Thanksgiving

I was a little puzzled this year on how to celebrate Thanksgiving. Turkeys are usually only served for Christmas here, and are terribly expensive. Plus, with only the three of us, a turkey seemed a little over the top. We usually get one of those breast turkeys that already have all the appendages chopped off. Probably not the best way to describe it, but it is what it is. I love those because I just can't seem to cook a complete turkey. The breast always ends up dry and the dark meat is usually undercooked. Last Thanksgiving was a bust, food wise. I selected a free range turkey and brined it for two days in a really elaborate broth from scratch. It took up a huge portion of my fridge for the days leading up to Thanksgiving, and the anticipation was incredible. I had imagined the pleased looks on the faces of our friends and family, looked forward to the nods of approval around the table. Alas, I couldn't get the darn thing cooked all the way through. I even had my friend bring over her meat thermometer, thinking mine had somehow failed. However, it quickly became evident that the only thing that had failed was my cooking. Add to this gummy mash potatoes and it was a disaster disappointment. I had been using a potato ricer for a few years, and I loved it. I decided that on Thanksgiving I would use Yukon Gold potatoes instead of Russets - try to shake things up a bit with a fancy potato. Turns out that the starch content has a lot to do with how mashed potatoes turn out. Yukon Gold have a different starch content than Russets, and my ricer had somehow broken down the potato cells and released a flood of starch and moisture, resulting in something that resembled what kindergardeners use for art projects. Good times. Everyone kept telling me that it was wonderful, but I knew better. This year we baked a chicken. I did make mashed potatoes with my ricer, but I used Russets and they turned out perfect. I also made herbed carrots and gravy. A small spread, but with the Thanksgiving tableware, it was perfect for us. I even located Ocean Spray Cranberry sauce; it totally made the meal.

These last three months have been challenging to say the least, but for one day I decided to put on my big girl pants and be thankful instead of looking for the worst. We have a home, we have three meals a day, we have our health, and we have each other. What more do we need? Well, being with friends and family would have been really nice. Maybe next year.

Lovely lorikeets

We've had several bird encounters since moving here. One involved a meat eating kookaburra that swooped at me to get my steak, the other was an angry cockatoo who tore our back screen door apart. These both occurred at the "Gordon House". We no longer live at the Gordon house, and maybe when I'm at the point where I look back at that time and laugh, I'll share those episodes.

We've been in our new home a few weeks now. A few days ago while doing dishes I glanced up to see this little cutie looking in our kitchen window.


Rainbow lorikeets are members of the parrot family. They're absolutely stunning and just an example of some of the beautiful local wildlife. It's very common for residents to feed the backyard birds here. And really, who wouldn't want to encourage these from making your backyard their home? Mitchell and i went outside and the lorikeets were still hanging around.


I figured that the prior owner must have fed them, so I brought some bread outside to see if they were interested.


Aren't they cute?

Yo Ho Ho

A few weeks ago we visited the Australian National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour. It's a fantastic place, even if boats don't usually do it for you. They have several ships that you can tour, one is a replica of the Endeavor - Captain James Cook's ship of discovery, the other is the tall ship James Craig. They also have a destroyer, a submarine and smaller patrol boat you can board; all are very well maintained. Don was having a ball climbing around the destroyer and showing Mitch how you have to duck inside the submarine. The museum itself is pretty incredible as well. You could easily spend several hours touring the displays and not see everything. We had such a good time; we'll definitely be back!

Fa La La La, La La La La

Since Australia doesn't celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving, they tend to start preparing for Christmas early. Christmas trees are up in the stores by October, really. We've been holding off on the early festivities, but last weekend we finally caved in and went to the Christmas Festival at the St. Ives Shopping Village. It's the place featured in the stunning photo on the Wikipedia entry for "St. Ives, New South Wales". I have no idea why Wiki chose a photo of a mall to identify St. Ives, when there is a perfectly fine wildflower garden that they could have featured. Anyways, Mitch has been talking about Santa quite a bit lately so we figured we'd take him to see the jolly man in red, as well as partake in the festivities. Surprisingly, it was really well done and ended up being a nice way to spend the afternoon. First they had a cool little procession leading Santa in, consisting of three people in costumes on stilts banging cymbals and drums. They also had two wise men on camels. Where was the third wise Man? Who knows, we never saw him.

We visited Santa, and incredibly, the mall wasn't pimping him for paid photos. Kids just talked to Santa and Mrs. Claus for a few minutes, then Santa gave each kid a hat and a little pad to use for their Christmas list. As you can see from the photo below, I'm the annoying mom you usually see pushing their kid in to get closer. I didn't even realize I did that until I saw the photo. Mitch got just close enough for Santa to hear something about an electronic train set, but not close enough for a quality photo.


Afterwards we stopped by the face painting booth where Mitch was treated to a bat paint job.


It turned out more like a black butterfly, but he thought it was pretty cool. It was the first time we had face painting and I was dreading bath time. Fortunately, the clown painting his face was telling the truth when she reassured me that the paint washes off easily with soap and water.

Oddly, they also had a Punch and Judy puppet show. I've never seen the show, but I know it has been around forever. I was interested in seeing it, if only to try and uncover it's lasting popularity. The only thing I really knew about it was that one of the characters has a stick and beats other puppets with it. Anyone with a four year old boy knows that sticks are always a good time, especially if they make contact with something, preferably human. So, the puppet show seemed like a good option. But after about five excruciating minutes we left, it was just unwatchable. All I could gather is that Judy left a screaming baby puppet with Punch, who it turns out, is a totally inept and terribly annoying puppet. Since I left with more questions that I had started with, I did a little research on Wiki (Yes - I know Wiki is terribly unreliable, but it's good for general information). Turns out my perception wasn't totally off. Per Wiki, "The stereotypical view of Punch casts him as a deformed, child-murdering, wife-beating psychopath who commits appalling acts of violence and cruelty upon all those around him and escapes with impunity; this is greatly enjoyed by small children." So there you have it. Not exactly what I imagine when I think of a kids puppet show.

Hopefully everyone is getting into the the Holiday spirit. We're coming around slowly, it's a little difficult imagining a hot humid Christmas when our last two were "white". By the way, here's a closing photo to remind everyone that Christmas is now only four weeks away!