Cheryl on the Web

The final menu included turkey roast, rosemary-garlic pork, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, cranberry relish, green beans, homemade refrigerator rolls, pears in red wine, and monster cookies for dessert.

Considering this was the first “real” Thanksgiving meal I ever made, I was quite pleased with how it all went. The only “bump in the road” was that the turkey roast took 2 1/2 hours when I only expected it to take 1 1/2 hr. But hey, that only adds to the Thanksgiving authenticity since I remember similar situations at Grandma Heintz’s house ;) I found my newly purchased meat-thermometer an unbelievable help in getting the meat done, otherwise I would have taken the turkey out too early and disaster would have undoubtedly ensued.

How did all of your Thanksgiving meals go?

For the first half of yesterday (Thursday), I had a feeling that I’d regressed in time to the caveman era, where the men were the hunters and the women were the gatherers. I spent most of my morning trying to “gather” canned pumpkin for a pumpkin pie.. without success :( It turns out that in this entire vicinity, the only pumpkin to be had is either a whole pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, or sweet-sour pumpkin in a glass jar.

Luckily I did manage to gather most of the other things I needed, down to the cranberries (got the last box at the 5th supermarket I visited); the baking soda (got this on a return trip to the supermarket in the afternoon, turns out the stuff is available here but it’s called Natron); and the chocolate chips (had to laugh at the small size of the chocolate chip packages, 1 package is 75g so I had to buy 3 of them for the recipe).

After the groceries were done, I started right in on food preparation. (more…)

True to my American roots, I’ve taken tomorrow and Friday off work to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. Tomorrow is grocery shopping and football watching day, and Friday is the day of the big dinner. I’ve had a bit of flu this week so I’m hoping that all the festivities will cause it to wear off quickly.

I’ve figured out what I want to make on Friday, but in some cases the question remains whether or not I can find the ingredients. Take canned pumpkin for instance. Today I finally found pumpkin in a supermarket: it was in chunks, sugared, and canned in a glass jar. Sigh. Here’s hoping I can find the stuff I need tomorrow.

I’m planning to make some kind of pork roast, mashed potatoes (possibly instant - Mom, forget you read that), green beans, Grandma Engelberth’s refrigerator rolls, Grandma Heintz’s cranberry salad, and Mom’s pumpkin pie. And who knows what else I’ll throw in if I feel inspired. If I really can’t find pumpkin, then I’ll probably make monster cookies, though they’re not very Thanksgiving-like. Any other suggestions for pumpkin pie replacement?

Give me the daisy and I’m ready to go, petal by petal: we will have a house. We won’t. We will have a house. We won’t.

I may not have mentioned it on this blog yet, but Tim and I made an offer on a house 3 weeks ago. “House” is a term I use loosely: it’s a relatively modern flat that occupies the one-above-ground-level floor in a building with 4 floors, where the ground level is a business. Unfortunately, due to the particular situation of the people from which we are buying we are faced with some unusual delays and, to date, haven’t gotten to sign anything official. Which is nerve-wracking considering we’ve already told the building owner of our current apartment that we’ll be out by Feb. 1. (more…)

My dad’s got his story from Guinea (yes, that’s in Africa) on a web page ready for you to check out:
View the site>

The Ohio State Buckeyes - the college football team from the university I attended in America - have just concluded their season with a great win over arch-rival Michigan. A big CONGRATS and WO-HOOOOOOOOOO over to my fellow Buckeye supporters in Ohio and beyond.

I have decided that my relationship with Microsoft can only be described as love-hate. I mean, as a Microsoft developer I have to appreciate the Microsoft technology with which I work, in particular .Net. But at the same time I can’t help but despise the proprietary, non-standards-compliant and quirky technology Microsoft sometimes releases. (more…)