The Dinette Set by Julie Larson for November 26, 2014

I got all my prep done today. Fried bacon, onions, did the corn bread for stuffing, sauteed the celery/onion/sausage for the stuffing, cut carrots in half, ditto brussels sprouts, and made cranberry/orange marm. sauce. Tomorrow I’ll make 4 pies and cupcakes. By Friday I will have aged 8 years and lost 12 pounds. LOl

I love the Oleo Turkey. I can only imagine what it tastes like.That is one big can of yams, but where is the jumbo bag of marshmallows to go on top? Nobody here will eat that, so its one less thing I have to make.

Time to consider what we are thankful for—foremost being that we don’t have to spend TG with the Pennys!Paco, you remind me of a comment attributed to John Kennedy when he was President. He hosted a dinner for Nobel laureates in the White House and commented that the room has more intellect in it per capita than it had at any time since Thomas Jefferson had dined there alone.

I think Ma just ignores Burl 99% of the time anyway. He’s just full of hot air and Ding Dongs. I bet she rolls her eyes and wonders where she went wrong, and why Joy picked him in the first place.He can splurge and get a couple of those folding chairs but he’s too cheap for that.. Pacopuddy is right they can use their patio chairs, or eat out side by the cesspool. It will fit right in with the oleo turkey and what ever else they are having . Maybe Patty will call and tell them she’s having dinner at her boyfriends house, but they’ll stop over foe dessert..

….and two kids on the piano bench.

Burl, of course, always pre-slices the turkey in the kitchen. That way, he can stash a considerable amount away for himself later. By piling a big dollop of stuffing booster under it and spreading the slices out and shredding a bunch of it, he can make it look like it’s all there. When they run short, he’ll have someone, probably Jerry, to blame for taking to much. .The Oleo Turkey is injected with a barely food grade mix of cheap oils. It bleeds like crazy in the oven, but they’ll mix in some generic flour and call it gravy. Another of Burl’s tricks is to siphon off a few cups of mashed potatoes (generic instant) and pour about a gallon of oleo turkey gravy around what’s left in the bowl to make it look full. Some poor sucker at the end of the dish passing sequence ends up swishing around in a bowl of gravy trying to find some potatoes. .But if you look closely at Ma;s armload, you will spot the true horror, the giant can of beans. We all know where that will lead, and I’m not so sure Ma doesn’t fuel up on beans on purpose..Note, too, that they have passed on the Stuffing Booster with stale bread crumbs, selecting instead a box of “Stuffin,” which contain no bread crumbs, stale or otherwise, and is made entirely of dry generic dog food that has passed its sell-by date and may no longer be marketed for animals. Its amazingly cheap ingredients are mostly cereal, so this bunch won’t know the difference, and, like the dogs, they’ll be wolfing it down too fast to taste it anyway. .And if you value your sanity, you’ll be first into the bathroom after the meal, before the combination of beans and dog food takes effect.

I can only imagine how full their cart must look for dinner for 7 of that crew. Seven? Who is not invited, Jerry, Timmy Patty, John? The count seems it should be closer to 10. I would exclude Jerry for sure as his High Karate might spoil the meal for all. Does Colonel Sanders have a Thanksgiving Bucket special? Maybe an original recipe crispy Turkey?

The way I count, the seven are Burl, Joy, Ma, Verla, Jerry, Patty & John. Timmy is not in their family.

……….not much expense when you can microwave 14 turkey t.v. dinners (so that everyone gets “seconds”) and scoop the meat out onto a platter out in the kitchen……dump the ‘lil cup ’o "mashed potatoes " in with the prepped Hungry Jack stuff, ditto for the itsy-bitsy cranberry sauce servings (in with a can ’o Ocean Spray) They’ve created worse……..

Just buy one of those “collapsible folding chairs” for mother, then the fun will follow.

Any ONE of them is a crowd.