mocksgiving – Page 2 – My Truant Pen

Mocksgiving 2011

So. I’ll admit I find it flattering that one or two of you have commented that I am remiss in my updating. It’s true. One day this month is not up to even my appalling standards. So let me give you the quick answer to your many questions.

First, I was treated for pneumonia last Friday and sent home with an actual written doctor’s note saying not to go to work until Wednesday. I took the weekend “off” (no church, not much childcare), but had training that could not be repeated Monday and Tuesday. Also no sick leave left. I love antibiotics and am feeling mostly better, but still am tired and lack stamina.

This weekend was Mocksgiving 2011. My tally was two pies, two other desserts, one 22 pound turkey that took an hour and a half longer than it should have but was perfect, five pounds mashed potatoes, 4 large butternut squash halves, five loaves of bread, one canned batch of cranberry sauce (particularly good) and stuffing. 28 adults, 4 children and 2 babies partook of the feast. The furthest visitors came from California this year.

I was explaining Mocksgiving to someone this week, and they said, “Oh, it’s like a feast!” And I had an epiphany. It is a feast! That is why I do it, because to serve a feast to the ones you love is a great gift. It is an abundance and overabundance of good things, a cornucopia of friendship, an overflowing of plenty and dishes that include butter. It’s funny that I never thought of it quite that way, but it is an apt description of what I was doing, and of why I do it every year.

Also, the friends I always borrow plates and silverware from actually brought us eight brand new settings all our own this year. Heh. Yeah, I guess that does make sense. But it was TRADITIONAL, darn it!

I probably say this every year, but this was one of the loveliest Mocksgivings yet. Other than the stress of a tardy turkey, it seemed much mellower than than some have been. There were more board games than usual. The night ended in a fantastic series of Werewolf games. There were more new faces than usual, but also a delightful balanced of the familiar Mocksgiving faces. The weather cooperated. It was great.

So now I’m through the five parties in two months section of my year. Phew! Better yet, I’ve posted my photos of this weekend! The random black dog was an assignment for Grey’s classroom – Dudley visits the around the class and we journal his adventures with our Kindergartners.*

Anyway, happy Mocksgiving!

*No one warned me how much homework *I* would have once school started! Also, I would like to protest that it is unfair to go after my neighbor the graphic designer and her “Dudley at the MFA” spread.

The busiest time of the year

Autumn is my favorite season. The crispness and crackle in the air makes life feel more vibrant and immediate. I love the start of school and the apples and colors on the trees. Autumn is a time of itchy feet and revealed horizons and sparkling skies.

It is also, without a doubt, my busiest time of year. And I have a hunch that this will only get worse as time goes on. The busy season really starts with my birthday on September 23rd, which almost always coincides with Must Watch Baseball. Then in the first week of October, my eldest has his birthday. I get a week’s reprieve in which to go apple picking and make apple butter before my husband’s natal day arrives, followed a week later by my youngest son’s. And two out of seven years, the child’s birthday does not fall on a weekend. This means that I really have to do things on two days that week, because how lame is it to have your birthday and no cake? Almost as lame as having your birthday party and no cake, that’s how lame. So…. two cakes.

Three days after Mr. Thane’s birthday is Halloween, aka my worst holiday. (I am totally a “Let’s go to a store and buy you a costume” kind of Halloweener.) Of course, if the Sox are in the playoffs, my evening schedule also involves finding ways to sneak in the game because (as Sox fans are so keenly aware this year) we don’t make the playoffs every year. (This year the complicating role of baseball has been played instead by knee surgery and twice-weekly physical therapy.) Less than two weeks after Halloween, I host a Thanksgiving type meal for around 30 people – all sitting down to eat simultaneously.

Immediately after Mocksgiving (or preferably prior), it’s time to start with the Christmas cards. I usually do about 80. I almost always write a personal note. It is meaningful and important to me and takes nearly two months.

Did I mention I have a full time (plus) job, and two small children and a house to keep and (now) cookies to bake for the PTO bake sale at the Halloween xtravaganza that happens a week before Halloween, thereby narrowing my window for successful creation of costumes? Also, are any of you dying to buy raffle tickets to the cash raffle at said Halloween party?

Also, the inexorable exhortations of my soul require autumnal reading of ghost stories and preferably a good spooky game of Cthulu.

So if I’m running around like a one-legged mother of a six year old (HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!) on a hamster wheel until New Year’s…. well, you know why.

Mocksgiving and other pictures

It’s Christmas card time of year. I usually do ridiculously complicated Christmas cards. In recent years, my cards have involved:
1) Hand-stamped return address
2) Hand-stamped stamp in corner of envelope
3) Hand-addressed
4) Christmas card with personal note
5) Christmas letter (sometimes with personal signature)
6) Lovely family portrait picture

(I usually do about 80 of these)

There’s a chance that I might not live up to that this year. Let’s take, for example, the family portrait. It’s already pretty late to get one taken. And it requires planning. Money. And a time when we are free and no one is guaranteed to be hungry, tired, cranky, or demanding “red car! red car! red car!!!!”. Yeah. So then I wen through my 2010 pictures looking for that great picture where both my boys are looking at the camera and smiling. Now, I’ve taken a lot of pictures this year. Probably over a thousand. You’d think that there would, you know, be that picture. But you would not be the mother of a 2 and a 5 year old. There are few enough pictures where they’re both looking at the camera.

So a month ago, I decided to set this up. I found some scenic locations, and asked the boys to stand together, arms around each other, looking filial. HA!

I’m thinking this might be a good year to skip the family portrait. Still! Here are my attempts, along with Mocksgiving pictures (some great ones there!) and a bonus video of Thane at the Museum of ~~Dinosaurs~~ Science, talking about his favorite dinosaurs. (Tapejara, Neovenator, etc. You know. The classics.)

Mocksgiving Recipes

Mocksgiving has come and gone, leaving in its wake only memories, dirty dishes and two inexplicable pounds. Mmmm… I love Mocksgiving.

A post-party call was made for some of the recipes served. It occurs to me this might be particularly useful pre-Thanksgiving information. So, without further ado:

Cranberry Sauce with Pomegranate Molasses
Originally from Bon Apetit
1 1/3 cups sugar
3/4 cup red wine
1 12oz package fresh cranberries
3 tablespoons pomegranate molasses (recipe below)
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
2 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Stir sugar and wine in heavy saucepan until sugar is dissolved. Boil for about 8 minutes, until syrupy. Add cranberries, and boil until they pop (a minute or two). Off heat, stir in pomegranate molasses and basil. Cover and chill. Add cilantro directly before serving.

Notes: this is a very tasty relish, but a little goes a long way. Most people served themselves 2 – 3 tablespoons of this. I would say this could serve 15 or so people. I doubled it this year — I won’t do that again.

Pomegranate Molasses
2 cups pomegranate juice (1 bottle POM wonderful)
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup lemon juice

Heat mixture until dissolved. Simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally, until syrupy. Store refrigerated. (NOTE: I store this in a canning jar. It might be an interesting preserve long term.)

Chocolate Chip/Peanut Butter Bread Pudding
Originally from Better Homes & Gardens Prizewinning Recipes
3 cups white bread cubes (stale is good)
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Dash salt
2 cups milk

1) Place bread cubes in a greased 2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle with chocolate pieces. In with electric mix, beat sugar and peanut butter until well mixed. Beat in eggs, vanilla & salt. Gradually add in milk. Pour over bread, pressing bread down to make sure it’s all moistened.

2) Bake in 350 oven for 40 to 45 minutes.

Serve hot with vanilla ice cream. Feeds about as many as a pie.

I was also asked for my peach pie recipe and my bread recipe. The peach pie filling is Betty Crocker. (What? Betty Crocker is awesome!) The pie crust & bread recipes are light on ingredients and heavy on technique. I’ll share them if you really want, but the best way to learn how to make those things is to come and make them with me.

Some other notes… this was quite possibly my best turkey ever. It was a Butterball, so no secret in procurement. I think the trick was that we let it rest significantly longer than usual — probably twice as long. And I think that it would be even better yet if I had given it another 15 or so minutes. Don’t be afraid of the turkey getting cold. It won’t. Put tinfoil over it and let it sit for half an hour or 45 minutes before carving and it will reward you.

I also have a secret for making one turkey provide more gravy than turkily possible. I didn’t do it this year, and I now deeply regret it, as I have everything required for hot turkey sandwiches except (SOB!) gravy. When you put the turkey in the oven, add two cups of chicken broth. (Note: this is for a like 22 pound turkey. If you are making a more reasonably sized bird don’t add as much.) It will totally taste like turkey after you’re done basting, and the result will just be 1.5 cups more gravy at the end of the day.

Finally, a question. Hey mom? My lemon merangue pie crust ALWAYS schlumps. I blamed it on the pie pan I liked to use, but I didn’t use it this time and it still schlumped. How do you make an unfilled pie crust stay up on the sides? Oh well, only one thing to do with an imperfectly schlumpy lemon merangue pie. Someone hand me a fork?

My brother indoctrinated my son in Space Duck... as if I hadn't heard enough about Space Duck when my BROTHER was 5!

Thoughts on Mocksgiving morning

This is my 11th Mocksgiving morning. I’ve been thinking lately about how the age I’m entering is the height of power and responsibility, and I feel it this Mocksgiving. An endeaver that seemed unutterably grownup — a usurpation of maturity back when I first did it — now seems comfortable. It’s so much easier, this feeding of the five thousand (ok 30), now than it was 8 or 9 years ago. I know the questions — that’s the hardest part. And now I even know the answers.

As I cook, I think. I think of you. I think of what I want to tell you, so often, while I stand at the sink and gaze out at the autumn leaves falling like first snowflakes. Here are some of my thoughts this morning.

I wonder very much what this looks like to my sons. This holiday includes them, but it is not for them. How few holidays we have that do not revolve around “the children”. This is one. I wonder if Grey watches from the corners of the rooms, what he makes of the trope conversations that have been continued year to year since the year his parents were first married. I wonder if when they grow older, they’ll feel proud (or resentful?) that they don’t have a “normal” Thanksgiving, but rather this jubilant, crowded celebration of friendship and food?

This was my easiest turkey in years. Usually I end up hacking out the gizzards with tears, numb fingers and great persistence. This turkey was actually (gasp!) THAWED. I’m not sure that’s ever happened to me before, even when I managed to find a fresh 20 pound turkey two weeks before Thanksgiving.

I only made 3 pies this year. I didn’t make apple because no one ever eats it. I’m feeling anxious. What if people aren’t rolled out of here? I have a backup recipe in case I actually have time. What are the odds?

My friend Corey is up for nomination to sainthood. He’s playing with Thane in Thane’s room — dealing with the barrage of “I need help!” that defines current interactions with my scion. The hardest part of Mocksgiving for me is taking care of the kids.

I’m a comfort cook. I make the same turkey and same stuffing every year. I make my mom’s recipes for lemon merangue pie, bread, stuffing. I innovate rarely. I sometimes feel… embarrassed? that I’m not a more ambitious cook. But on the other hand, it is who I am, and perhaps I should embrace it.

Farmshare peach, pecan & lemon merangue (plus brownies)

I think a lot at Mocksgiving about Hospitality. You might not know it from the headlines about Christians, but Hospitality is a fundamental Christian virtue. I only practice pagan hospitality — the welcoming of friends. Christian Hospitality is the welcoming of strangers, of enemies even. But you must begin at the beginning of hospitality, and practice until you become good at it. Our culture does not support Christian Hospitality. It is hard to welcome the unwashed and unwanted into the fullness of your home with your beautiful babies and good china. But I think of it this day. There is also, to me, a holiness to the welcome of guests into my home. I find it profound, meaningful. When you cross my threshold, you are more welcome than you know, friends. It is one of the things I was truly called to do.

This call to welcome is perhaps why the one thing I don’t like about Mocksgiving is that I can’t invite everyone. This galls me. Trust me, if you wish you’d gotten an invite and you didn’t — I wish you had too. But every solution takes something fundamental from the venture. It must be my home. We must sit together. The 25 to 30 who come every year are the capacity of my house.

It’s a bright, sunny, warm Mocksgiving today. I love those, because the boundaries of the house bulge, and on warm days we can overspill to the yard or porch.

The first of my guests have already come (the aforementioned Sainted Corey). For years and years I always had this anxiety “What if no one came?”. I no longer suffer than one, to the same degree. But some of the stalwarts are not able to be here, and I wonder who will appear first at my door.

My mother's bread recipe. We also have a loaf of Adam's bread.

Of course, the tragedy of Mocskgiving is that I have no time to talk in depth with the rooms full of people I love. Irony!

(Note: if opportunity and thoughts strike, I’ll continue adding pictures and thoughts to this post until the party starts.)

The turkey mocks back

On November 6th, I made this wise statement: After years of panicking about cooking, I’m now confident that a) there will be enough food b) I know how to cook a turkey.

Ah, hubris!

Also, this might be a good time to mention that I try very hard not to be superstitious because I do not believe in superstition. It’s totally a load of crock, in my humble opinion. Also, I TOTALLY JINXED MYSELF WITH THIS STATEMENT. That was nearly as bad as talking about a no-hitter, people.

I changed two things about how I cooked my turkey this year.

1) I bought a new pan. My old pan always stuck to the top of the turkey, and pulled flesh off when I went to baste it, and was really too small for the behemoth birds that occupy my oven on Mocksgiving day. So I saw a new, bigger pan that didn’t have a lid but did have a cool little rack thingy and I went for it.
2) I read Cook’s Illustrated. Their November edition had some neat ideas on roasting turkeys. I didn’t do the pork one only because I couldn’t find the pork. I didn’t do the brining because I’m really lazy. I didn’t do the baking powder crispy skin bit because I have a hunch that the extra oil I add is needed to make the amount of gravy I produce.

But I did try the temperature thingy. I cooked the bird at 325.

And here are the results. Glorious, no?

Quite possibly the finest-looking bird I've ever cooked

And completely underdone. The breast was done, mind. The popper thingy popped out. The temperature was right for that breast meat. But the bottom of the bird — the dark meat and thighs, etc? Totally undone. Completely.

I hadn’t flipped the bird. I’d cooked it right side up. And since the skin looked so amazing, I didn’t crank the heat up (note: I actually think that was the right call).

We had let the bird set for half an hour, as recommended, and everything was on the table when my husband started carving and we realized that we had a turkey-disaster on our hands. Thinking fast, we pulled out cookie sheets and put turkey parts on the sheets to cook that way. It actually worked out ok. And frankly, I’m not sure that anyone would’ve even noticed if I just failed to put the turkey on the table period. There were so many fantastic options that the turkey was, well, gravy. Mocksgiving was by no means ruined by the total turkey FAIL.

Additionally my gravy was also a fail. I’m good at gravy. I make gravy all the time. But the open-topped pan allowed for much greater evaporation of delicious turkey-juices, so I kept adding water to the drippings. I added too much, and it came out as weak sauce. I actually usually (shhhh) add chicken boiullion (however you spell it) to my turkey drippings when they start to percolate to increase the volume of gravy. Since it cooks with the turkey for several hours, it ends up tasting like turkey gravy. But this time, it just tasted weird. If I want to use the open pot, I’m going to need to come up with a better plan for gravy. Of course, the fact that the turkey wasn’t COOKED might also have led to a diminution in drippings and subsequence chickenosity of the gravy.

Lessons learned:
1) It’s probably a good idea to start the turkey wrong-side up and flip it halfway through
2) Wrap the entire pot in tinfoil before cooking, not just turkey, to prevent evaporation
3) Maybe cook a larger turkey at 350 instead of 325.

I’m actually half-tempted to make a turkey on Thanksgiving just to tinker and figure out what I did wrong. (I can hear you saying “WHAT? Thanksgiving IS turkey day!” Not for me. If I can’t cadge an invite to a Thanksgiving dinner someone else cooked, Thanksgiving is likely to be a pizza night.) Also, the turkey and gravy didn’t come out well. This means NO HOT TURKEY SANDWICHES FOR ME. This, friends, is completely unacceptable.

As an additional Mocksgiving note, I made this Cranberry sauce ahead of time. More than 50% of my motivation was that I’d previously made pomegranate molasses for a recipe I didn’t end up making and it was lurking in the ‘fridge making me feel guilty. This was a fantastic make-ahead dish. It tasted excellent and looked amazing. If you need to bring a dish to a Thanksgiving, I’d heartily recommend this one. I doubled this recipe, and really. Don’t double it. All 28 of us having a serving barely made a dent in it.

When in doubt, post pictures

So I’m still in a post-Mocksgiving recovery period. For the record, it was 28 adults and two very needy small people. Work is really really busy, so you’ll have to just wait for updates. But Mocksgiving! It was great! OK, there was a minor turkey-related disaster, but we were smart and figured out how to get the thing cooked before serving it and so far no one is complaining of food poisoning, so I think we’re good!

Last night I had a blissful few hours off from parenting and cleaning up, thanks to my husband. I spent that time getting about 650 pictures off my camera, captioned, organized, face-tagged and trimmed down. I want you to know they only went back to Columbus Day. One month. 650 pictures. Oof.

Anyway, here’s the first set! This is Thane and Adam’s shared birthday, and Mocksgiving!

Fall Gatherings 2009

Commence panicking

This is the week before Mocksgiving. Unusually for me, I got the invitations out pretty early this year… Septembrish. I was proud of myself for not procrastinating.

Now, a week away, I’m ready to start my annual, pre-Mocksgiving panicking. Mostly, this has to do with physics. After years of panicking about cooking, I’m now confident that a) there will be enough food b) I know how to cook a turkey. Of course, this hubris means that we’ll get a half-scorched/half-raw Thomas this year, but hey. Once every ten years is totally forgivable.

But there are a few things that make Mocksgiving what it is, to me. First, I invite people to my house. I host them. We do not go to a hall or a restaurant. I welcome people into my home. Somehow, this is important. Second, we all sit down together and eat a meal together. It’s not a buffet. There are tablecloths and silverware.

Um, actually that’s pretty much it. The rest happens by magic — the conversations and pot luck dishes and hot beef injections (love ya Ben). The friends and walks and board games. It’s a pretty awesome thing.

But. Right now my RSVPs for Mocksgiving have us somewhere between, oh, 27 and 35 people. I have enough plates and cups and silverware. There will be a gracious plenty of food (although I always end up buying the very largest turkey I can lay my hands on, which regardless of how long it’s been thawing in my ‘fridge and whether I bought it fresh or frozen WILL be frozen solid when I go to try to remove the giblets). But seating? How do you get 32 people to simultaneously sit down in your reasonably-sized house? Do I set the top of the piano? Do I lay a board on top of the couch? It’s a good thing the fire department doesn’t come to visit on Mocksgiving, letmetellyou.

And all this brings me to the only part of Mocksgiving I really actively dislike. I really hate excluding people. I would like to be able to invite everyone I know and like to come sit at table and dine with me. I used to be able to, back when I had fewer friends. But whew. Man. I can’t do more than 30. I just don’t think it’s possible, without renting a hall. I often turn down people’s requests to bring guests, many of whom are people I also know and like. So basically, if you’ve come before you get grandfathered. After two or so years of not making it, you may not get another invite. I may really like you and not invite you. I probably wish I could. One of these days, I might try renting a hall and seeing if I can pull off that collegial feeling. It just somehow doesn’t seem right.

So please? If you get an invitation, come and celebrate and be prepared dine on the piano. I want you to come very much. But if you DON’T get an invitation, don’t read it as a statement on our relationship or think it’s because I don’t like you. And if you really wish that you could do Mocksgiving? I hereby authorize you to do your OWN Mocksgiving (as though you need my permission). If you do, I’d love to get pictures of your celebration.

Ok, so I’ll need a 30 pound turkey, 5 loaves of bread, 5 pies, 15 pounds of potatoes….

I think last year we only had about 20, due to late invites

The tail end of birthday season

I’d like to know who’s brilliant idea it was for my entire family to have their birthdays in a 5 week period right before Mocksgiving and Christmas. Sheesh.

But hey! This weekend, we held a joint birthday party for Adam and Thane! We had the iconic baby-encounters-frosting-for-the-first-time moments.

Let's see what this squishy stuff tastes like...

Adam and I had a philosophical discussion on whether a one year old would even notice that they were having a birthday. I discovered that I have deep-seated equality anxiety. I’m a middle child. My baby brother is six years younger than me, my big sister two years older. I remember that my parents were very careful to make sure that especially my sister and I were treated the same. I recall that they asked HER forbearance when they let ME drive to high school, since she had never been allowed to. I imagined this scene where an impressionable 9 year old Thane is looking through his baby book, perhaps while 11 year old Grey reviews his. There, at Grey’s party, is the Elmo cake, the balloons, the rejoicing. A sad, blank page in Thane’s baby book, testament to second-child syndrome. Thane becomes emotionally devastated due to this evidence of my lax attention to his young self, and eventually leaves home to become a stylite monk in the Nevada desert. All because I couldn’t whip up a few streamers for his birthday.

Funny how your own issues show up, eh? I never once remember feeling like I was any less loved for being the second born. But I’m terrified that Thane might, for the slightest moment, feel that way.

Anyway, happily this fate has been avoided by this party! Now if he wants monastic life, he can at least join one of the normal orders, you know, Benedectines or Carmelites or somethin’.

While I didn’t stoop so low as to have a Halloween/Birthday party (yet… I can’t imagine that with a birthday on the 28th that won’t happen eventually), we also celebrated my husband’s natal day in the way he likes best: board games. From about 6:30 until about 12:30, they played. Since I was on boy-duty for a good portion and then somehow ended up being schooled in Mario Kart Wii, I can’t report on the games. But I can tell you there was one that sounded terrifying: it actually has a docket. And a senate. And you negotiate legislation. They apparently thought it was awesome.

Happy birthday all!

Now to get ready for Mocksgiving! AAAAAAAAA!

Pictures!

I have pictures! In addition to my own point-and-shoot contributions, I included some pictures taken by one of my friends (those would be the larger resolution ones at the bottom).

http://tiltedworld.com/brenda/pictures/ThaneandMocksgiving/