3 Birds...and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

We did 3 birds this year. Why 3? Because we partied...a lot. Here's the Turkey-Day rundown.

Bird #1

This was for the Gray's Thanksgiving feast. It was a moist and tasty bird. I not only rubbed the entire thing with complementary herbs...I injected it with a delicious mix of herbs, chicken broth, and butter. Pardon the hair and fugly outfit. I clean up nicely, I swear!

I contributed a few dishes. I made my delicious GF cornbread stuffing for the masses. This recipe is great, even if you don't do gluten-free.



I also did Brooke's famous creamed corn. Let's be honest--this thing is a hot bowl of cream cheese and butter with a side of corn. It's SO good!

I also did my GF chocolate cream pie. It's so tasty. I only made one--on purpose.

As I baked, I downed this stuff. Organic Strauss Family Creamery Egg Nog. It's $7 a bottle, and I can only find one bottle per year. It's totally worth the pricetag, and double chin. It's soooo good.


Lancer cheered me on while I baked and cooked away. He was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of ads for Black Friday. He couldn't stop talking about how many ads there were.

Beezie, on the other hand, had no problem researching the best deals as she ate waffles atop the stack of papers.


We packed up our trunk with all of the tasty delights, and headed over to Casa de Gray. I told you I cleaned up nicely! Mamma just needs a flatiron.

I wore my tiny pumpkin pie charm to celebrate the day. It's so cute!


Smooches to Lancer. Thanksgiving marks ten years together. Unbelievable! Thanksgiving 2001, baby. It was epic.

We played

We carved the birds--and made stupid faces. I think Yo's face is European for "This Diet Coke is delicious. Mmmm."

Giggled with friends


We feasted

We learned "new" and "helpful" tricks from Sarah--no doubt pointers on staying up late, escaping your bedroom, stripping down to your undies, and waking up sleeping household members. B soaked it up like a sponge.

"Beezie, clothing is for losers. Naked is where it's at."

Bird #2

I spent so much time whipping, shopping, blending, roasting, and then cleaning up for hours on end that I just couldn't do a "real" bird for the subsequent gatherings. Enter Jenny-O Freezer to Oven turkeys. These babies are a Godsend! No thawing, giblets bags, turkey necks, or poultry thermometers. Just stick the frozen bird in the oven, and retrieve it four painless hours later.

Not bad, eh?

Let's just pretend that it doesn't cook in this weird heat-resistant plastic bag. Look away.

The Andersens invited us over for a Post-Thanksgiving Veg-Out. Lancer kept calling it the "Gobble-Gobble" for some reason. I think this should be the new name for this lovely event.

The ladies of the Gobble-Gobble

The invite specifically stated that no showering was allowed, and that partygoers had to be wearing comfy sweats. We pooled together all of our leftovers, and feasted again. I wore clothing that was both sporty, and expandable.

See-sporty and expandable

Somewhere along the line, we all decided Lancer was the Master Carver. We made him carve all of the birds. He is a good man.

The tasty spread at the Gobble-Gobble

We played, chatted, and feasted like kings. Again.

Black Friday was less exciting than years past. I was planning on hitting stores at Midnight--yes, I'm one of those--but my cold was starting to kick back up again. I learned my lesson from the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn. No good comes after 12 if you're trying to beat a cold. So I stayed home and slept in. I did, however, snag a new Dell laptop online. My craptastic HP died a few weeks ago, and Lancer and I were sharing a laptop--until it broke up with me on account of dirty fingers and misfiled photos. It's for the good of our marriage. I also got a new Nikon camera. It will be my daily use camera that I can keep in my back pocket.

On Saturday, we took a break from turkey and headed up to SF. We stopped in at The Ferry Building--it's one of our favorite stops.

We dined at Gott's Roadside

Lancer and I both got the smoked pork carnitas tacos, sweet potato fries, and a grilled cheese sammi for Beezer. Thumbs up all around--though they changed the formula for the fries, and the old one was decidedly better.


I decided against my normal chocolate milkshake, because I knew the Ferry Building would hold other sweet treats. I was right. Behold...The Cowgirl Creamery Milk Bar.

We had a Goldilocks moment. My Ho-Cho was too bitter, and Lance's vanilla milk was too sweet. We grabbed a 3rd glass, mixed them, and the result was just right.


After we got our drink on, we headed outside to see the Bay Bridge. We decided that it's a majestic beauty, but it's sadly the ugly stepsister to the Golden Gate. No one gives it the respect it deserves.


The plan was to hit HMB on the way home to grab a tree. However, the weather turned, and we decided to just go to the crap tree farm around the corner.

But somebody wasn't having it. Two seconds before MELTDOWN.

So I dropped off those two, and went to an even worse place to get a tree...the Rite-Aid parking lot. It's a serious step down from our romantic adventures in HMB. But sometime you gotta do what you gotta do to just git er done.

I used my guns to load and unload the tree by myself. I drove so slowly people honked and went around me. I was paranoid that it was going to fly off my car and kill a small child on a bike. It didn't.

Our little tree. Before....

.....and after!

and After-After. We had to put up the protective dog gate after B tried to eat an ornament. She was also eying Mrs. Claus.


But, wait! What about bird #3?? Yes, I did a third and final bird tonight. We had the Andersens over for a Round Three. I cooked up another birdy-bird, and we feasted. Again.

Lancer was actually angry by this point. He wanted to retire his fancy Calphalon carving set, but we put him to work.

This is how I eat my Thanksgiving dinner--by creating mini turkey sammis. Start with GF bread, then add the potatoes, stuffing, turkey, cranberry sauce, and dip that baby in gravy. So tasty!


And that concludes the roasting and eating of the three birds. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night.

Mash-Up 2.0

A truly amazing mash-up featuring songs by the lovely and talented Adele. This song will be fueling my cooking this evening. Enjoy!

Mash-Up

I have several bits of news, along with my numerous thoughts on life and celebrities. Plus, a few new things I love.

It's been a rough week in the sick department here at Team Jacobs. Lance and I both came down with gnarly colds two weekends ago. Lancer had to fly to PDX last Monday night, and that resulted in a burst eardrum. No more flying. He had to take a train home.


"Trains" to us mean delightful Euro trains. Amtrack ain't European. In fact, according to Lance, it's barely a step up from Greyhound. Lesson learned--do not fly when you are sick. Unless you get "super sick" on a flight to NYC, happen to have your lovely wife with you, and have to remain grounded in Manhattan for a week while your ears recover. That sounds terrible.

Lancer--in better times. Germany to be exact. Oh, how I miss Europe!

We are no longer candidates for carbon monoxide poisoning. And by that I mean we got a brand spanking new furnace....against our will.

We tried to kick the heat on a few weeks ago, and it wouldn't turn on. A guy came out to fix it, and mentioned that the heat exchange was cracked. How hard can that be to repair?? Impossible, it tuns out, when the company went out of business 30 years ago. Yes, 30. Because our furnace was 45 years old. On the positive side of things, it lasted 3 times longer than expected. Bonus--I guess.

Since we were doing the heat, we decided to get a quote for air conditioning. I have no idea where my varied readers live, but air conditioning is a hot (pardon the pun) commodity in the Bay Area. It's a luxury that most people don't have. We've been in our little abode for 7 years now, and every summer we sweat and suffer through a few heatwaves. Well, folks, the suffering has come to an end. We decided to toss in a new A/C unit. Hallelujah.

Party at my place all summer long! Now if I could only talk Lance into a small therapy pool for my year round water aerobics. The Endless Pool Waterwell would suffice. I've done my research.

My dream come true

Any of my readers looking to build me one of these? I can trade you cool nights on my couch in return for your labor.

My new favorite show is Homeland. It features an American hero who may be anything but. It stars the lovely Claire Danes as a savvy but half crazy agent, who's a bit of a loose cannon. She cries a lot.

Everytime the waterworks turn on, I pretend that she's bawling over the hot but half-witted and illiterate Jordan Catalano.

You don't have to read when you're this hot!

Speaking of delicious. How tasty is Starbucks' salted caramel mocha??

You should ask me, because they have accidentally given me coffee 6 TIMES NOW WHEN I HAVE ORDERED A SALTED CARAMEL HOT CHOCOLATE. Get it together, Starbucks! Don't make me threaten to boycott you. Such a claim would be fruitless, and only punish me in the end. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me six times, shame on me. Like, six embarrassing times over.

Have you all discovered the goodness of gummi vitamins??

Where have they been my whole life?? I love these things. They have Daily Multi-Vitamins, Vitamin C, Calcium, Pre-Natals (not an announcement) and even fiber! I gobble these babies up, and pretend that I'm suffering for my health. Don't be fooled. They're delicious! Well, the calcium ones have kind of a creepy sugar coating, and the grape ones taste like crap, but they're still better than drinking milk all day. Unless it's hidden in a Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate, of course.

Safeway Home Delivery

Does anyone do this?? Why aren't we all doing this?? You get the same low prices, and they drop it off at your door. It's only $6 extra for a one hour window, $4 extra for a 2 hours window, and $3 for a 3 hour window. This is my new plan for grocery shopping. Of course, I'll still have to haul my tuckus to Trader Joe's, Costco, and Whole Foods every week. But if I can knock out the main grocery shopping where the delivery fee is the same price as one totally incorrect Starbucks drink, why not.

Moving on to celebrities.

Christina Auguleria. Look--I had a kid, and the weight is hard to keep off. I feel you. However--I would suggest not parading around in weird bandage dresses and sparkly leotards. It's not a good look.

Jlo. You have the worst taste in men. The worst! This guy is a 24 year old backup dancer.

How did that turn out for you the first time?? Oh, right. Paging Chris Judd.

Not to mention that you are a forty something mother, thrice divorced. Maybe you should date someone your own age. And someone who doesn't look like Steve-O from Jackass. Or, better yet, don't date at all.

Kim. Oh, Kim.

I'm going to give you a break because I feel like I hastily broke up with The YMCA without thinking through the repercussions. Whoopsies. Jazzercise was awesome, but the childcare is really meant for school aged kids doing homework, not for nutty babies. It sucks because I love it. The teacher even sent me a postcard telling me I was a great dancer. Doi! Sadly, I may be crawling back to the Y. But you better bet your biddy I'll be demanding my $50 referral for Target either way! Just kidding about the break, Kim. You're a stupid skankwad.

Demi and Ashton. Sigh.He's a skeez. She turned a blind eye. The only real question I have is who told her that this wedding "dress" looked good? It was doomed from the start. Neckerchiefs never lead to anything good. Trust me on this one. I speak from experience in the 90's.

I better stop blogging, and start cooking. Turkey Day is only 2 days away, and I'm going to eat until I look like Christina. Without the spangly leotard, of course. I know how to hide my fat.