Thanksgiving dinner

The turkey was a twenty-pound behemoth that Mom bought because it was the smallest one she could afford. It was brined this year. It was also butchered; I did a disgraceful job of carving it. Dad taught me better, and I was genuinely ashamed of the hatchet job I did on the beast.

The guests were two in number, an old couple that Mom met from somewhere (I think the UU meeting.) The husband was the quieter one. The wife was an old German woman, a former teacher; we hit it off instantly, and talked through a bottle of champagne about Andalusada. (It's very nice to have somebody else who knows what Low German is, and can talk intelligently about it, even though she spoke Hochdeutsch herself.)

Dinner wine was white, with a nose so soft it was almost watery. Dry, yes, but fruity for all that, and fruity without being citric, which is a nice change of pace. (Why I say that I'm not sure, because I don't drink wine on my own. Maybe because most of the beers I've had this year that described their subtle fruit notes had overpowering ones instead.)

The non-meat parts of the meal were actually the best, at least to my taste. There was an enormous amount of spinach - collard greens, mustard greens, a few other greens, at least three pounds of them, all of which I'd shredded myself the night before, but growing up I'd still call it "spinach" and I'd still hate it - with what was supposed to be a cream sauce, but wasn't, because Mom didn't make it after all; and there were steamed walnuts mixed in. Perfect. There was chow-chow (totally out of place with the rest of the meal, and cold.) Sweet potatoes, as ever, and they had been baked faultlessly; I didn't even think to butter them. And there was lingonberry sauce, brought by the guests. Lingonberries.

Pies for dessert, pies and creme de cassis for me. And ice cream. Apparently there are two places on the planet that make chocolate lace ice cream; came as a hell of a surprise to me.

A memorable meal.