Happy Thanksgiving. It was a good day with good food.
I took a long walk around the neighborhood in the morning. It was fairly warm for the season, though wet. It was barely drizzling when I left, but turned into a light right on my way home. Not enough to soak me but enough to get me wet.
Much of my day was spent preparing a cheesecake, the same one I made last year, a cinnamon roll cheesecake. It has four separate parts to make and has a really long cook + cool down time, so I finished later than I had wanted. I rushed the cooling, resulting in some cracks. I also felt pretty worn out. I accidentally put too much flour in the main part: It called for three tablespoons but for some reason I thought it was to be one cup. I fished out a little more than a half cup. The end result was definitely not as good as last year, but still good. I didn’t use as high quality of cream cheese, and I think the taste of the extra flour was a bit too strong. Others liked the cake though.
We had a five person dinner at my parents’ house. They did much of the cooking before I arrived, but I helped on some things when I got there. The dressing took longer than expected and had to be microwaved to finish. Everything turned out very good. Usual fare: turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing / dressing, brussels sprouts, rolls. I ate a lot and could’ve eaten more except I had to leave room for dessert. We drank some Fiji water, since some guy said that paired best with turkey. I felt less worn out after sitting and eating.
We watched some football. I didn’t have any interest in either team, but it was a close game that went into overtime, making it a little more interesting.
The night before, I helped my parents prepare some chestnuts for the stuffing. They cut them, boil them, then peel them. They got some new tools to help this year. I used one of them to help scrape the peels off without burning my hands. Some of them came off easy but some required repeated scraping for each little bit. They’re a lot of work but make for a tasty stuffing.