Hodu [Hashem] ki tov

(The subject means "It is good to give thanks to God"; it's a holiday pun of sorts because "hodu" also means "turkey".)

We went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving as usual. There were seven of us, including my sister and her two kids.

It was weird to have Thor absent. Thor was my parents' golden retriever, who would have been 14 last month but died two months ago. On my mother's birthday, more's the pity. He was a good dog. They were really attached to him and they took it hard, but he had a good life and 14-minus-two-weeks is pretty good for a golden retriever. They haven't said anything yet about getting another dog. (There's almost always been a dog in that house.)

When my parents' basement flooded in September they lost their electric roaster, and I'd been thinking about replacing that for them in December. (I always have trouble identifying suitable gifts for them.) But they decided they wanted it for Thanksgiving, so so much for that idea. The turkey was done in five hours in the roaster; it was probably done sooner, as we measured the temperature at 200, but it was not dry. The skin was very crispy and that kept the insides moist. For those who missed my update to an earlier post, we determined that Butterball turkeys contain no actual butter, so I was able to eat it.

We got there before my sister and my mother mentioned that she would be bringing a mincemeat pie for dessert. This raised the question of just what's in mincemeat anyway; I certainly remember actual meat from my Italian grandmother's pies, but my mother asserted that the filling you buy in a store contains no meat. A little time with Google revealed that the traditional recipe involves beef and pork but that there are non-meat versions, so this remained a mystery. When my sister came we learned that she had bought the pie, not made it; she was pretty sure there was no meat in the filling, but commercial pie crusts contain lard more often than not, so I declined on that basis. (And if it didn't have lard, it probably had butter anyway.) I hope my sister did not feel rejected that I declined all three of the desserts she brought -- the others being cheesecake and fudge containing milk -- but I took some of the latter two home, so that probably helped. And it's not like the meat/dairy thing should come as a surprise by now. Oh well. It's not like I needed the dessert. :-)

( odd social dynamic )

Other than that, though, it was a nice visit!

Apropos of nothing... Since getting the broken window replaced in my car, the horn no longer sounds when I lock or unlock the car with the remote. It does sound if I push the button. This is not a complaint. :-)