::waves::
I had a great time with my parents, brother, niece and nephew (my sister had to stay home with an ailing dog and her own health issues, alas, but we called her a few times) celebrating Thanksgiving and my mom's 75th birthday. We took over a small B&B in Groveland near Yosemite, had pizza and presents Wed night, cooked a feast on Thursday, hiked around 5 miles at Hetch Hetchy on Friday and similar at Merced Grove on Saturday, cake and candles Saturday night, home Sunday. My poor dad is on new medication and was wiped out most of the time so had to beg off some of the outdoors stuff, but when he was awake had a good time. My mom claimed to be surprised when we showed up, and maybe she really was. Dinner was highly successful - my brother got a free turkey from his work and brined it on the drive down. He played his Food Safety Certified card to convince us not to stuff it but to make the stuffing on the stovetop like my mom and I never ever do, and it was fine (actually delicious). In buying vegetables to roast I got radishes with greens attached, so I turned that into a tiny salad with pomegranate seeds and a dressing made of orange juice, blood orange infused olive oil and cranberry balsamic vinegar and that was pretty awesome for being thrown together. We improvised a pie with a crust that was just straight up crushed graham crackers and a filling that was apples, a little cinnamon and sugar and some cranberries and it turned out kind of funny looking (the top layer of apples ended up sort of dehydrated) but delicious. Turned the veggie scraps and turkey carcass into 2.5 qts of broth by simmering for over 24 hours, had to go buy mason jars so we could bring it home.
So that was all deeply satisfying but I pretty much need a few days off to rest up. Not getting that.