Turkey Day Report

OK, so we did a little turkey for Thanksgiving - a 7 lb turkey.  I didn't know they came that small.  Anyway, it was for just two of us so was plenty big!  We decided to brine the little guy and I have to say it was not a great success but maybe I screwed it up.  The brine recipe called for a gallon of water and a cup of kosher salt for a 12-14 lb turkey.  Since we had half that amount of bird, I cut the recipe in half.  I also added some cracked peppercorns and a few bay leaves which I did not taste at all..  The place where I may have hurt our outcome is that you are supposed to brine for 8 to 18 hours.  Our little guy was in the brine for almost 24 hours.  We did rinse him off after the brining.  After cooking he was certainly moist but he was also quite salty.  He had nice color when he was done and his skin was nice and crispy.  Here he is after resting for about 10 minutes.  I'm not at all sure why the foil that was tenting him is so discolored.  It's just one of those mysteries of life.

You can see his small size by that ordinary table knife that is in the lower lefthand corner.  My wife likes to put a combination of butter and herbs under the skin which really adds a lot of flavor.  She also uses the pan drippings to make gravy.  Unfortunately the gravy ended up REALLY salty without adding any additional salt.  So while the turkey was acceptable, the gravy ended up going down the drain.  Will we brine again?  I doubt it.  We casually watch our sodium intake and this was just too salty.

The day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, was spent watching tv that we'd collected including the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  It's kind of funny how not having grandchildren means that we aren't familiar with some of the newer balloons.  The Sesame Street float is from when the kids were keeping us up to date with toys!  That's a long time ago now.  We didn't bother with shopping even online.  When we buy we are pretty careful to get what we want; it the hurry to get a bargain it's way too easy to get something that isn't quite the thing.  Well, at least it is for me! 

Man!  December 1st is tomorrow!  It's just a matter of moments until it will be 2015.  Amazing.  Hope things are going well for you and yours.  Take care.

Spam???

After quite a while with no spam, all of a sudden I'm getting spam comments.  Grrr!  Oh well, if that's my biggest problem!  Like that's true. 

I've been keeping a food diary for the past week or ten days.  It's kind of interesting; well, to me anyway.  Doubt if anyone else would find it instructive.  I do find that I eat more restaurant food than I expected.  Part of this is because we seldom finish a restaurant meal so I have a leftover for the next day.  For example, if I have a buritto at our favorite Mexican joint and eat the whole thing, I'm so full that I roll out the door.  I find that if I eat half I feel full and still have the energy to do something other than take a nap.  Just for the fun of it I'm trying to estimate the number of calories; now that can get difficult!  I mean no one knows the calorie count in that buritto!  If it were a chain, like Taco Bell, you could get the information easily but not if you are going to El Jefe in Pahrump.

I heard some comment to the effect that since we don't use our checkbooks as much it should reduce the problem people have remembering the new year.  For me, it's the opposite.  Of course, I was having trouble figuring out how late in the year it was.  If you aren't accepting that it is November yet you are going to have a heck of a time with January.  Happily I don't have to remember the date too often.  Still, I want to make it a point to know the date.  When my mom was being tested for diamentia one of the questions asked was "What is the date?"  She didn't know.

I appreciate all the comments on how people organize their photos.  It sounds like there is no perfect system so I guess I'll just continue with the date and tag method.  Besides let's face the fact that most often no one in their right mind would want to see my photos.  If they are lost I won't be torturing anyone with them. Speaking of photos that could be lost, here is one of the really important ones!

You see, I could lose that and no one in the entire world would be the worse off!  G. Duboeuf of France is probably the only person who would care about this.  Beaujolais Nouveau, if you don't know, is a certain French wine that is released on November 18 of the year in which it is grown.  Almost all decent wines are stored for a while at least before release; not this guy!  And all the producers release their versions on the same day.  If anyone is interested this year's wine is pretty good but not great.  I remember a few years ago we bought a bottle on November 18 and it was so nice that I went back and bought an entire case.  I don't think we'll need to do that this year.  This is a photo I almost certainly will lose too since we didn't try the Beaujolais Nouveau until December so that's where I stored the photo. 

Well, I've blithered on long enough wasting all these electrons and the time of anyone who has gotten to this point.  Have a good one!

Just a thought...

We hear constantly about obesity in America and how eating out is a primary cause.  Today I had an excellent demonstration of that.  We have a all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet here in town called The China Wok.  We never go because we don't eat enough to make it reasonable however we do get take-out from them.  Today I picked up some hot-and-sour soup for my wife and some chicken with broccoli for myself.  My wife has half of her soup left and I have a tupperware full of chicken-broccoli and another full of fried rice.  It's just amazing the amount of food you are offered; yet more amazing that some people actually eat that much!  Wow!

Yesterday we spent the day in Las Vegas.  We went to a place called Bachi Burger for lunch.  It's in a little strip mall well away from the Strip.  They do $7 to $25 hamburgers with an asian twist.  You can get Wagyu beef if you want and toppings include things like kim chee or hoisin mayo or a fried egg.  We each had the $7 burger and split some salt and pepper garlic french fries.  It was all quite good.  They did my wife's burger rare as she requested; mine was also rare though I had requested med-rare.  The fries were tiny - most were about an inch long and thin but they were quite good and the garlic aioli was excellent.  We'll probably go back but I couldn't rate it as fantastic.  The reviews are good, probably better than I would give it but that's what makes a horse race.

We also got to see our daughter's new cat.  She adopted a rescued animal and we think she got a nice little critter.  She's part Siamese with big blue eyes and has six toes on each foot.  The front paws are especially odd with four toes together then a gap and then two more.  Odd looking but the cat seems to have a great personality and is quite friendly.  She's supposed to be four years old and seems quite happy in her new home though she doesn't let our daughter out of her sight for long.

Otherwise we did our usual shopping; coming home with the RAV full of scotch and wine and paper towels and such.  Life in the fast lane!  LOL  It was a bit over 80F (27C) and we were both wearing long pants so we got to run the a/c for the first time this year.  No fear, it will be on every time we start the car before long.

When I can force myself to do it I've been copying old photos to the computer.  It does get dreadfully boring even for me and I took most of them.  Still, having them in digital format means we will be able to share them much more easily.  We haven't decided yet what is going to happen to the photos themselves; I think it will depend on the amount of space required.  I'm already got half a pail full of duplicate photos weeded out.  Anyway, here are a couple from Florida in the 1980's.  Have a good one.

Excellent Dinner

Ok, I admit, I was surprised by the excellent dinner our daughter produced.  It was really very good:  pork loin, asparagus, garlic bread and salad.  Simple and very nicely done.  As always happens, there were surprises, like the pork got done about 15 minutes sooner than expected, but she caught it and adapted very well.  Good for her!

We went to the casino this morning for breakfast.  We always gamble a bit afterwards (video poker).  I don't know what the deal was but it was really quite a long session; at least 30 minutes.  Someone had left their money in the machine, all $.04 of it, so I played with it.  It was one of the unusual machines that lets you play betting only $.01, I actually got up to $.13 at one point!  Amazing.  But don't worry, it was a fluke.  As usual I lost in the end both my money and the $.04.  Someone has to be sure the casino stays in business.

In that other great gamble, I'm up another half pound or so, to 224 lb (101.6kg).  Grrr, going the wrong way again.  But what are you going to do.  We've been walking as usual but I have been exercising with the weights as well.  Maybe I can convince myself that I'm adding muscle weight!  LOL  Yeah, that's it.  Sure! 

Look on the bright side and have a good one!

Confession

My wife is having a love affair with her Wii.  She is on it first thing in the morning to weigh herself and last thing at night when she is exercising on it.  Once in a while I join her but not too often.

Last fall I turned 62.  At the time, according to the Wii, I weighed about 235 lb (106kg).  Too much.  The Wii takes great delight in proclaiming "That's obese!"  Makes you want to kick the thing.  However, in that weird thing called my brain, I figured out that I was about 35 lb (15+kg) heavier than I would like and in 36 months I would be 65 years of age.  Hmmmm, how about a gradual diet so that on my 65th birthday I would weigh 200 lb (90kg)?  So that's my plan.  Let's see if I'm still blogging by then!

Actually I'm about a third of the way to my goal already.  Just getting out and walking every day helps.  The mantra "portion control" is also helping.  I hardly ever finish a restaurant meal these days.  Either I leave it or get a doggie bag for later.  The other day we each had three leftover portions in the fridge.  Think we eat out enough?  Yeah, but we are doing it to try and keep the economy going.  Yeah, right!

A couple of interlopers I found in the back yard about 04:30 the other morning.  They were cleaning up under the bird feeder so I guess I should thank them.  They hopped off down the bunny trail before sunrise.

Have a good one!