I’m getting into the spirit of the season with a weekend of cooking and preparing for Thanksgiving, plus a new holiday CD, Loreena McKennitt’s “A Midwinter Night’s Dream.”
Right now there’s a Cornish game hen (which I just learned is neither Cornish nor game, thanks Barbara Kafka, author of “Roasting” which is on my essential cookbooks list) perfuming our place. I wanted mashed potatoes and Jim wanted baked. So he picked out french fries instead. I’ll saute some cherry tomatoes to go with everything.
NOTE: Jim’s brother John can read this but I’ll spoil the fun for the kids if they read it so BEWARE!!!
We don’t buy each other Christmas gifts and Thanksgiving is the real holiday for Jim’s family. Everyone is tightening their belts this year so we thought we’d go back to basics and give the kids a gift to keep at their grandparents so that they do more than watch tv when they visit.
John’s three children range from age 6-12. Youngest to oldest, but with hopes they’ll be shared with us and Grandma Margie and Grandpa Joe, are Tinker Toys, Jenga and Scrabble. We had fun shopping for them today and hope they’ll be enjoyed for years.
If they want Monopoly they can have ours which has only been used twice. Jim and I bought it on New Year’s Eve the first year we met, 2002. He bought Park Place and Boardwalk and put hotels on them. I paid for two hotels on them and landed on them every time around. That $200 for passing “Go” didn’t even buy a gallon of gas.
Second time my sister Lisa was visiting and no matter how many times we lent each other money or mortgaged or traded properties, he wiped the floor with us. From now on it’s Scrabble or Backgammon. No more Monopoly.
My Mom had the turntable Scrabble with raised spaces for the tiles, which I couldn’t find today. When we’d play as kids she had the original worn wooden tiles and we shook them in a purple Crown Royal velvet (?) bag. I always thought the bag was beautiful but had no clue what Crown Royal was! Mom was the master of the triple word score, and I believe she passed that on to my youngest sister (Happy Birthday Lisa!). I probably won’t play that one with her. Dee has a score of 31 and Lisa has 168. Great.
Anyway, we’re going back to basics and look forward to some family fun this weekend. Christmas is on our own, and we look forward to catching up with the family this year. Happy Thanksgiving! Dee
Cooking with Dee 
Weekend before last, we were playing our Cornish Monopoly game w/Zach & his buddy Josef…
I’m going to rename it “Socialist Monopoly” bcz it’s virtually impossible for anyone to WIN – you can’t amass the hotels & jack up those rents like American Monopoly, round & round the board we went for almost 2 hrs until we arbitrarily called a halt, declaring whoever had the most net assets would be the winner (& that was, ahem, Zach!). Mom was almost bankrupt, but passed “Go”, received L300, & continued playing…
I know British Sterling is only $1.50 to a pound these days but we Americans only get a measly $200 for passing Go! Next thing whenever Americans play Brits they’ll get pounds and we’ll get dollars. And to top it off, the kids will go home with the bank! Dee
It was 2001. I remember sitting there losing miserably and he had no mercy. So why did I marry him a year later???