Playing With Dishes On Thanksgiving Day

Do you fall asleep after your Thanksgiving dinner? I think the tryptophan affects only the old people. Teenagers don't seem to be fazed by it. They just keep on going and going.


I celebrated my first Thanksgiving in the USA in 1982. I worked because everyone else, the Americans and Filipino nurses with families wanted to be off. So the hospital was staffed by unmarried Filipino nurses. It was that way with me for many years even after I got married because the Viking and I were childless for many years.

In the trauma and emergency rooms, Thanksgiving Day was busy. We seemed to have a deluge of nursing home patients. Those were the patients whose family did not take them home or spent time with them on Thanksgiving day and because the nursing home staffing was bare minimum, they sent the patients to the ERs and hospitals for pneumonia-like symptoms.

The worst holidays were Christmas Eve and New Year's Day. The trauma room reeked with blood and alcohol. There I would come in at 6:45AM and I was usually the charge nurse and was assigned in the trauma area. I could smell the nauseating combination of alcohol and blood as I walked in. There was once a time when I could not stand it anymore but could not leave so I vomited right in the room while we were resuscitating the patient. I remember a scene where we wore trauma gowns and caps and booties. The floor was covered with blood. It was surreal, like a war zone.

The victims were always a family getting into town and if the drunk driver did not die on the scene, he or she was also taken to our hospital and treated in the next trauma room.

Disgusting. Sad. Tragic. I wrapped many bodies on Christmas and New Year's Day.

My favorite routine for the holidays is setting the table and servers. I go through indecision, this place setting or that place setting. I always take out the Spode Blue Room dishes and always end up with the Fiesta dishes!

I love stress-free cooking. Look at that! I told the kids to bring the detergent and laundry softener from the garage and someone just dropped them on the floor, four feet away from the laundry closet.

We have a 22-pound turkey for the four of us. That was the smallest frozen turkey I could find. The rest were smoked or fresh. I buy fresh turkey often. Actually, this is probably the sixth time this year I have roasted turkey complete with trimmings, this year. Sometimes I just buy the breast. I like to labor in the kitchen and cook something without paying attention to it. I draw in the kitchen while the turkey is roasting.

I woke up at 5:30 AM today. The turkey will roast for 6 hours.

I roast the turkey in a bag and place it in a Calphalon roasting pan. That is one of the best cooking investment I made. My husband thought I was going overboard when I bought it in 1986. I hate those aluminum foil pans. I think a woman who loves to cook should have the proper pots and pans. And knives. I love knives. I have almost every kind - chef, poultry, fillet, tomato, meat cleavers, Chinese cleaver, santuko, butcher, ham slicer, cheese, mezzaluna, peeler, puntilla, boning, etc… I need a kitchen axe! Hmn...Christmas present to myself. My knives are sharp with surgical precision and I cut myself every time I prepare a large meal. I cut myself, again, this morning and the same finger - the left middle finger!

My favorite Thanksgiving dish is the cranberry sauce! I could just eat cranberry sauce. I like hot cranberry sauce.

I like my homemade cornbread dressing. I bake the cornbread the day before the meal and prepared the dressing the night before.

I wish my sisters and brothers were here. I would love to cook for them.

I love peeling potatoes. I have a peeler that is at least more than 28 years old. It is an Ecko stainless steel peeler with floating blade. It cost $2.00 when I bought it in 1982. It is made in the USA. My friends keep giving me fancy peelers which I end up giving away. I especially hate gadgets made in China. Alas everything seems to be made in China these days and I do have some gadgets made in China. But my china is not made in China. They are made in the USA, England, or Norway. My wooden gadgets and containers are made in the Philippines. I despise anything made in China. I think they are junk but the American companies that use to make them no longer exist. I don't think the open and balance trade agreement is anything but balanced for the US. Our government is blinded by human rights and environmental policies during negotiations while China sucks our business. Our government is killing American business with over-regulations.

Aren't these cake so pretty! I serve them on Bauer cake stands, which I just love.

But I still have many reasons to be thankful. I am a hardworking American. I am thankful I have a good job. Most importantly, my family and I have one another and I am blessed with good friends. I am thankful for my sisterfriends. I thank my blog friends and visitors who visit and drop me a kind line or two. I am thankful for my husband. He gives me peace of mind. I am thankful for my children. I am thankful for my best friend. I am thankful for my freedom and I thank the brave soldiers who make it possible.

By the time I post this, I would have rearranged the table because someone manages to invite their friends over...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!