Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for November 24, 2010

Mom may feel a need to pull her hair out before this is over…

… if you’re excited over butter pats, you are thanks giving…

Alice! Straighten up, and fly right! And save some soft serve ice cream and an apple fritter for me!

Alice! Stop pinching your toe with the bread pinching thing! Other people will want to use it to pinch their bread, and they don’t want or need any nastiness from your toe! Petey, get an appetite and get some food! This is going to be a Thanksgiving feast, so get festive, dang it!

Mom is gonna have to make up a plate for Petey too …

This is why they don’t go out to eat very often! LOL

What kind of gravy goes with arm?

Edcole1961, Arrrggh! You’re always a step ahead of me! It’s like, I think it, and you’ve already written it.

Sigh.

And it appears Alice has decided to try the toes with her gravy. Yum.

What is a bread-pinching thing?

“What is a bread-pinching thing?”

Tongs, dude. Tongs.

It was likely Mom’s idea to go out for Thanksgiving dinner. By the end of the day, she’s probably regret not doing it herself.

Forget about the sweet stuff….just keep piling on the turkey, corn & taters….and don’t forget the gravy.

Aw! Alice is adorably hilarious.

If Alice is wearing flip flops, she’s now gotta thong tong.

Poor Petey, all those foods not to choose. What a problem LOL

Assuming the gravy isn’t very strongly seasoned, Petey shouldn’t have too much trouble with Thanksgiving. Dry turkey breast (skin removed, no stuffing), mashed potatoes (NOT sweet potatoes, thankyouverymuch), dinner rolls… Everything’s off-white and not overly stimulating, yet it’s substantial. That’s how I did it when I was his age…

At Petey’s age I loved everything about the Turkey, Fritzoid, including the dark meat & stuffing and skin. But then I was not a picky eater then - at least not when it came to turkey.

I was a VERY picky eater as a kid (I still am, but I’m “adult picky” rather than “kid picky”, which is a different class). Many were the Thanksgiving dinners where I basically subsisted on mashed potatoes and dinner rolls. What little turkey I WOULD eat was the dark meat, since the white meat was too dry. Then again, neither my mother nor my grandmother could really cook a turkey well. It wasn’t until I had a female roommate as an adult that I ever had REALLY GOOD turkey, where the breast meat didn’t have to be slathered in gravy to make it palatable. Alas, my sister’s turkey-cooking skills are more in line with “family tradition.” If it weren’t for the “gathering of the tribe” aspect of the holiday, I’d frankly rather stay home and order a pizza…

Gravy’s a pretty bold choice for a picky eater. You never know what all spices might get tossed into a gravy…

Grog, I don’t think Mom will have any regrets. Can you imagine cooking all the food and THEN having to deal with Petey and Alice??

I’ve worked that shift, and I got holiday pay. Never felt sorry for myself…

Alice demonstrates why kids and buffets don’t mix.

“We need fresh tongs, STAT!”

Fritzoid, where I used to work people would argue about who GETS to work Thanksgiving; everyone wanted the time-and-a-half pay.

Family fun at the Foodpile!

Fritzoid - I’m a picky eater too. Sounds like we ate pretty much the same things, although since Mom put marshmallows on the sweet potatoes (no nuts) I’d eat a little of those. I wouldn’t eat gravy until I was an adult.

Fritzoid - brine the turkey. Takes care of the dry turkey breast. Oh yeah, don’t over cook either.

use kosher salt, and yes it really helps

I was never a picky eater where a roast turkey dinner was concerned, even as a child. White meat, mashed potatoes, dressing and gravy - yum, as they say. Turkey soup to follow.

Sill have one every Thanksgiving, another one Christmas, and BBQ one or two in the summer. (I take a break New Year’s and have a ham instead…)

I am so glad (seeing this) that my 4 kids were taught proper table manners. I did not allow any running around a restaurant or unusual use of condiments. They are now all fairly sucessful adults. I had family here last year but not this (good as I’ve had a busy season). I tried a cranberry sorbet recipe (with agave and acai)- not great! Way too sweet for my taste and the whole berrys did not work in the icecream machine;-(

Alice probably will want what Petey doesn’t eat.