Thankful for Woody and Melenie

This week, I’ve continued to gain more strength and do more than I’ve been able. I still have to rest in between bouts of working, but I can carry out many things I couldn’t even last week.  I’ve doing most of the cooking now. 

Melenie and Jay came on the Wednesday just before Thanksgiving.  We made apple cranberry sauce, using some of the many apples from a local orchard Melenie brought.  The few apples left from Maine had gone mealy.  She brought several modern and a few heirloom apples. Then she helped me stow summer dresses and bring out warmer ones from the hall closet.

Thursday morning we started at eleven by making a rum pumpkin pie I love to serve [and eat] every Thanksgiving.  We had one good pumpkin left from the garden.  We did very poorly on pumpkins this year.  If the terrible droughts continue every summer, we cannot any longer grow pumpkins. The rabbits were so thirsty, they chewed through the mesh and bags we had protecting ours to get at the juicy pulp.

Then in the afternoon, we made a wonderful stuffed whole pumpkin I’ve adapted from a Julia Child recipe [potiron tout rond].  The French know how to cook pumpkins, not simply in pies or other sweets but in main and side dishes.  The pumpkin comes to the table whole with its top on.  Inside is rich and delicious stuffing, based on lots and lots of gruyere cheese – plus sauteed onions, panko crumbs, cream, sage, nutmeg and bay leaf.  Then we made dressing.  It’s always an improvisation.  Cubes of dried bread, onions and celery of course. Then apples, dates, dried cranberries, sage, rosemary and parsley.  That was the last parsley from my herb garden this year, but the sage and rosemary are still good.

Tasha brought four kinds of hors d’oeuvres that were delicious.  Dale brought asparagus served cold and a chocolate Bundt cake.  It was a fabulous feed from beginning to end.  I even had a half glass of wine, the first alcohol I’ve had since I got my pacemaker.  I have no guidelines but thought probably I wasn’t supposed to drink with the various meds I was given.

I’ve been making progress in my new book THE HOUR OF MY DEATH. I didn’t do much writing this week.  Never can write Mondays when I work with Dale.  I did get to it Tuesday but no writing on Wednesday or Thursday.  Today after I write this, I’m hoping to get back to work.  I love the leftovers the day after Thanksgiving.  It’s a time to relish the flavors of what didn’t get used up.  Eating in a leisurely way without the necessity to entertain guests and watch the table for what might be needed.

Shaman had a wonderful time. Melenie and Jay fell in love with him and fussed him up. Stephen paid attention to him as did Stephanie.  He was very happy. Today he’s a little deflated and keeps wondering where all the attentive people vanished to.  We’ve been watching a rather grim but fascinating limited series on Prime called The English.  We finished it off tonight. Always looking for a new series or movie we actually want to watch on Netflix, HBO Max or Prime.  Not about the pay for any other streaming service. We have little enough time to see things on the three we have. 

Saturday is the Michigan / Ohio State game. Woody is very pessimistic but we both bleed Blue.