Deciding that hanging out with family is equivalent to having surgery without anesthetic, I didn't do as much as I would have liked. Mom took over in usual tsunami mode and really the entire family are food terrorists anyway. What is the point? Mom has acid reflux and extremely high cholesterol, Uncle P has diabetes, Grandma has an ulcer, Dad has various allergies and can't have too much salt, and frankly I tend to have a trumpet butt after eating heavy food. No idea if anyone will be willing to sleep next to such a trumpet forever or want to be related to these people. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday filled with happiness and goodwill, but now it just gaseous. So sad.
I managed to make what I thought would be butternut squash gnocchi. I made it in the past and I remember the mess of squash flour in my hair and on my sweater and just everywhere. It was quite similar to the Pierogi Dough Explosion of 2007. This time I made smaller batches but for whatever reason it required much more flour that I thought possible. This squash might have been more watery then the previous one I used. I couldn't form the balls properly and made all kinds of crazy shapes instead. As with last time I didn't think ahead of how to get the gnocchi from the table to the pot on the stove so I had to peel them off, add more flour and rush over to the stove. What a mess. When I did this before my roommate S helped. We were both rushing from one side of the kitchen to the other and several gnocchis did not make it safely to the pot but fell to their smoooshed dooms on the floor.
Luckily that did not happen again. Instead I figured I could keep a cookie sheet next to the pot of boiling water and set the gnocchis ready to boil there. Well being that I am such a culinary genius I did not realize the cookie pan was touching the pot of water. With incredible stupidity I grabbed the cookie sheet with my bare hands to replenish the load and burned the hell out of my left hand. Burned it to the point of screaming and rushing around to find gauze and neosporin.
My mom helped me finish the rest of the gnocchi but she has no patience for such projects and made gigantic doughnut sized gnocchi. We cooked these and ended up throwing them away.
Despite being able to only use one hand I managed to make a sweet potato pie as well. I put in way too much filling and the crust was undercooked. This also was thrown away after only a few tasted it.
Everything my mom made tasted great so I have a lot to learn about Thanksgiving, even though both her and my grandma were up with stomach aches all night.
Some comments from the dinner were:
"I'm thankful that Uncle so and so isn't here tonight."
"That's cold. Shame on you."
"It's true."
"I wish Grandma could remember her recipe for the yeast dough with the tangerines and cinnamon. Those rolls were the best thing in the world to come home to."
"I vemember I show Avivitcha how do, and put flour on her nose and ve laugh in kitchen all day."
"Yeah yeah. I don't remember."
"You remember the rolls don't you? And the poppyseed cake? Heaven"
"I don't remember having those for Thanksgiving."
"We can't eat that stuff now anyway. Too much butter."
"Vonve in a vhile is ok."
"How did you learn about Thanksgiving? Someone must have told you about it right?"
"I don't remember us doing Thanksgiving for years and years after coming to this country."
"No. You rong. You no vemember. A lady at vork telling me and I do. I do only one year after ve come here. You often no vant sit at table. You go out."
"You were a bad daughter. You never listen."
"Shut up asshole."
"Remember when I had a catering gig at the private residence where I served food to unbelievably rich people? I actually walked around a huge table carrying hot, hot platters and doling out portions to 20 people. All these ladies who weren't particularly skinny refused the mashed potatoes. I was wondering why bother putting on a show? The potatoes are too much for you at Thanksgiving dinner?"
"I would have eaten seconds and thirds and say mmmmmmm over and over right in front of them."
"Yeah. Well they must want to eat it and they're purposely denying themselves just to make it seem like their healthy on this holiday? I wonder if they know how much butter goes into everything else?"
"Is funny. Why they no vanna eat? Potatoes good for you."
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