Thanksgiving

Well, we're nearing the end of November. It's crazy how the month—and year—have flown by.

Thanksgiving is approaching. We'll be spending the day with my family (which means turkey, cranberry sauce, way too many mashed potatoes, a nap or three, several hours of Risk, probably a movie, and maybe some backyard football if the weather's good). Really looking forward to it.

Food items that will not be seen this Thursday but which in an ideal world would definitely be on the table:

turducken
gooducken
turduckenailailenailailduckenailailenailail
rôti sans pareil (a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an ortolan bunting, and a garden warbler)

. . . I'm going to rename this list: ballotines (see also here) that will not be seen this Thursday and should probably never be eaten:

Well, all of them.

But especially not the famed Indian dish: sparrow in a quail in a grouse in a chicken in a turkey in a goat in a whole camel.



Anyway, the point of this post is: ballotines fascinate me and I'm really excited for Thanksgiving.

October Wrap-up

Well, it's been a while, so we're going into quick update mode:

• Movies: Mama (one of my favorites), The Bride of the Gorilla (pretty funny), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I (rewatching the series, only one left!). We need to finish the Harry Potter series and then we can start in on Star Wars to prep for Episode VII. Also, we've got a bunch of Halloween/horror movies we didn't get to in October that we'll be catching up on over the next couple months.
• We ate dinner at the Food Truck Roundup last week. Cuban sandwich from The Mouse Trap Truck for Sarah; half-Greek half-Italian calzone from Mama Z's Café for me; a wookie (waffle cookie with ice cream) from Mama Z's Café to split; and salted caramel cider, hazelnut cocoa, a mint truffle cookie, and a cookie sandwich (all from Soda Bus) to split. Pretty delicious all around.
• I'm working on rewriting my first novel, The Servant. It's going pretty well—I should be finished before the end of the year, if all goes well. I've also been working on some short stories and other novels; hopefully I can update about those soon.
• Just finished season 1 of Legends and season 2 of The Blacklist. Very good shows. Looking to catch up on Gotham and Sword Art Online and then maybe start Supergirl or Arrow or something.

Overall, it's a good time to be alive, and life is good.