MatthewB

Sounds like 'twas a wonderful day for a whole lotta wonderful people.

Seth, I haven't seen your Thanksgiving menu. FWIW, Guajolote gave me some tips on roasting a whole turkey for the first time. It turned out great & it was super easy. 14 pd bird pulled at 161 degrees F after 2.5 hours in the oven. G tipped me off on Alton Brown's "Good Eats Roast Turkey." In yesterday's SF Chronicle Food section, I found Alice Waters' "Best Way Brined Turkey." I cooked via Brown & prepped (& used ingredients) from Waters. I think this will be hard to improve on. Thanks, G! (And I washed all the dishes rather than listen to--let alone engage in-the much too long conversation that revolved around religion & politics. )

No galantine as certain guests might freak out. Roasted it will be.

I'm in the absolute same boat, and I'm cooking for 20, including dessert!!! I'm taking tomorrow off, so tonight and/or tomorrow morning will be spent sifting through the November cooking mags, Epicurious, cookbooks, etc. I've only 10 to cook for.

And just to prove that I am truly a slacker . . . I've no idea yet as to what I'm serving on Thursday other than the galantine.

Yes, you are the only person who does this.

Okie doke . . . I've a 14 pound turkey (again, thanks Alex!) in the fridge. Alex had it in the freezer. My hunch is that it will *not* be thawed in time for deboning on Thursday. Here's my theory . . . Tomorrow night, put turkey in a cooler and surround it with water that's between 30 to 34 degrees F. Am I hankering for bacteria?

I'm going to do the turkey galantine for Thanksgiving. Should be interesting to debone a 14 pound turkey. (And thanks to Alex for sharing one of his extra turkeys. ) Now I need to come up with the rest of the menu.

What Carolyn said.

Georges Duboeuf: A bit earthy on the nose. (I didn't pick up any particular fruit.) Cherry on the palette. (Perhaps a tad of strawberry.) Similar to the Drouhin, but the Drouhin is definitely more enjoyable. Body is about equal between these two.

Joseph Drouhin: Blueberry on the nose. Cherry & a touch of strawberry on the palette. I'll comment on the overall quality after I've tried at least one other producer.

i'm good for tomorrow night. or maybe i'll cheat and have some tonite. i've started a thread here to post notes and thoughts. k? Got it. Don't expect much for my WTNs. Might not be more than, "Young, light, fruity. I'm going to drink more & see how many glasses it takes for me to get a decent buzz."

matthew and i plan on tasting these wines and posting our thoughts on a new thread. we'd do it together, but we live 1000 miles apart. so we'll do it virtually. if anyone else is interested, PM either one of us. and for those of you who said this year will be decent, i sure hope you're right. on second thought, no need to PM. you could just post that you're interested here i suppose. we'll hopefully be drinking these by this weekend. yes matt? All good to go here. I'll be starting in on the Drouhin in about an hour. Other drinkers please post here, too, as tommy noted.

Bake bread.

You've had cognac and/or Grand Marnier "go bad"?

Best of luck with the house stuff, Heather. Can we have a big party at your house just before the closing? I'll be out of town this weekend so no cooking. I'm falling way too far behind.

That's true. Bittman himself said that somewhere--perhaps in his Q&A here?

Here's the low-down on what I'll be picking up tomorrow in order to take one for the team . . . Per my wine guy:

I'll second Seth on Bittman & cooking times. I haven't found much of a problem with cooking times with Bittman. (Of course, we've discussed one of his duck recipes & I believe he addressed this in his eGullet Q&A.) Of course, all recipe cooking times are *suggestions* due to relative conditions. Another book to consider is the recently released Cooking at Home with the Culinary Institute of America. I haven't cooked from it yet. However, paging through it, I am quite impressed by the techniques & tips--both in content & layout. Of course, I'm waiting for SuzanneF to weigh in on this volume.

The last couple of years, I've given two cookbooks in this situation . . . Bittman's HTCE Sally Schneider's A New Way to Cook

Home roasting is easy, there's no reason to wait. Besides, the unroasted beans are significantly cheaper. Yet another activity that eGullet will have sucked me into.

What's a good price/quality ratio? I'm asking as my SO isn't too happy that my new Bodum Santos 3000 uses 1.5 times as much coffee as the previous electric drip machine. (And I'm not quite ready to start roasting my own beans.)

Here's the full (current) series.

Is fun allowed at wine tastings? Have you ever been Paris Hilton's date at a wine tasting?

Akvavit/Aquavit is a gap in my liquor experience.