The number of people who came in the day before Thanksgiving this year: 11, exceeding all previous years. This doesn't include the two or three friends-per-person that joined them, nor the dog. At one point there were a Cave-Whopping nine people and one dog. BUT WAIT. The number of people who came in this past week: 43. FORTY THREE. Shipping Season meets Thanksgiving, what a fun week! It's like old home week, you get to see people your rarely otherwise see. It's lively and fun and noisy, a huge difference from my favorite August sport: harvesting lichen in monkish silence.
Today, crickets. Everyone is paralyzed from overeating, or they're slogging their abused bodies through malls.
The best What-are-you-doing-for-Thanksgiving answer: The story goes, loosely, that the extended family is huge and every year the Aunt does it. This year, one of the cousins wants to do it, but so does the Aunt, so they're BOTH doing it and making the entire extended family choose which house to go. And what is the story teller choosing? "We're going to Aruba for the weekend." Awesome.
Two beautiful wines came my way this week. Facing a similar Sophie's Choice for their demise, a more equitable solution was had. On the left, from Antica Terra in Oregon, a pinot noir rose called "erratica." Nice art work, lovely wine, I opened this last weekend while it was still hot in LA and I was eating curried chicken tacos with radish greens and feta.
Wednesday night, much cooler weather, I opened the 2014 Kermit Lynch Beaujolais. It was bright and lively and delicious, and went well with the autumnal soup that was on the menu: collard greens, butternut squash, white beans in a curried lemon broth with persimmon-radish chutney and yogurt.
I am a fortunate and grateful troglodyte. Thank you, everyone. Happy Day After Thanksgiving.