Corvallis

     We all went down to Corvallis today to see Drew, Anna, Julie and John.  We didn't get back until almost dinner time, so Dad and Cy threw together tuna melts for us all.  They were great, and we should be back next week.

Thanksgiving, Sunday

     This Thursday our family is going to be out of town, specifically, we will be in Las Vegas.  So instead of Thanksgiving dinner this year, we'll be at Delmonico Steakhouse, in the Venetian.  Since we won't have a true Thanksgiving meal this year, Sunday Dinner was the perfect spot to fill that void.  With Dad's help I roasted a turkey with vegetables, made brussels sprouts (and bacon), and of course the requisite family recipe for cranberry smash.  Mimi brought butter rich dinner rolls.

     We didn't start cooking until three, and we ended up eating a lot later than expected, just like every Thanksgiving dinner in fact.  Most of the cooking was sitting and waiting for the Turkey roast to cook, though some parts were incredibly labor intensive.  To prep the brussels sprouts, I washed, halved, and thinly sliced each of about 50 sprouts, all on our lowest of three counters.  (Speaking of which, Cyrus is now taller than Mom, and I'm edging up on Dad.)
     When dinner was finally ready, it was a feast.  The food and plates only just fit on the table, and I believe all of us ate more than we probably should have.  The turkey was, well, turkey.  A little dry, but plenty flavorful and truly great with a dollop of the cranberry sauce.  The roasted vegetable were also really good, the onions and carrots sweetening the dish, and the parsnips and potatoes keeping it on an even keel.  The brussels sprouts were great, they tasted green, but the bacon bits and pecan chunks kept them from becoming greens.  The rolls, brought by Mimi, were excellent as always.  And there's a few leftovers for tomorrow.

Seattle Day Trip

     We went to Seattle today to see the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center, and we didn't get back until 8.  Sufficed to say, I didn't have time to make dinner, but we'll be back next week before our trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

One Twenty-fourth

     I love daylight savings.  Last night, I got home from my Speech and Debate tournament a few minutes before ten, and spent more than an hour describing the tournament to Mom and Dad.  I spent more time talking about the resolution from the final debate (which my partner and I won) than I did actually debating it.
     Then I woke up at half past seven, and discovered that thanks to that extra hour in the middle of the night, I got plenty of sleep.  I wasn't the only one to be happy to start the day early.  We went out for breakfast and a languorous hike in Forest Park, and got home before noon.  Dad booked our Thanksgiving break trip, and did yard work, and Cy and I finished up our homework before two.  It is amazing how much one extra hour, an extra hour very few people even experience, adds to a day.  It feels like today was two, or three, times as productive as the typical day; not an extra one twenty-fourth.

     For dinner, Cy decided to make drumsticks, with a sweet-sticky barbeque sauce.   While I didn't see much of the cooking process myself, I was off enjoying the extra hour in my day and the amazing weather, I did see the end, 10 chicken drumsticks covered in sauce.  Let's cut to the point and say that such a heavenly smell rarely wafts through our kitchen.  When the drumsticks came out, Cy plated them up with lots of rice and greens, and proceeded to cover it all in more sesame seeds than there are stars in the sky.  The drumsticks tasted great, but I have to say my favorite part was the way the sauce got stuck to your fingers, and wouldn't come off.  Even now, several hours later, I can taste the sauce, though not the chicken, when I lick my fingers.  Mmmm.  When it comes to chicken, Cyrus knows what he's doing.

Mac' n' Cheese, Singlehanded

     Dad is out of town this weekend, in Anaheim for an annual produce industry conference.  Today, like the past week and the next several months, has been rainy and dark.  Mom, Cy and I spent it shopping for speech and debate clothes for me, and band clothes for Cy.  In the afternoon, Cy dressed up in his Halloween costume for the Monster March, a parade through the neighborhood which is led by the Sellwood Middle School band.  When he got back, his make-up had been washed off by the rain, and he was soaked to the bone.
    Since Dad's not here to lend a hand, I decided to hedge my bets with an easy, classic dinner, Mom's mac' n' cheese.  After an hour long whirlwind of work on the mac' n' cheese, grating cheese, mixing panko into the topping, boiling milk, whisking in cream, whisking in cheese, cooking pasta, I stood back for a few moments before mixing up a salad.

     This was a very basic mac' n' cheese, repleat in it's fatty, dairy-based glory.  The most notable part of the meal was that it may well be the most single-handed dinner that I recall making for Sunday Dinner. It was hard work for a simple meal, but well worth it.

Sweet, Tender, Juicy Pork

     This morning was the Sellwood Middle School 5k.  Mom and Dad ran a fundraiser for the school, selling bags of apples.  Cy and I ran in the race.  To make a long story short, I had a great race.  I won in a personal best time, edging out a Reedie who'd been sticking with me (and pushing me to go faster) the whole race.  Cy did well too, he thinks his time was about 27 minutes, which, by my foggiest memories, puts him around a minute faster than I was three years ago.
     After the race, Dad and Cy started working on dinner while Mom and I went to get flu shots.  We returned home to a rich pork smell wafting from the kitchen.  While it was not always clear what they were working on, or towards, they created a great meal for us.  There were two sauces to go on the pork.  The first, was very sweet at first, though it delivered quite the kick at the end of each bite.  The other, was garlic and ginger heavy, but defied expectations as sharpened soy sauce.

     The pork itself was sweet, melt in your mouth pork, and had been garnished in the pan with a third sauce and scallions.  The other thing about the pork, is that we had a huge chunk of meat to start with, and five people cannot eat a huge chunk of meat in one meal.  I think it'll make awesome leftovers, though that may just be my protein-hungry leg muscles talking.  For sides we had excellent crispy rice, and mustard greens.

A Two-Sentence Recipe

     This morning when I woke up, I had no idea what I wanted to make for dinner.  After I had finished the New York Times Magazine though, I most definitely had a place I wanted to start from.  Mark Bittman, as any follower of this blog would know, a big favorite of Dad and I, had put together one of his ingenious "Many Easy Ways to Cook One Thing."  In this case, it was twenty-five different ways to have bacon.
     For us, bacon is usually something consumed as a side, for breakfast.  Probably with pancakes or waffles.  But in my personal experience with bacon, bacon is at it's worst on it's own.  I like my bacon chopped into baked beans, in twice baked potatoes, or in omelets, with eggs and cheese.  That amazing bacon flavor can be leveraged to take the whole meal to another level. All the recipes Bittman came up with looked really good to me, (though I don't think I'll try a few, namely the ones with tofu, or popcorn.)  Ultimately, I settled on the two-sentence bacon with grits recipe.
     Right now, the bacon is bubbling away in it's own fat, and the grits are simmering on the stove top.  Dad is grating kohlrabi roots, and I have washed the leaves and stripped the stems for a side Dad suggested during our shopping trip.  Once the bacon is done, we'll fry eggs in the left over fat.

     This was an excellent meal.  While it felt like the eggs, bacon and grits were all separate components, and that they didn't have to work together, they did, and they worked together well.  Then again, anything with that much fat will taste good, regardless.  The kohlrabi side worked out well, though I think the leaves got lost somewhere along the way.  For this meal, aside from Mark Bittman's two-sentences on the bacon with grits, there was no recipe.  It worked out very well.