Toliver

After Dad died, Mom became "Santa" and would fill the stockings on Christmas Eve after everyone went to bed (she buys little stocking stuffers/knick-knacks throughout the year and uses a drawer in an old dresser in the guest room to stow them in...on Christmas Eve the drawer gets emptied). One year we all realized that Santa never put anything in Mom's stocking. The next year, Mom woke up Christmas morning to find her stocking overflowing with little gifts from "Santa" and that tradition continues to this day. Many years ago Santa used to always put foil wrapped chocolates in our stockings. Once full, the stockings were too heavy to hang on the mantle so Santa placed them on the bricks in front of the fireplace. On Christmas morning, my oldest brother decided we should have a nice roaring fire in the fireplace. You can see where this is headed. The stockings were too close to the hearth and all the chocolate in the stockings melted and coated everything else inside. Lesson learned! Our big famliy dinner is on Christmas Eve. We traditionally have Prime Rib with horseradish sauce, baked potatoes as well as some sort of veggie. Mom also started the British "crackers" tradition and they're always fun, especially when we all put our crowns on. We don't open gifts until Christmas morning. Stockings are raided the minute you step into the house. We wait to open presents until after breakfast. Usually breakfast is some sort of egg casserole that my mom has put together the night before and has put in the fridge. She also started making "Monkey Bread" so we'd have something to nibble on while we opened gifts. You make it the night before, like the egg casserole, and in the morning it's risen and is ready to pop in the oven. Thanksgiving is a whole other post!

[bart Simpson] ¡Aye Carumba! [/bart Simpson] Man, that looks awesome. I have to keep reminding myself to not read your blog until after I've had something to eat. As good as it looks, I'm looking forward to your own cooking later on in this blog.

It'd be quite a different story if Rocco hadn't been the one wielding the machete that chopped his own career to bits.

Uhm, you'd have to like blue cheese in order to do that. And I don't.

Thanks to this discussion I sent away for some paprika in hopes of trying some of the recipes mentioned in it. So now I have three small cans of Spanish (as in, from Spain) paprika and I am wondering if they are "tainted" like the Hungarian paprika. Anyone have an informed or uninformed opinion on this?

Iceberg lettuce is a nostalgic/comfort food for me. It just screams "1950's", doesn't it? It brings to mind the lunches I'd have at Bob's Big Boy restaurants when working at my part-time job during college. They'd serve iceberg lettuce as a "salad" with their burgers. I'd always get it with Thousand Island dressing which was redundant given the "secret sauce" on the burgers was just about the same thing.

What about adding some sort of texture or crunch? Diced celery would be the norm but you could also substitute diced water chestnuts. I'd nix the paprika, though, given the recent warning: Click Here What about adding something like bacon and parmesan cheese? It'd be like Spaghetti Carbonara without the pasta.

Hold on, doesn't this let Varmint off the hook for 2006? and is he actually entitled to a year off for good behavior? ← A year off is the least we can do for him. Besides, the every-other-year occurence seems to be the pattern that is developing...which I am sure is fine with Dean.

Suddenly I am reminded of Northern Tourists sunbathing on a Southern beach after a long winter. T-shirts sold ahead of time should be sold for more money than you'd normally ask since they'd be a fund-raiser item. Hell, autograph them. Get Wade to sign them...whatever (as if the Pig Pickin' itself isn't justification enough already for the cost of a collecter's item t-shirt). BBQ'ers the land over would be proud to wear such Pig Pickin' finery just to be associated with such a famous event. Small children will inherit the t-shirts to wear to bed at night and will wake up smarter and more polite than when they lay their head down on the pillow the night before. Wearers of the Pig Pickin' t-shirt will be looked upon with envy as they walk through their communities with their heads held high. Feel free to use any of this in the sales brochures for the t-shirts! By the way, t-shirts sold at the event can be priced lower to deplete the remaining stock on hand and make room for the Pig Pickin' 2007 t-shirts!

You were correct with your earlier comment about "arts and crafts". The font in the signage is a not-for-free font called "Arts And Crafts JY" which, in turn, is based upon another font called "Arts And Crafts-GS". Looks like they are identical except for a special character or two. The second font costs less. It would be cool to have it on your own computer system so you could crank out your own business-related materials in the same font. Interesting that one of it's classification categories is "art nouveau" because it looks more "deco" than "nouveau", IMHO.

Perhaps Dean knows a nice chicken farmer. I am sure someone can brine and BBQ a couple of birds (or more) for those who don't partake o'da pig. Afterall there were, what...120 people at last year's events (including non-eGulleteers)? I hope Wade Cole (the raiser of the last year's pig) gets a nice throne or Barcolounger reserved for him and his loved ones. As for money, maybe you can sell commemorative t-shirts like those I saw in the pics posted from last year's pig-pickin'. They will become collector's items before long.

Stained glass is very Frank Lloyd Wright and that font is also very Frank Lloyd Wright. It doesn't look like a "normal" font, though, and might be a freebie font that's floating around the web. When I have the time I'll do some some perusing on different sites to see what I can find. I look forward to seeing the windows!

I know fifi has done the same thing and so has my family. We had put a rub on the turkey before deep frying it which ended up seasoning the hot oil. We ended up throwing just about everything into that oil to make on-the-spot hors d'ouevres.

Okay, I tried the Tamari almonds from Trader Joe's and was very disappointed. Where the Tamari Cashews totally rock with a light soy/soya flavor, the almonds almost tasted bland in comparison. Perhaps I got a "bad" batch...I don't know. I guess I'll give them one more try. But I've put the Tamari Cashews on my Christmas Wish List!

For the pizza: (Wolfgang) Puck's Pucks.

Okay, this picture just made my day and my week! She is adorable! I've got the biggest smile on my face now, thanks to her.

Great work on your plating and your photos! I am so hungry now for a radish sandwich and I've never eaten one before in my life. Wonderful blog!

Brooks recipe (if that's what you're talking about) is on page one of this discussion: Click here. If you're talking about the link to how to post images, it's there. You just have to wait for the post to "come in" after you click on it. edited for spelking

I did an eGullet search and there are 4 pages of discussions with "Thanksgiving" in their titles. Some may be of help to you. Click Here.

I have high blood pressure and even though I take prescription meds for it, it always runs just a tad high. But the last two times I've had my blood pressure checked, it's been exactly what it's supposed to be (120 over 80). The nurses even asked me if I had changed my medications which I hadn't. The only thing different I'd been doing was putting was putting a teaspoon of cinnamon on my morning toast after reading this discussion. I figured, I liked cinnamon anyways so what did I have to lose? Who knew?

Here it is, fifi

I agree completely. I had to train some personnel up in Oregon a couple years ago and was astounded to find they smoked everywhere. Eating out was a horrible experience because even in the "non-smoking" sections you could still smell it. They've since instituted smoking laws there. That being said, do you have a picture of the font/signage you will be using? I work with fonts daily and I'm interested in seeing what you have.

Rachel, When adding salt and pepper to your food, as you've found out, it's better to err on the side of too little. You can always add more if needed but if you add too much, it's difficult to take it away. With time and experience, your hands & eyes will find the right balance. As for the chicken, don't get discouraged. If it's a matter of a still-frozen bird, that's easy to rectify. If it's an oven problem and you can't get it re-calibrated the suggestions of an oven thermometer is a good one. If you're interested, here are some other great threads with ideas for roasting chicken: "Best Chicken Ever, Well, to me anyway" "Roasting a chicken, it's about time" "Roasting Chicken, The gospel according to e-gulleteers . . ." "Roasting a chicken, Help" "Your FAVORITE roast chicken recipe, Me: 40 cloves of garlic. What's yours?" And the ever popular "Brining" Thanks for doing this blog and letting it all hang out, so to speak! You're doing a great job.

Will you be putting anything up on the walls? They look kind of barren. A chalkboard with daily specials? Some funky coffee related artwork? Also, I didn't see any speakers. Will there be some sort of music playing the background as your customers lounge around? edited to add I love the furniture and the marble counter!

In the midst of their "Wake up with the King" advertising campaign comes another real winner: ChickenFight.com I saw the commercial for this over the weekend. In the commercial, giant-sized chickens wearing shorts and brandishing boxing gloves are wholloping the heck out of guys in a boxing ring. The gist of it is that these chickens are in training for the ultimate match against each other. Apparently, there's room for only one chicken (sandwich) at BK and they want people to go online to vote for the one that should stay. A surprising number of people apparently have a lot of free time on their hands judging by the number of votes posted for each chicken. There's not much to the website, just click to vote. Move the cursor over each chicken head to hear an announcer. And who would of thought I would ever in my lifetime type a sentence like that... I won't mention the Mexican wrestler movies (see the chicken heads on the website)/hispanic cockfight theme this commercial has...I hope it's a matter of reading more into than was really there.