Thanksgiving dish, by dish

Apps
- High-end pate, smelly French (or "Freedom") cheese. Not so Atkinsy a bunch as to be done without crackers.

Turkey
- Delicious and moist, a rarety for the other other white meat
- A 20 lb bird, though the literature said 1 lb per person would do. Others were sold out. Kosher. Moist and delicious, though the perennial problem of cooking breast to 170 degrees and thighs to 180 (or something like that) occasioned some stress.

Stuffing
- This year, cooked outside of bird, because of my sister's kids Daniel and
Caroline's allergies to the wonderful milk products in it. That is, butter. Tasty enough, containing plentiful sausage with seasonally appropriate quantities of sage, though the stuffing longed for the cavity, where it so likes to commune with bird and juices.

Gravy
- Shiitake mushrooms, butter, cream, fresh herbs, turkey stuff. Say no more.

Potatos
- These were my responsibility, and here's where the sad part starts
- I boiled them for too long, so they were a little extra glutinous
- I used all the Yukon Golds, where Daniel and Caroline could have had them for lactose-free baked potatos, but they had to settle for the less-festive Russets (no public protest was registered)
- Then, as the meal approached and Graham was crying and Natalie called out for dinner and I was trying to nuke the taters to get them ready, I realized I was about to get them more than kid hot and decided to serve some for Natalie. But because the bowl barely fit in the microwave, I accidentally pulled out the glass "turntable" from the oven, shattering it on the floor, creating a child hazard. This was a stressful moment for your blogger.
- Then, when I put the potatos on the table as we were trying to assemble dinner, petals were knocked from the chrysanthemums in the centerpiece into the taters. Stressful moment #2.

String beans
- With walnuts and garlic, tasty and low-impact

Pies
- Strawberry, for the kids
- Pecan, for us. Crust made from scratch with real butter to avoid non-festive transfats. Made from my grandmother's recipe, which my mom had emailed to me for me to print. But I haven't set up my new printer yet, and have no paper, so mom had to read from my laptop, which she left perched precariously with kids running round. Delicious.

Key learning
- The kitchen is too small for that many people, especially with the peninsula counter thing situated as it is.
- The glass things at the bottom of microwaves are not shatterproof