Left Over

I realize this is all a matter of too little, too late, but when Jonna mentioned the Thanksgiving bowl, it dawned on me that I had failed to tell you about my family's legendary post-Thanksgiving casserole, also known as the Greatest Thing Ever to Happen to Leftovers.  If you've got 57 Tupperware containers of various leftovers in your fridge, go to your kitchen right now and do this:  get yourself a baking pan, like a 9x12 or similar, and make a layer of stuffing in the bottom of the pan, then cover the stuffing with your peas -- or maybe creamed onions if you've got them -- then make a neat layer of turkey in nice, bite-size pieces, then drizzle some gravy round, then top with a nice, thick coating of mashed potatoes.  Heat it in the oven -- maybe 20-30 minutes at 375 or so, just test it for done-ness along the way -- and liberally toss some pats of butter and some salt on each serving.  Dish up with cranberry sauce and any other lingering veggies, sweet potatoes, and rolls you've got laying about. 

My Grammie C. (my dad's mom) taught my mom to do this, and it's been a family tradition ever since.  It's entirely possible that everyone else in the world already makes the Thanksgiving casserole and now I'm just stating the obvious and looking kind of dim, but at least my mom describes it as having been a revelation for her.  We make it as we're cleaning up after the melee of the big meal, and I even bake the stuffing right in the pan I want to use for the casserole, for easy assembly (and one less dish to wash). 

I wish I could FedEx some of our casserole to any of you who didn't get to have leftovers this year.  Also because the leftovers for two people from a 13-pound turkey and five pounds of potatoes are somewhat substantial, and either we'll be eating them for the rest of our lives or I've got to unload them on someone else.  (I realize that a 13-lb turkey is way, way too much for two, but it was the smallest one they had at our supermarket, and I'll be damned if I'm going to make a Cornish hen for Thanksgiving). 

The brining, by the way, went very well, and the meat came out basically spraying juice everywhere; it was that moist.  You could taste the rosemary and juniper and whatever else was in the Williams-Sonoma brining stuff, and it definitely added something to the whole proceedings.  More importantly, however, the Gooey Pumpkin Butter Cakes pretty much changed our lives for the better in a way that I'm not sure I can fully describe.  Jessica had told me beforehand that they were like crack in a baking pan, and I would have to concur.  I mean, I'm sure just about anything containing two sticks of butter, a pound (!) of confectioner's sugar, and a load of pumpkin would taste good, but this is in a league of its own.  I nearly lost control of my gross motor skills when I took the first bite. 

Sadly, our Thanksgiving weekend has been tainted by my husband's need for emergency dental surgery yesterday, and aside from feeling generally horrible and suffering extreme pain, he has also been rendered unable to eat anything but soft, cold foods for the next four days or so.  Which means that I am tasked with eating all of those leftovers, which in turn means I've had to amp up my running lest I stroke out from Butter Overload at the ripe old age of 32.  So you just let me know if you need some casserole, turkey for sandwiches, an extra drumstick or perhaps some Gooey Pumpkin Cakes in your house, and I'll pack it up on dry ice and airlift it to you.

Finally, we watched Open Water the other night, and I'm not sure I'll ever recover.  How DISTURBING was that movie?  I thought the handheld digital camera work was amazing and the acting was tremendous; it felt documentary-like and claustrophobic (is there anything more suffocating than completely wide-open spaces, with nothing, absolutely nothing in sight for miles and miles and miles?) and the way the characters reacted and sort of disintegrated over time was starkly realistic.  I found it so, so scary. 

It's safe to say I won't be diving again, ever.  I got PADI-certified back in law school, on a spring break trip to Belize, back when I was young and at least moderately fearless.  It seemed like this adventurous, yet somehow Zen activity that spiced up beach vacations that would otherwise be spent huddled under an umbrella, reading (whereas now I NEED that time spent doing nothing but laying somewhere and reading).  On that trip, I dove the Blue Hole in Belize, which is like this Big Thing to do when you're a diver -- you're 120 feet under, in a cavernous sinkhole in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by MASSIVE sharks, and you can only stay at depth for about 10 minutes or you'll run out of air.  I have no idea what I was thinking.  In Cozumel, I dove with this very sketchy guide who didn't even have his own dive shop; he just grabbed random people off the street and offered to guide them for less than an established place would charge.  He picked us up from our hotel in an ancient VW Bug with holes in the floorboards, and we had to help clean and tie up the boat at day's end.  (What could possibly go wrong?)  In Thailand, I did a night dive and watched octopi tumble across the sea floor and experienced the purest darkness I've ever seen when we cut out our flashlights for a minute or two underwater. 

Diving was fun while it lasted -- it really was incredible to see all that life and all those brilliant colors under there -- but there sure is a lot that can go wrong.  Most dive instructors and guides are these laid-back beachy types who make you feel like it's no big deal, that it's entirely normal to be swimming around with 8-foot sharks and silvery barracuda when you can't pop to the surface at will and scream your head off -- but the fact remains that you are UNDERWATER, sometimes many, many feet underwater, and you're surrounded by all sorts of things that can GET YOU.  It's something I'm glad I've done in my lifetime, but I don't feel any burning desire to pick it up again.  Plus, you have to get up super-early (on vacation!), which is almost as bad as being circled by hungry sharks.

Comments

[MsPrufrock]

Aw, poor husband. What a miserable time to be in that situation, as if there is ever a good time.

As for Open Water, I saw it in the theater and it terrified me. However, I could not stand the lead actors, I desperately wanted them to be eaten by sharks. The camera work and cinematography were amazing, so that saved it for me. I was never planning on diving any time in my life, but I certainly won't now. Ugh.

[Laura B.]

Leftover Casserole sounds so yummy. I haven't had Thanksgiving leftovers in YEARS, and I am becoming very sad about that fact. I made a kick-ass cranberry sauce this year and have nothing to put the leftovers on (it made so much that I only took half to the feast). I may have to make some roasted turkey breast and stuffing and mashed potatoes JUST to have a vehicle for that sauce!

[Sarah]

Oh my goodness, between you and Jenny, I'm going out to buy a turkey just so we can have some leftovers. And can I get the recipe for the Gooey Pumpkin Cakes? Because clearly, more calories are good.

Also, a couple things about diving (and I apologize, I'm a PADI professional, and I like to try to convince people diving is fun and safe). First, the movie Open Water should be taken with a grain of salt--in reality, a suicide note was found from the husband in the couple's hotel room, so it's a suspected murder-suicide. Also, their BCDs washed up on shore, unharmed, and no shark could do that. Granted, the boat should never have left without them, but I do believe there were mitigating circumstances.

Second, diving is really a safe activity--in terms of injuries, it's comparable to bowling. BOWLING. Yes, there's the possibility of if things go wrong, they can go drastically wrong, but like you mentioned, the awesomeness of what you see and experience is great, and I believe it outweighs the minor risks.

We dive a lot here in Monterey, with the theoretical threat of Great Whites, and although I tend to get a bit apprehensive on night dives, I wouldn't trade it for anything else. Not that I'm against umbrella drinks and dozing on the beach, but diving is a life-changing experience for me. (But yes, the early rising does suck.) Glad you tried it out and enjoyed it.

If you ever do it again, though, avoid the sketchy people and look for a PADI dive store. You may pay more, but believe me, with the PADI requirements for it's professionals, you'll be damn safe.

I'll let you know what our shark dive in Fiji is like next year. *shiver*

[jonniker]

oh my. The Thanksgiving CASSEROLE. Brilliant! Far superior to the bowl! BUTTER AND SALT, OH MY.

Do you know that I actually told Adam I was seriously considering making a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner next weekend JUST for the leftovers? I want turkey and stuffing so bad right now, I can't stand it.

[Dinamyte]

That casserole sounds so delicious, and I've never heard of it before. I don't eat turkey but I think I'm going to go out and make some Stovetop stuffing, mashed potatoes, and vegetables just so I can have a fake Thanksgiving casserole. Yum. Thanks for the idea! Also, the link you gave us to the Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cakes recipe also has an alternative formulation involving CHOCOLATE and PEANUT BUTTER. I think I'm going to get very fat this week. :)

[fats]

OMG - I feel the exact same way you do about diving. I think it's a really cool thing in theory and while I know it really is a relatively safe activity, the things that can go wrong terrify me (it's kind of like the old, "You're more likely to die in a car accident than be in a plane crash," but people are still afraid of flying). I don't even worry about the things that can "get you" - I just worry about running out of air or equipment problems or something equally fatal. I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable enough to really enjoy diving unless I'm shallow enough to surface on whatever air is left in my lungs. Even then, I'm not so sure.

And by the way, isn't hubby always having some sort of tooth problem. This just sounds so familiar! I think he was having some sort of dental emergency some other time we were getting together - maybe when we went to Tabla?

[JenniferB]

Hey, the casserole sounds AWESOME and by the by, would you please, pretty please, email me the recipe or link to the Gooey Pumpkin Butter Cakes? Thank you!