5 minutes, central area.

Right side, chest, throat and under tongue. A little nausea. Heart, too.

5 minutes.

Well, I made a post that disappeared in a crash. Meh, still good to get it out? I don't know.

Hello, from a slightly hungover me.

It is mid-afternoon and I have a coffee that I am slowly sipping. Advil inside, and I believe the caffeine/NSAID synergy is working well; not that I had much of a headache. I finished off my pickle juice and will probably nibble a little kimchi to up my internal bacteria, which are probably somewhat upset at the moment.

Turkey broth is simmering. I made turkey parts for American Thanksgiving. This was totally impromptu this year. Usually we go out to a restaurant, but I screwed up and forgot how early they closed. I kind of secretly wanted to do it myself this year, too. I bought a turkey leg, wing and boneless breast from Whole Foods, along with organic cranberries, a parsnip, what apparently is a Celebration squash, Yukon Gold potatoes and a Tetra Pak of Pacific Foods' new organic turkey gravy. I also gave in and bought myself a rosemary " Christmas tree". I've wanted one for a few years now. I may also have gotten some organic chocolate milk to kind of appease my husband... because I really shouldn't have been spending too much money that month.

I had a pack of organic baby carrots in the fridge, but went out and got frozen organic peas and corn and some white bread. I can't make stuffing without some ordinary white bread. What goes in it? Chopped onions, sage (I used fresh from our condo's herb garden, but misjudged and needed to add extra later - dried is way more consistent), finely chopped carrots (thank goodness I got lazy and went for the baby ones), half an apple (it was a not-so-good Pink Lady or something), butter (the original recipe used margarine, but no. Just no.), salt and pepper.

I also had some German Butterball potatoes that I bought a couple of weeks ago. Oh yeah, I also got some whole berry Ocean Spray cranberry sauce. Got to have tradition!

I made the stuffing the night before, actually, just in case. You definitely have to make that ahead to get everything mashed together.

The day of, I got all waffly about what we were going to do. Then it was around 5-ish and it turned out we missed the restaurant we wanted to go to. So then I went nuts and cooked everything. This would have been a lot easier had I a clean kitchen, but I'm extremely bad about that. Ugggh. I have no counter space because I'm so bad at letting things pile up. Blergle.

Anyhow, I put the two kinds of potatoes and the parsnips in my largest glass baking dish, put the stuffing into a bowl and mounded it up and placed that in the middle of the baking dish and put the turkey parts on top. I stuck sage and rosemary bits in there, too.

I steamed the carrots, meaning to save the water for gravy, but ended up forgetting about that. The corn and peas were microwaved. I baked the squash with maple syrup, but I should have done it the day before, because it was undercooked. I made cranberry chutney by just cooking them down with maple syrup, water, sugar, orange zest and orange juice, cinnamon and nutmeg?, ginger and possibly star anise. I just kept throwing things in. I also added some finely chopped apple, too. There was a lot of tasting and adjusting going on, but you can just leave it simmering on the stove (covered, because those popping cranberries are kind of scary).

Once the turkey came out, I put the meat on a cutting board to rest and got the vegetables in bowls so that I could get some of those drippings to make a roux with some flour. Oh yeah, I used the wingtip and a bunch of frozen vegetable peelings I had to make a turkey broth early in this cooking madness. So that's where I got most of my homemade gravy started. I also had some Horne's GraVee from Canada. I like my turkey gravy to be a rich brown colour and fairly thick.

This is how it turned out:

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Okay, so the homemade gravy ended up in a mug and a lot of the food got kind of cold, but we got a Thanksgiving this year! We ended up doing nothing for Canadian Thanksgiving other than getting our cat, Pooky, a can of "Thanksgiving Dinner".

Leftovers galore! That bottle of Mountain Dome sparkling wine, while non-vintage, has been around since 2007. It's a really pretty golden colour and seems to take aging pretty well. We bought a stash when we moved away from Seattle to Toronto and still have a few bottles around in the wine cellar downstairs.

If I do this again, definitely doing squash ahead of time. I'll probably curry it, too. It would help to have a clean kitchen. Ugh, why do I hate housecleaning for myself?

Anyhow, welcome to my first turkey dinner.

I've been having vertigo on and off today. Not good.

I had an applesauce container. Called my husband and got him to bring me home some soup for lunch. I mostly tried to rest, but did start the dishwasher and hand washed a bunch of stuff. I also ate a banana and made edamame. We went out for happy hour at Wann because I didn't want to cook. I had a couple of pieces of a California roll and the atsuage tofu and a bowl of the tempura udon soup. We also ordered tako wasabi. My drink was the "oolong high", which is oolong tea mixed with shochu.

I will see how I feel tomorrow. I have no one to take care of me other than my husband out here.

The highlight of my day was getting my tortilla press from Jorge Cortez. It's made of cherry wood and feels gorgeous. I got the small one. Maybe I should have gotten the larger one. Now all I need to do is get some masa harina.

Lately, I haven't been reading much.

To receive? I enjoy candy and chocolates. As I said earlier, we don't really need anything materially in particular that we can't get for ourselves. As well, we'll only be able to carry so much with us on the plane.

I just want to see my family. Since we live far away again, it's not like I can just drop by anymore. I'm terrible on the phone. Also, I want some home cooking. Yeah, that's what's really on my wish list. Mm...

I really just want good things to happen to my family and friends.

We do the Advent candles every Sunday, mainly because it's a family tradition for my husband. Comes from the Lutheran.

We also do 3 Christmases to accomodate our families. Christmas Eve for my mother-in-law's side, Christmas for my side and Boxing Day for my father-in-law's side. Turkey time! It's great! Only problem is that there have been some rough events this year, so it should be very interesting. Basically we got to keep all of our Christmas traditions. Worked out pretty well! It's not really about gifts anymore for my husband and I. We're pretty much the most financially secure of everyone and can afford anything we need and lots of toys. It's all about the people, which I'm quite happy with. We all get along fine. I just need to be better at talking. I'm pretty bad at talking normally. The only person I converse with regularly is my husband. I hate the phone.

New Year's Eve has always varied. Always with my husband since 2005, but one year we did it at my friend's place, other years at my family's place or at home. This year, we're going to be far from our family and friends since we're travelling back early from Toronto. We're looking up restaurants and will probably do a dinner and midnight champagne toast somewhere nice. This year, same as last year, we will be looking forward to a better year. Times have been a bit emotionally unsettling. My husband and I are doing fine, but our families need better times. I hope we can get them to visit us in Seattle in the coming year.