Patrick's Saturday Six

To play you can either answer the questions in a comment at Patrick's Place [see Other Journals], or put the answers in an entry on your journal, but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit!  (And if you're playing for the first time, please be sure to say so in the comment!)  Enjoy!

1. If you could invent your own cable channel, what would it be called and what type of programming would it show?

It would be a 24/7 reality channel that does nothing but answer every woman's daily question:

DOES MY BUTT LOOK FAT?

Each day women across America would be allowed to turn their behinds to the camera and ask America for its opinion. Then those of us who are willing to pay an exhorbitant fee for the privilege would get to vote yes or no. It would cost extra to have sound effects added. Say $50 bucks for pig noises or raspberries.

What?  You have a problem with this idea? 

2.  What is your typical Thanksgiving dinner menu?

Since I've cooked a turkey almost every which way, from upside down to inside a bag, to over the grill to in a fryer, I can honestly say that there is nothing typical about the preparation of our Thanksgiving menu except that a turkey is present. With an occasional capon, goose or duck.  No pork or beef, thank you.

My favorite is turkey basted with sweet butter and olive oil, seasoned with tarragon, sea salt, and cracked pepper, and cooked outside on the Weber grill.  Yeah, like I have the patience for that any more. But it was the best turkey ever. And the gravy tasted smoked, too. Made it with red wine. And strained homemade giblet broth. I still remember how good it was.

Last year we all gathered in North Carolina on the OBX -- OuterBanks to you -- for a big family Thanksgiving away from home. My sister-in-law's brother made the second best turkey ever. He deep fried it in five pounds of peanut oil. To be safe, we set up the fryer by the swimming pool just in case of conflagration.

Cooking the 18 pound bird took 53 minutes. No four hours of basting every fifteen minutes. The skin was crisp and tasty.  And, like potato chips, it was half eaten before it got to the table.  The meat was succulent and juicy. And cooked all the way through.

So, from now on that will be our typical turkey dinner as far as I'm concerned. Dressing's nice, but who ever said you had to have the same kind every year. I do like oysters as an ingredient.

A sweet potato, yam or carrot casserole adds some traditional color. The recipe is secondary. Mashed potatoes are practically de rigeur -- almost any potato can be mashed, but Yukon Gold keeps getting the nod.  Add garlic, sour cream, or just a bit of milk and butter.

I love baby peas. With a little rosemary and a tiny bit of sugar. Or any vegetable that's green. Even artichokes. Please, just not the green bean and mushroom soup casserole. And nothing out of a can. 

Bread -- plain, fancy, homemade or even Pepperidge Farm is fine.  But the butter's got to be fresh.

And cranberry sauce. Homemade, out of a can, jellied or mixed with nuts, oranges, and celery. I guess that's the only dish that I need for it to be a Thanksgiving meal.  One year we were at someone else's house and they didn't have cranberry sauce.  So I went out to 7-11 and bought some.

For dessert we usually have three pies, pumpkin, pecan, and apple. I actually used to cook my own pumpkin, send away for the pecans and pick my own apples for the pies. Now I BUY them all at Costco.   

3. What was your first job?  Wasit within the career path you ultimately intended to pursue?

My first job was as the editorial assistant for the International Association of Amusement Parks.  I put out the newsletter and helped with their yearly convention. 

Nothing like a working for a bunch of guys who think that because they have a roadside roller coaster they are classier than carny barkers. 

The executive director's main job was to pay off congressmen to insure favorable legislation. I fled after a year. Into advertising. I still don't know if that decision was a step forward or a step backward. 

4. You're at home by yourself:  do you prefer to wear shoes, slippers, socks only or go barefooted?

Flip flops with Thor-lo socks.  It's an acquired taste. 

5. What's your favorite restaurant appetizer?

Artichokes.  With clarified garlic butter.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #30 from Carly: Do you have a single comment that was ever left that you really enjoyed to the point you still remember it?

I will never forget it:  "Mrs. Linklater I love you!" Thanks, Jack.