I enjoyed Thanksgiving. I think it is one of our best American holidays (if you leave out
the questionable land deal for Manhattan way back when). Here’s a travelog of my
weekend with the lovely wife down to Arkansas and back with an eye on the plate.
Obscene tubular food at Laguardia that I did not eat.
Fantastic tubular food at O’Hare Field that we did eat. The older bartender/waiter guy instructed us to “put a finger on top of the pickle to hold the thing together” or else he couldn’t be responsible for what happened.
Fast forward to Thanksgiving. There was discussion the night before about turkey cooking methods. ML’s sister Kathy had recently purchased a “Roaster”. We looked up cooking tips for the Roaster and it didn’t look like a very good gadget. Different cooking temps, wildly different cooking times. Warnings about loosing heat when opening the Roaster and so on. I lobbied for the Roasting Bag. I have cooked turkeys with several different methods including deep frying and the cheese cloth aided basting method but the roasting bag wins for me every time. After reading Roaster horror stories aloud from my iPhone it was decided that the Roasting bag would be employed. It really is a fantastic gadget. You’ll find it in the spice section.
Here’s the bird after it came out of the bag. I tented the bird w tin foil for 30 minutes before carving.
Another great thing about the roasting bag besides the self basting is the ease of which the gravy fixins can
be accessed. Snip the bag and there you go. Ready for gravy.
ML’s Mom making the gravy.
A portion of carved bird.
the spread which included inside stuffing, outside stuffing, sweet potatoes, squash, gravy, cranberries, mashed potatoes and…
Deviled eggs on this fantastic Deviled Eggs Presentation Plate.
Here’s my plate sans already eaten Deviled Eggs. (I’m way out of control with the Deviled Eggs. I believe it has been detailed before someplace)
I’m including this desert pic (with some seasonal Beaujolais Nouveau in the background) . The desert was good but it was not the focus.
I had decided with that first hot dog at ORD that all bets were off diet-wise so along with more College Football than I’ve ever watched before in one long weekend came more homestyle cookin. On Friday we went to a restaurant called Debra’s Good Eats. My party mostly opted for breakfast fare but I went with the Chicken Fried Steak throwing out the must be a Yankee “not from around here” caveat by requesting the gravy on the side.
I did however go with green beans and mashed potatoes.
Saturday had the most College football games of all and we had a dinner before watching the local finale of Arkansas VS LSU.
ML’s mom made her Meatloaf. She likes to do it the way she likes to do it so that means 2 smaller loaves of meat as opposed to a larger one. I believe my friend Chip Robinson would refer to these as “twins”.
The aforementioned twins.
Earlier Saturday we had snuck out for a little BBQ. There is quite a bit of good BBQ in Hot Springs. Stubby’s is probably #1 in town. McClard’s is former Hot Springs resident and 42nd President of the United States Bill Clinton’s favorite but I really love Roland’s BBQ. Roland’s used to be in a little shack next to a “Tin Cup” style driving range out on highway 7 just before Hot Springs Village. I went there one afternoon years ago to kill some time and hit through a bucket of balls. Ended up trading some guitar tips for golf tips with the Pro and enjoying some of Roland’s great BBQ. Roland’s whole family was there on Saturday afternoon when we stopped by. I think they were all heading back to Texas after Thanksgiving. This is one of those points where I was going ‘wow’ too much to get a good pic but here’s my chopped pork sandwich.
The highlight of the College Football action Saturday night was the Hogs. The Arkansas Razorbacks played the nationally rated LSU Tigers. It was a great game, went into overtime but even though Arkansas native Ryan Mallet looked pretty calm at the end kicker Alex Tejada missed that last boot and LSU won the game.
Sunday had us headed back to NYC. After the fabulous hot dog on the way out we were fixated on getting another one on our way back through ORD. We were in a different terminal (TERNIMAL B to Andy York) and there really was no hot dog to be found. There was a Vienna Beef cart but the poor woman was totally overwhelmed so after walking the length of the United Concourse we ended up at an Italian joint for this fine sandwich with grape juice.
I’m thankful for Thanksgiving.
