Speaking of Good Sports

Speaking of good sports, (I was - in yesterday's post about college kids and a couple of bushels of apples...), my family (minus one) was also a good sport when I decided to celebrate Thanksgiving this weekend.

It's August.

It's HOT.

But, we had 2/3 of our kids home, and that's 1/3 more than we will have home in November. Maybe 2/3 more. So, why not haul a turkey out of the freezer and roast it? And make up a mess of green beans, (green bean casserole, you know.), some potatoes and fennel, and a mince pie in the oven? And call it T'giving? Growing up, we never celebrated holidays on their given dates, so why should T'giving 2010 be any different?

How did we celebrate? Well, harvest of the apple crop, followed by processing of the apple crop. There was more processing to be done with these apples, since they were more-or-less organic, and sported multiple mars and holes on each fruit. So, where I might normally core and process the entire fruit, skin and all, this time we cored the fruit, then peeled the fruit, and the processed and froze the applesauce.

After our apple harvest came tennis and cycling. And of course I stayed in the AC and roasted said turkey and mince pie. It was a little dicey, because T'giving in November lends itself to walking outside to the porch if the chef gets warm in the kitchen. T'giving in August means the chef gets hot in the kitchen and walks out to an even hotter porch in the wilting humidity.

Oh well. Dinner came: a Thanksgiving prayer by the College Boy, and then food! And laughter and good conversation.

So come what may in November (and I cannot foresee the future), we will have this afternoon tucked in our memory.

The only part I did not like?

There was someone very special missing from the table.