Thanksgiving v.2.017

This may be the first year we've celebrated our Thanksgiving after the date in the USofA.  That had everything to do with the Advent season.  We have our Thanksgiving feast the week before we go to René and Rima's for their First Advent feast.  Advent is late this year, so, so was Thanksgiving.

Other things don't change - bring out the grandma china, set the table, do a lot of cooking.  The menu stays pretty much the same, too, except for the soup, and I have a bit of sly fun making the guests guess what it is.  They were totally stumped this year - celery? salsify? parsley root? is there ginger in there? is that a carrot?  No, no, no.

 OK, enough.  It's weird, tasting something and not knowing what it is. The mystery soup was - drum roll -  cream of fennel with Pernod and a smoked salmon garnish.  It was delicious, and there's just enough left over for two small bowls tomorrow.

The turkey was our smallest ever - only 12 pounds!!  And by far the most unattractive.  Lord love a duck, that was an ugly bird.  Butterflying the bird doesn't help but somehow when we flattened it, it was a bit off center and when we tried to prop it up for a photo, it just splayed again.  No matter, it tasted great!

As usual, as soon as the food arrived on the table, things got quiet!  Except of course for sighs.  It's not that I am such a great cook; this is just good food and it's great to share it with friends.  And frankly, if I don't get cornbread dressing with sage at least once a year, I get more cranky than usual.

It's crispy outside - but sunny - and a walk after the meal was welcome.

And after the dessert - the usual, expected and loved Key lime pie and pecan pie (followed by usual, expected and loved Schnapps) -  well, it was time  to clean up.

Werner got to washing and I sorted and dried between following the FSU-UF game.  What's this??  I even got live radio instead of the cheesy chart with the dotted lines??!  And we won!!  Yeah for our team!  

We have been keeping good notes the last couple of years, so this year we have ZERO left-over mashed potatoes, but still too many sweet potatoes.  Go figure.  Sadly, the notes don't always seem to help. Other leftovers are manageable but I'm going to have to find some sweet potato dishes in a hurry.

And in a couple of weeks we'll have some house guests so maybe I'll just keep out the grandma dishes for a bit.   

Fried Green Tomatoes

No, not the book and not the movie, though I enjoyed them both.  Of course, the book was better than the movie - isn't that always so?   Maybe not always, but I challenge you to name me a movie that was better than the book.... I'm waiting...

Anyway, green tomatoes.  I stopped by the small Lebanese shop the other day, hoping he had fresh cilantro, but there's always something else to catch my eye.  And this time it was green tomatoes!  I don't remember having seen them before, though that does not mean they weren't there before. The owner was careful to let me know they were unripe, green tomatoes and not ripe tomatoes that were green. Folks buy them, he said, to pickle them.  OK, you pickle; I'll fry.

Frankly, I don't recall eating fried green tomatoes as a kid (sisters are welcome to chime in here and correct me).  I do remember eating them in Atlanta at a trendy restaurant in the Highlands area.  They were good, but that's the end of my memory.

So, let's try to be Southern in Germany.

I found a recipe that looked good and got all the stuff together.  Naturally, the corn meal was US in origin because it isn't real if you don't use real ingredients!

Get ready. Slice the tomatoes.

 Wow, green they are!  And not sweet.  Really on the sour side.

Then dust with flour, dip in the egg mixture, roll around in the corn meal mixture and fry crispy brown. Aren't they pretty?

And they were very tasty.  Actually, they were perfect.  I made a sort of ranch-horseradish dip to give it a bit of tang, salad along side and that was enough. Southern style in  Germany.  Love it.

Daily Life

We don't have a central hot water heater.  That means we do not have a hot water heater for the whole house.  Our sweet house was built in 1850 or so, the bathroom added a lot of years later, running water was first brought into the house to the kitchen side which is not on the bathroom side.  So, hot water is a bit complicated.

In the kitchen, we use what is called a boiler, a 5-liter container that is heated as it fills.  When it's full, it's hot but as you use the water, cold water comes in and so the temperature goes down.  And if you let the hot water run, it runs out quickly.

The hot water for the radiators and baths come from a different source and they got upgraded a couple of years ago with the new bathroom.  It works great - better heating, hotter water.

But the kitchen was the step-child.  We'd had to replace the faucet a couple of times but this time, just replacing the faucet was not enough.  Werner said, Sharon, we need a new boiler.  (Lordy, when he said "Sharon" I thought he was going to tell me the whole kitchen had to be redone!!)

OK.  Research faucets.  Research boilers.  Order faucet. Order boiler.

It's so fast with the internet these days.  REALLY FAST.  The faucet took a couple of days, but we ordered the boiler on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning I was answering the door in my pajamas to accept the delivery.  Now, that's FAST!!

(I was moderately relieved that the delivery person was a woman, but I have to guess these folks just learn to not react to however the person who answers the door is dressed, or not.)

It took longer for Werner to install the goodies than it took for them to get here, but now they are here and installed, and after a couple of tweaks, everything works great!

 All these behind-the-scenes workings are always fascinating and always confusing for me.  I'm glad I have a roommate that understands these mysteries.