Thanksgiving

We left Wednesday to go to my brother and sister-in-law’s house in Harbert for Thanksgiving. We stopped for lunch at the Shoreline Brewery in Michigan City. I had poutine for the first time. I’d seen it on TV. It is the Quebec version of cheese fries. The fries were covered in brown gravy heavily seasoned with black pepper, topped with moist and smokey pulled pork and melted cheese curds. The menu described it as a “small plate.” Ha! It was much more than I should have eaten, and I left about 1/3 of the fries on the plate.

After lunch we spent about 45 minutes at the outlet mall nearby, making a few small purchases. We drove up to Sawyer, MI to spend some time at the Sawyer Garden Center. Terry priced out their boughs and branches; Dad looked at their decorations; Hilda browsed the garden section, and I found some nice all-cloth hot mitts in the kitchen department. If you can’t find it at the Sawyer Garden Center, you can probably get along without it.

We got to Doug and Pam’s house about 4:00. Dad set to work assembling the holiday decorations he had made for the mantle in the great room.

The mantle decorations

Following drinks and hors d’oeuvres of aged goat cheese and baguette, Doug made spaghetti alla puttanesca for supper. I ate too much.

The next morning, Doug and Pam heated up three kinds of croissants from a nearby bakery—ham and cheese, chocolate, and almond. Pam cut each one in half so we could try more than one kind. Before it was over, I’d had half of each one, making it the third time I had overeaten in less than 24 hours. But that’s what the holidays are all about, isn’t it?

Doug and Pam taking the croissants from the oven

Doug built a fire in the small room next to the kitchen. Their newest cat, Mitsy, was fascinated by the flames. Pam said she hadn’t seen fire in that fireplace before.

Mitsy by the fire

Hilda warming herself with both fire and coffee

Terry and I went for a walk on the beach. We had to walk through a wooded area to get to Lake Michigan. This created an illusion that the day was calm. When we stepped from the shelter of the forest to the open sand, the wind hit me with a force that made my eyes water. Flakes of snow stung my face. Terry pointed to a large, dark object a short distance down the shore and said, “We’ll just walk as far as that tree and turn back.”

Terry walking down to the beach

I was surprised. Terry is usually less sensitive to the cold than I am, and I expected he would want to walk farther. It must have been the wind that bothered him. The lake was wild with large waves and white caps.

When we got to the large, dark object it turned out to be a huge piece of molded plastic, possibly a shipping container. Other than that, the beach seemed remarkably clean.

Doug and Pam spent the whole day in the kitchen. Terry and I watched football in the great room while Mom and Dad read in the room by the kitchen. Moose, the other cat, who weighs 22 pounds and is close to three feet long not including his tail, kept Hilda company on the couch. Moose truly looks like a wild animal. Domestic cats are just not normally that big.

Hilda with Moose

Moose with ottoman for size reference. Note that the ottoman comes to his shoulder.

Pam’s brother Bill joined us for supper in the late afternoon. At 5:00 the dinner buffet was ready. In addition to turkey, we had mashed root vegetables (potato, parsnip, rutabaga, and turnip), Brussels sprouts with lemon, horseradish, and pomegranate, cranberry and dried cherry compote, wild rice with mushrooms, and sausage with sauerkraut. I realize this last dish is unusual, but Doug made it for my dad, who is not all that fond of turkey. This did not stop Terry from having a sausage or me from eating sauerkraut. 

Pre-dinner snacks--crudites, marinated olives, deviled eggs, roasted almonds, shrimp dip, and crackers

The turkey

Terry, Hilda, and Bill (left to right) at the buffet

I fill my plate

Everyone at table

Doug made his traditional tarte Tatin (apple tart) for dessert. This was served with crème fraîche, vanilla gelato, and/or salted caramel gelato.  I opted for the salted caramel gelato, which I must say went exceptionally well with the apples.

And we ate too much.

In the morning, we went out to breakfast at a small restaurant near Doug and Pam’s house. We packed the car and headed home. I didn’t eat again until supper.

Saturday, Pat and Nancy came out to cut Christmas trees. The selection was not as good this year because some of the trees suffered damage in the extreme cold of last winter. We were able to find three nice ones nevertheless. Our tree is a concolor fir. The other two were Fraser firs.

Pat cuts a Fraser fir for their house

Nancy holds a concolor fir while Terry cuts it for us

We left the egg harvest for Pat and Nancy because they like to do that. They found 9 eggs in the nest boxes.

Nancy and Pat with the egg harvest

As Hilda was boiling spaghetti for supper, we were treated to a lovely sunset that got brighter before it got darker.

The fifth oak at sunset

So far today, we have brought our trees in and put them in their stands. We are waiting for them to dry off before we start decorating. We can’t tell if it rained a little or there was just some exceptionally dense fog last night. Either way, the trees got wet.

Stay tuned for photos of the decorated trees.