I’ve enjoyed having Steph back and we’ve gotten to do some nice things together. We went to the Mayfield holiday party, she made me some tasty tasty ramen, and we tried a restaurant from some of the recommendations she tracks, Pausa.
Thanksgiving morning I got up and got the turkey in the oven. I decided to go with Chef John’s recipe from Food Wishes; he’s never steered us wrong before. I had defrosted the turkey over the past 4 days, and made the herb butter. I got to use lots of the herbs in our yard for this including: thyme, rosemary, and sage. I also started up some of the potato and leek soup, another Food Wishes recipe. The turkey got 2 hours in the oven before we left for the Lee’s house.
I helped Mr. Lee with the TV, cleaning up the wires in the back and making sure everything was working properly. We got everything set up before heading to dinner. Jeff and Patty brought their baby, who was surprisingly well behaved. We had a nice dinner, and as it happens, the conversation tended to center on the baby. Stephanie’s cornbread went over really well. We managed to make it out of the house without piles of leftovers, which was nice, as we had a ton of food for the next get together already.
We got back and put the turkey back in the oven for another two hours. The drippings were more voluminous than I had expected and the bottom of the oven got a decent coating of turkey fat. We got everything cleaned up and set up, and got a little bit to relax before people showed up. We were joined by Lindsay, Kevin, Debby, Andrew, and Adam. Adam brought over some really tasty drink mixes. I want to make more of the ginger pepper mix in the future. It might be worth while to drop some ginger and pepper in a cider and see what happens.
The timing couldn’t have been better, as Andrew and Debby showed up as the turkey was ready to come out of the oven. It turned out much better than expected, and I would say it was one of the best turkeys I’ve had. I got the 16 lb turkey, and we ate about 2/3 of it. After dinner Lindsay had a great exercise in showing appreciation for each other, which didn’t go exactly as she expected, I think. It was still great to hear the appreciation that was shared. We played a special round of Scatagories that Lindsay planned as well, and it was a lot harder than I would have thought.
The guys and gals split after that; guys drafting mtg, and gals doing a kitty puzzle. We ended at about the same time and had another round of drinks and some pie. The pie was from Alexanders, and Debby was nice enough to bring them for us. We started playing some jackbox games after pie. We went through 5 different games, and it was a lot of fun. I didn’t win any of the games, but it was still great fun. We played another round of mtg with the cards we had drafted and it turned out almost exactly like the previous round. I was dealing a ton of damage, but I got focused down by everyone else.
It was a great evening, and I appreciated the great people I got to spend the day with.
Debby organized a Pokemon themed pot luck at George’s place. It was a lot of fun and after eating we played some Jackbox Games.
Debby made a Pikachu cake
Andrew made a Psyduck fried rice
Lindsay made Dugtrio hot dogs (with guidance from Kevin)
I made a beet Koffing
and a veggie Scyther
and white chocolate Poke Balls
Steph made Exeggcutes deviled eggs
I did an 80 hour fast this week from 11pm on Monday to 9am on Friday. It wasn’t as hard as I was expecting, but it was uncomfortable in ways I didn’t. I should have expected not being able to think as clearly, but it was more pronounced than I would have thought. I also started getting light headed at times. I started feeling sick in other ways and decided to stop.
During the fast I had black coffee, mint tea, diet coke, and lots of water. I also took multivitamins and ate random pinches of salt. I chose a time that wouldn’t mess with social engagements too much, although the time period did include a wedding celebration. That wedding celebration was low key enough that I could avoid food with only one person wondering why. In total I only had to mention it to 2 people, the one at the wedding and one that invited me to dinner. I also told Steph. I’d do it again, but maybe with more prep.
I broke my fast with my standard two scoops of chocolate protein powder mixed with half a scoop of instant coffee breakfast. My stomach was ok with that, so I’ll try a bit more at lunch and maybe have pho for dinner.
We had Shabu Shabu with Kevin, Lindsay, Debby, and Andrew. We were late because I chose poorly on my way to get there, and there was a ton of traffic. The food was pretty good. Steph and I did some trades for the things we liked more, and the others got the giant plates of meat. To be fair Andrew got the giant plate, and the others got the big plates of meat. They were going to se ‘It’ afterwards, but Stephanie and I decided we would rather go home and watch The Defenders. Debby got some red noses for them to wear to the movie, but Kevin declined from what I hear.
I signed up for a food delivery service, that sends fruits and veggies on a weekly basis. The first delivery came in on Wednesday.
I am so far happy with the first box. I’ve cooked most of it already, and had people over for dinner to share in the bounty. I cooked roasted peppers (from the garden, not delivery), guacamole, turmeric chicken, potato leak soup, steamed beets, and sliced up veggies for chips.
It all turned out well and I really enjoyed hanging out with everyone who came. I am especially glad that Steph gets to see these people before she ships out to China again.
Monday I had Nima, Caryn, Ryan, and Liana over for dinner and smores. They came over and we had some shakshuka that I had made with the peppers from our garden. It was very tasty and just the right amount. We then played a game Nima had brought that involved knocking over wooden blocks with short, thick wooden dowels. Ryan and I won all three games, but the second game was very close. We then sat around the fire and had a few smores, and chatted about life. Once it got a little too cool, we went inside and they tried out the VR game. It went over well, and I figured out a few ways that I can upgrade it. Stephanie wasn’t able to join, as she had to work late and see Riley.
We had a great dinner last night at Sorrel, a pop up restaurant in SF. Stephanie organized it and I really enjoyed the dinner. The food was really good, not as good or interesting as Coi, but still really good.
Since I took it a little easy over the past two days I had enough time to make soup dumplings. Since soup dumplings are almost always filled with pork, I decided to make some that Steph could have as well. I made it all from scratch, which was a pretty good experience. All in all there were 5 filling types: Pork, Mushroom, Potato, Mushroom + Potato, and Pork + Potato. They were all delicious, but the ones with potato didn’t end up having any soup, since the potato just absorbed it all. The dumplings were a ton of work, and we plan to have others over this weekend to make more. We’ve got a lot of filling left, but no more wrappers.
The one pictured is the most photogenic of the dumplings we made, some weren’t so pretty. We also got better at it as we went along.
It's an Exciting World 