Birth-Giving

Being again outside of the States for Thanksgiving, and being poor and busy as I am, I almost decided to scrap it this year. But then Ed pointed out to me how sad I would be without it, especially given it's my birthday holiday, so I figured I could at least do Mini-Thanksgiving this year. Luckily, I had a Generous Benefactor to help me out with food-buying. It wasn't as expensive this year as in Korea, though, thankfully. All ingredients were readily available (except it being late in the pumpkin season, it was a little hard to find a fresh one, but Ed came through), and no more expensive than any other food, plus I was only cooking for two, rather than like twenty. Thanksgiving is on a Thursday every year (the 25th this year), but that's not feasible in other countries, especially since I have school all day Thursday. We decided to do it on the following Sunday, the day after my birthday. Friday evening was spent shopping and making pumpkin pies from scratch (yeah, crust AND filling from scratch), since those take longer than most other things. I'd made the pumpkin puree for the filling earlier in the week. It's cool.

For my birthday, I had my choice of breakfast cooked for me, which was sausage, eggs, toast, and a mocha, then a lazy morning and early afternoon, then a sudden realization of how late it was getting, and a rush to get to London before the science museum closed. We were supposed to also go to the natural history museum, but I was keen all along to the fact that we could never possibly have a nice laze about AND go to two museums. Right. Even with eliminating one of them, we only had under 90 minutes in the science museum before getting corralled out. It was a nice museum (it's FREEEEEEEE), and I need to get back to czech out some other shit we missed. Nothing will ever compare to the Boston Science Museum, though. Le sigh...

After the museum we killed some time walking around and looking at all the windows in the shops. It was cold, and we wanted to go IN the shops, but for some reason London is a retard, and everything except Harrods was closed. I kind of wanted to go in there, because the window displays looked really cool, and it might have some cool stuff to look at inside, I don't know. But it was mobbed, so bad idea. At seven we had a reservation at a French restaurant called Racine. Ed had a very nice experience with his food, with some sort of autumn salad starter and lamb, I think. I had a crab bisque starter, which was not what I expected, and which was too salty for me too finish. My entree was partridge with some sort of (maybe cheesy?) veggie thing wrapped in a leaf. The leaf thing was really good, but I wasn't liking the partridge. It started to taste mediciney and just really weird, and then my gin started tasting off, too. how strange. Ed did not call ahead to tell them it was my birthday, a wise decision, but he joked that he did.

All day he was trying to get me to think that he didn't get me any presents--or rather, that he did, but I knew what they were, which was a pie tin and a casserole dish, which I needed to make Thanksgiving. He also kept trying to tell me he'd gotten me a black licorice cake, and basically I'd rather die than eat black licorice cake, if even such a thing exists. What a bastard. Anyway, I knew that the cake part was total bullshit, but I had to admit that for very fleeting moments I was slightly concerned that I wouldn't be getting any presents, considering he'd bought me the cooking stuff, and a whole barrage of food, and took me out to London, which is exactly what he wanted me to be concerned about, so la di da.

Back at home, he kept it up for a while, giving me the casserole dish to open (pie tin had already been used). But eventually he had one of those A Christmas Story moments--say, what's that over there behind the Christmas tree? I think you missed one, Ralphie.

It's a cake! I had asked for the chocolatiest chocolate that ever chocolated, and it was delivered. Ed had a nice little chuckle at his cleverness in terms of the writing.

Then the Christmas Story moment continued, and I got my Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle in the form of things I actually like.


This is a Mameshiba pen, with an edamame bean. This is something I discovered in Japan, and definitely included in my Korea blog. Look it up on YouTube. It's hilarious.

This is probably the best present anyone ever got me. It's a tiny jar filled with watch parts. It's especially good for me, because I like containers, small models of things, and gears. It's amazing.

Here's the jar with the casserole dish, for perspective:

Here's another container, which is stackable and varying shades of green, which I like. I put stuff in it.

This is a Mameshiba pencil case, and is awesome. It has many layers:

Note the facial expression of the one on the left, and also the bean that looks like it peed itself. HAHAHAHA.

This is a Pikachu lunch box. It has two containers in it, which are stackable, and one fits inside the other when they're empty. The rubber band holds it all together, and make it Pirate Pikachu. Pirachu. Pikachirate.

Pikachu is.

Tackling the cake was quite difficult. First I took off the top disc of chocolate, then stabbed it right down the middle to help me cut through. I wish my camera focused better.

The cake was pretty tall to eat like that, and was taller than my mouth, but I managed to actually accomplish bites like this by starting at the soft bottom, running my lower teeth through until I got to the middle, at which point I could get my top teeth over the top and finish the bite. Yeah. I'm getting a haircut on Thursday, don't worry.

Cake debris:

It's now over two weeks later, and I've only just finished this cake, but still actually have a little container full of the chocolate bits. It's pretty rich.

So Sunday was The Big Day. Ed helped me all day with cooking, and it took us seven hours to finish. The menu was as follows: a duck (Ed prefers it, and I haven't had duck in a while), stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, broccoli and rice casserole, gravy, squash, dinner rolls, and pumpkin pie for dessert. My mom said that wasn't mini, but there were several things I would have had in a full Thanksgiving meal which didn't make it.

I'm realizing now that there's no picture of the pies (I made three, one for us, and two for my classmates, whom I'd promised I'd bring something for my birthday and our last class). I'm pretty sure I took one, so maybe it got lost in a vortex between the camera and the adapter and the computer. DAMmit'AH.

Anyway, Ed seemed pleased with it, and I'd cooked enough for something like eight meals, so we each had leftovers for several days. Now that I'm writing about it and looking at pictures, though, I want more Thanksgiving. I should make some stuffing again. That stuffing is The Shit.

Speaking of traditional dinners, I went out for my first English Sunday roast at a pub yesterday, which was smaller than I thought, but still decent. Ed said it wasn't a very good example of a roast, though, so I should wait to blog about it until we have one that he says is good. I will say that I was quite shocked and dismayed to find that Yorkshire pudding is not sweet or gelatinous, and is in fact a solid, empty, bowl made out of a bread product. It's like those awful chocolate eggs that my dad used to get us for Easter--they sort of seem like Cadbury eggs, but when you bite into them, it's just shitty American chocolate on the outside and NOTHING on the inside.