Thanksgiving Rehash

It's over.

As the host, I probably shouldn't say so, but I think our housewarming/Thanksgiving/pool party was a success. We ended up having 15 or 16 people over, which was a good number. A few of the recipes didn't taste quite right, but they were all good.

First, the pumpkin pie. I don't think any of the Filipinos had ever had pumpkin pie before today. They seemed, generally to like it, and it passed muster with the Americans, so it must have been okay. I could have used a food processor, as the texture was occasionally a bit chunky, but the flavor was good. And, when it came to the pie I overfilled and, therefore, had to bake for 90 minutes instead of 60, the pumpkin chunks that weren't quite mashed were soft enough not to notice. Granny Esther's pie crust recipe turned out great, as usual, even with my much less-skilled hands making it.

The stuffing also turned out well and, because of a last-minute stumble into a health food store at the mall last night, were made with actual dried cranberries rather than blueberries or cranberry-flavored cherries. The only weird part of the stuffing was the longanisa sausage, which is sweeter than what I would use at home ... and redder than what I would use at home.

It was packaged in red plastic, but when I opened it up, all the sausages were red, too. I hoped some of the redness was due to being raw and that it would turn brown as it cooked, but the sausage stayed the same red color. If that was my biggest problem, well, that's not much of a problem at all.

You want to hear about a problem? No, Shelly isn't putting on a synchronized swimming demonstration for our guests, she's cleaning dead earthworms out of the pool. The earthworms have, recently, been making nocturnal journeys into the pool, only to be unable to get out once they get in. Mary Ann and Maricel showed up three hours early after misunderstanding our starting time, so Shelly ended up putting on an earthworm removal demonstration for them.

We ate, we drank, Jim collapsed on the couch after eating and drinking...it turned out to be a pretty accurate portrayal of Thanksgiving. Now, if we had just had some snow...