Wednesday, November 26, 2008

picking up where we left off

I just got back from my sister Johannah's house, where we spent the morning making various confectionary delights for tomorrow's overwhelmingly large Thanksgiving celebration (Something like twenty people at Thanksgiving equals craziness in my book).

Jo made a pumpkin pie (yawn!), an apple cranberry tart (double yawn, people) and a completely ridiculous butterscotch brownie cake with gooey ganachey goodness (I'll totally give her credit for that one). I flexed my impressive culinary skills and made a pumpkin streusel-topped pie and a roasted sweet potato cheesecake with sour cream and maple syrup and all sorts of deliciousness inside.

Some of you may remember that Johannah is a bit of a domestic overachiever...and I think she was obviously threatened by my fabulous dessert-making skills, because she actually made a joke about how I was the slowest pie maker ever... oh, pshaw.

Dear sister of mine... you see this? This is homemade pecan crust... and these sweet potatoes? Oh yes, I roasted them myself. And nobody cuts corners when assembling a good streusel topping -- the repercussions would be disastrous. You don't rush GENIUS! I think she could tell that while I might have lost a few tenths in execution... I more than made up for it in degree of difficulty.

The only way I could lose the gold medal -- err, the... Thanksgiving pie bakeoff competition I'm holding in my own mind -- is if the judges find out that I forgot to put ANY spices into the cheesecake until it had already been in the oven for 5 minutes... at which point I had to pull it out and stir them in. I'll pull a Tonya Harding though and blame my toddler's tanrum for distracting me. I'll insist on a do-over. I'll bash Johannah's knee in with a spatula!

Umm... scratch that last one. I think I'm getting a little caught up in the holiday spirit.

you know you're young...

Last night Aidan, Mike and I snuggled on the couch and watched the fire together. While we sat, I started talking to Aidan about Thanksgiving and what it meant. I told him how I was thankful to have my wonderful family around me, in a warm house with plenty of food on the table, etc. Then we asked him what he was thankful for...

Me: So what are you thankful for, Aidan?

Aidan: Umm... I am thankful for you guys, I guess. And for my birthday it is coming up!

I remember when I was thankful for birthdays. It was definitely before my cake required more than one box of candles. Le sigh.