The dump is closed, all the wrong people are in cuffs, and there ain’t enough SNAP in the EBT for turkey but there’s a big ol’ ham living large in the White House.
Oh, well. We can still sing. Sing loud. You know the words.
The dump is closed, all the wrong people are in cuffs, and there ain’t enough SNAP in the EBT for turkey but there’s a big ol’ ham living large in the White House.
Oh, well. We can still sing. Sing loud. You know the words.
Mad Blog Media 
Nice to wake up to a nice post like this! Happy Thanksgiving, all!
I whipped up a big ol’ pot of green chile stew last night, so I am a gentleman of leisure today. That dish is nearly always better the next day.
Herself is contemplating a pan of cornbread, p’raps a raspberry cobbler.
The temps are likely to warm up enough for a bike ride around midday. If not, we might go for a short trail run.
What’s on at your place? How’s the recovery coming?
Slow and steady. I did a half hour fast hike in the hills with the dog on Tuesday and then hopped on the bike for half an hour. Yesterday I suffered….the left leg still objects.
We have the “tofu turkey” marinating in soy sauce, ginger, and spices and will bake it with stuffing later. Home made cranberry sauce, spuds, a gravy I make out of chickpea flour, and I think brussels sprouts. Topped off with Chocolate Maven pumpkin pie. And a red wine TBD.
And sometime today I have to plant next year’s crop of garlic in one of the raised beds.
Healing requires patience, which I always find in short supply. I tried hard to cultivate it when I buggered that ankle just as the Plague set in. Medical attention was directed elsewhere, and I didn’t want to catch anything worse than I already had.
The docs always say that “patients should be called impatience”. Happy, safe, healthy Thanksgiving to all!
Glad to hear you’re healing Khal. Thanksgiving ain’t the same without mashed rutabagas, some call them Swedes, heh you hosers? Even though he’s not a yooper, I bet Herb has rutabagas planned.
I ain’t never used no rootybegger in no green chile stew.
Pork, potatoes, onions, green chiles and rutabaga. A great combo with the nutty slightly sweet rutabaga giving it a Scandinavian twist! If you took out the green chile, you would have Mojakka, my Finnish Grandfather’s favorite. Be bold!
A Finnish grandpa? Can you speak any of the lingo? I’ve heard Finnish is a real bitch to learn.
There’s an extended bit about rutabaga soup in William Ryan’s “Dr. Excitement’s Elixir of Longevity.” Onions, parsley, chives, carrots, ground coriander and cardamom seeds, rutabagas, salt, and brown rice.
Although She Who Must Be Obeyed is part Finn, we leave the rutabagas where they belong, on the north side of the bridge in pasties. But we should grow some since I’m told the reason they can be bitter is because they aren’t fresh or dug too early. I use a lot of pureed squash in stews and soups as broth thickener and wonder if the bega’s would add a bit of zing.
I never learned any of the Finnish language and never heard my Mom use it. My Grandpa Eli Narva had a stroke and could not speak during the time I knew him. So, no Finnish for me unfortunately, but I remember Mom making mojakka, but didn’t know until today how it was spelled. Rutabagas were always in the house while in season. I can never remember to this day any that tasted bitter. That includes the mashed rutabagas I had today. So, Herb, I would say plant some, eat them, and come to the light side of the force.
My Ph.D. advisor, the late Gilbert N. Hanson, was a Finn who was born and raised in Minnesota. But I never heard anything about rutabagas. I did enjoy the sauna in Gil’s mom’s home during my field work. She lived up in Annandale, north of Twin Cities and a little south of my field area around St. Cloud and Isle, MN. Getting nekkid with your advisor over hot rocks and steam is probably one of those things most doctoral candidates don’t get to do, I suppose. And nowadays, it would probably be considered some sort of academic impropriety.
Gil, or “GNH” as we called him, was an awesome advisor.
Here’s all you didn’t want to know, or not, about rutabagas. And, if you are sensitive to bitter tastes, they can taste bitter no matter how they are prepared. Sweden and Finland use them in many of their favorite recipes, so that’s why my immigrant grandfather liked them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutabaga
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Happy 60th!
https://www.boston.com/news/environment/2025/11/26/60-years-arlo-guthrie-arrested-massachusetts-alices-restaurant-thanksgiving/
Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes with way too much brown sugar and butter, and a pile of iceberg lettuce with our choice of ranch dressing or Dorothy Lynch.
All for $7.25, including a soft drink or coffee, courtesy of the cafeteria at the Scottsbluff Regional West Horse Pistol.
Have to hand it to them, they put on a pretty good show. Feeding a whole bunch of people who really didn’t want to be there, but I think everybody put on their game face and made the best of their particular bad situation.
Our case, it meant the difficult decision to switch from life support to comfort care. Grandpa’s last harvest is in the books. He put more into the soil than he took out, and if we all could say that, the whole planet would be better off.
Didn’t realize it till I put together birthdays and anniversaries and what not, but I knew my wife’s dad for longer than I knew my own. *(I still haven’t worked out the lyrics, but my dad was married three times, and three times he failed to invite me to the wedding. There’s gotta be a country song in there somewhere.)*
Sometimes it takes losing something to make you appreciate what you still have. Can’t sign off without telling this particular collective of mad dogs that I’m grateful for y’all helping me keep my sanity during troubled times.
I’m sorry to hear Grandpa is moving on. Sounds like he earned a great epitaph, though: “Give more than you take.” The open hand rather than the clenched fist. May his passing be peaceful.