - 8:49pm

I'll try to stop in every now and again. I need to get off of my feet sometimes and in front of the computer is as good a place as any!

We are expecting that there will be 9 of us for dinner: our immediate family of 4, Enrique's parents, and his sister and her 2 "kids" (16 and 24yo). The 24yo may not make it depending on his work schedule, he is a desk clerk at a hotel. Dh's parents are having car problems but really want to come so they may take Greyhound, there is a slight chance that they won't make it. There is a 19 pound turkey thawing in the fridge...on Tuesday I will buy most of the side dishes and have to assume that we will be 9 when I shop.

I try to put out some kind of centerpiece...some years it is a few small potted mums and some candles, sometimes I purchase a centerpiece from a florist or supermarket floral dept, occasionally I do something with silk "autumn leaves" and ribbons and candles etc. This year I'm hoping to find some mums, if not maybe a florist-type centerpiece. They had some at Trader Joe's last week, we'll see what they have tomorrow!

Housework is coming along...today you could eat out of our bathtub I used so much bleach, hopefully it will stay reasonably clean for the rest of the week as my MIL will be staying over here if they come. Yesterday I washed down the hearth and fireplace surround and the firescreen and sort of did the mantle. Then I decided I'd better sweep the cobwebs down from the ceiling before I clean any horizontal surfaces in there, but didn't finish the job so the room looks torn up right now! Tonight is the monthly meeting of the Rose Society, if I have any energy when I get home maybe I'll try to work on the living room some more.

I'll make the cranberry sauce on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and the pumpkin pies on Wed evening. Everything else gets made on Turkey Day.

I'd better start getting ready for the meeting tonight...hope everybody has a not-too-stressful week.

Avatar for shirley_v
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2000
Mon, 11-19-2007 - 10:22pm

Janet, what part of the pie is the hardest for you to make? I have a very nice pumpkin pie recipe which usually turns out wonderfully - the custard part is so nice. But of course, if the difficult part is the crust, well, all I can offer is the recipe I have made from the box of lard that I will use but I'm no big expert - though it does turn out pretty well. Actually, I don't know if I have that recipe printed out but it's Tenderflake Lard (do you have that brand there?) and it's on the box (or inside the box, whichever). It's the recipe you use an egg and a tbsp. of white vinegar plus water to make the dough (plus flour and salt and lard, of course). ("Never Fail Pie Crust" I think it's called).

I even have a recipe somewhere for a pumpkin cheesecake...also very very delicious!

Your centerpiece sounds cute!
Shirley

Avatar for shirley_v
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2000
Mon, 11-19-2007 - 10:26pm

Sue, thanks for the info...I had no idea there was two kinds of persimmons. I haven't really looked much at the fruit in the store. Now I'll look more closely to see if they have just one or the two kinds here. So for the first kind (Fuyu) you don't need it to ripen to the squishy stage?

The pudding sounds like it would be really nice tasting but still, I can't really imagine the taste without having eaten persimmons - nevertheless, if I ever have the opportunity to taste a persimmon pudding, I surely will!

Shirley

Avatar for susiegail
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 11-20-2007 - 12:49pm

Right - you don't want a squishy Fuyu...the more orangey Fuyus are, the sweeter they

 

Avatar for elc11
Community Leader
Registered: 06-16-1998
Tue, 11-20-2007 - 4:33pm

To add to the persimmon primer, you *can* eat the skin of the Fuyu as it is not bitter. The Hachiya skin often tastes like alum regardless of how ripe the fruit is, although this year I had a few Hachiyas with skin that was edible. When Sue says let the Hachiya get squishy she's not kidding...let it get to the point that, with any other fruit, it would probably be rotten! Think of applesauce inside of a skin! When it is firmer than that it is edible but not as intensely sweet and doesn't mush up as easily. I usually just eat them out of hand rather than use them for cooking. While cradling it in my palm I twist the stem off, cut it in half lengthwise, and scoop out the pulp by the spoonful--over a plate in case it spills. BTW if the skin of the Hachiya has black marks on the shoulders it has been "kissed by the frost" and will be sweeter.

I don't know as much about the Fuyus. They evidently grow well in my neighborhood as a few neighbors have them. The birds get to the fruit first and I find a fair number of underripe Fuyus that the birds have pecked and carried off but dropped into my yard. More fodder for the compost bin.

I first tried persimmons in my late teens, my grandmother moved to a house in Los Gatos where the next door neighbor had a huge Hachiya tree that hung into Grammie's yard, she could help herself to any fruit on her side. She would give us shopping bags full of persimmons so I learned the finer points of persimmon ripeness, and also cooked with them a little, mostly in baked goods. We planted a Hachiya tree at our first house here in SD and it bore pretty well for a young tree. I planted one at this house a couple of years ago and it didn't take, I think due to stress.

Might there be anything else you want to know about persimmons LOL?!

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