Holiday Cooking: Old People Beware/Surprise!

Old people everywhere: cooking meat until it "falls apart" does not mean you're a good cook, or that the roasted animal is "perfectly tender." It means you've cooked it until it's mush. This is not the same. Roast beef is ideally, red or at least pink in the center, and the grain is easily separated, --while maintaining a solid form, easily sliced. If you've cooked it until it's brown in and out, cannot be sliced without it crumbling and it falls apart, congratulations, you have overcooked your roast. Stop bragging at parties, stop showing off. The same applies to turkey. Too much moisture, not enough heat, too much cooking, and the turkey will fall apart and be overcooked. If you can't roast, do ham this holiday season. Everyone loves ham (unless you're a foreigner or in a cult) and it's hard to screw up.

I realize that if you're about to turn 64, and your whole family is expecting turkey that crumbles and disintegrates this Thanksgiving, then you're risking a lot. So instead of turkey, buy a duck. Hell, buy two. Or even three, and mix things up. One of my greatest frustrations is that every year on Thanksgiving, we eat the same crap, because everyone in my family is terrified to try something new. I used to cook for a man who would eat almost anything (except pecan pasta sauce) and loved most of it (he didn't like something once, but I can't remember what it was... maybe brie soup). He was followed closely behind by my husband, now ex-, who loved my cooking too.

And now I'm surrounded by family, and my family is Midwestern hillbilly-ish in its roots, and they grew up eating only the most identifiable foods. So trying new things on them... not so great. But! this year, I'm going to get creative, and damn it, I am making that duck. It's delicious, and damn it, they're just going to have to try it. I'm going to make other stuff too... dunno what yet, but I've got time on my hands now, what with being:

FIRED

and all.  Honestly, I was really relieved. I was called at home, on my day off, and told I needed to be at work for a meeting. For the last two years, I have used Wednesday, my "Sunday", to drive to a neighboring town and visit with my grandparents. I also had a plumber scheduled to arrive that Wednesday. So I couldn't make it in. My boss told me "fine, stay home forever." so here I am. At home.

Which is okay, because I was offered a new, better paying position, and pending their credit/background check, I start training on Oct. 29th. Which is just in time to possibly miss my rent payment and end up in the shit. So if you've had a buck or two hanging around in your Paypal account for the last six months since the last time you REALLY needed a that Edward Cullen poster on eBay, you know the one that's signed by Robert Pattinson, and says "Bella Forever"... you could sooo put that cash to good use. Seeing as how you'd be keeping a girl from being screwed. My donation button is on the front page. To quote Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids: "Help me, I'm poor."