Pandemic Thanksgiving

We had a very nice and peaceful Thanksgiving yesterday...  well, the best any Thanksgiving Day can be anyway...  truthfully, Thanksgiving has always been my least favorite holiday and, actually, perhaps in the Top Three of my least favorite days of the year...  regardless, we had a nice, peaceful and relaxing Thanksgiving during this pandemic.

We were able to video chat with the family...  Adam and Joi, in California while Adam is in Air Force Leadership School...  Whitney and Ellie, at home, with Ellie being the physical comedy comedian she is...  and, of course, some video time with Liza, Kenzie and Lukey.  Video chatting is an everyday occurrence here anyway but it was nice to see all the grandkids yesterday.  Somehow we missed video chatting with Will and Sue so we'll need to attempt that sometime this afternoon.

Dinner was nice for a turkey dinner.  The weakest dish of the dinner, by far, was the turkey breast and Sheila agreed.  I'd definitely prefer a nice grilled steak and I have actually done that on more than one Thanksgiving through the years.  Turkey is one of the most vile birds (they kind of remind me of vultures) and just as vile as a food which might explain why the country is infested with wild turkeys today.  

One of the tastiest dishes was the fresh green beans sautéd with bacon, sliced almonds, onions and garlic in a white cheese sauce topped with fresh fried onion straws.  The homemade cranberry sauce is always one of our favorites too.  

I've been hosting Thanksgiving parties at my various homes for decades but, until this last decade with Sheila, turkey hasn't been on the menu.  Over these past few Thanksgivings, we've been trying different ways of preparing turkey in the hope of finding a turkey recipe that we really enjoy but we have yet to hit upon one that is worth the time and effort.  Actually, just the thought of different turkey dishes is making me gag right now as I type this which is a good indication of how I feel about turkey.  As a result, this might have been our last turkey for the foreseeable future.  

In the future, we might go with a standing rib roast or a ham on Thanksgiving Day.  We usually do a standing rib roast for Christmas so maybe we'll go with ham for Thanksgiving in the future.  Hmmm... or maybe a roast beef for Thanksgiving and then the better standing rib roast for Christmas.  Fortunately, we don't need to make this decision about our next Thanksgiving dinner until next November.  Or, maybe once the pandemic is behind us, we'll make Thanksgiving weekend a long travel weekend...   time will tell.  

Hmmm...  a turkey option that I might be willing to try would be braised turkey braciole.  This would turn the traditional turkey dinner into a more traditional Italian dinner.  Hmmm...  this would be a possibility.

In the past, Thanksgiving has always been one of the holidays when I invited everyone I know (and even some strangers) who have no family nearby and/or nowhere to go on Thanksgiving.  Somehow entertaining in my home(s) for these people made me forget about all the reasons I dislike Thanksgiving so vehemently.  I had often done the same on Christmas in my homes.  These groups of people evolved and changed slowly over the years and through different locations.

Back to this year's Thanksgiving dinner, we pulled Sheila's homemade cheesecake out of the fridge for dessert after all the dishes, pots and pans were cleaned up (thanks to Sheila).  A few slices were cut and then topped with Sheila's fresh Lemon Blueberry topping.  It was pretty good!

I fell asleep while Sheila was doing the dishes so I managed to rest up a bit before tackling our cheesecake which really is a typical Thanksgiving sort of thing.  We were then in bed relatively early after a nice relaxing day.  

Overall, we had a really nice, quiet, and peaceful Thanksgiving day which was nice and is always welcomed.