"Over The River And Through The Woods"

Andrew and I will be in Minnesota for Thanksgiving.

We will leave very early Thursday morning. If our flight is on time, we will walk in the door of Andrew’s parents’ house a few minutes past 9:00 a.m. Thanksgiving morning.

There are four daily non-stops each way between Boston and Minneapolis. Because of headwinds, flights from Boston to Minneapolis take 3 hours and 20 minutes, but flights from Minneapolis to Boston take only 2 hours and 45 minutes.

I have no classes tomorrow, so Andrew and I cooked up a storm this evening. I think both of us have food on our minds, as we are looking forward to a Thanksgiving feast, so we decided, ourselves, to get things underway early.

Tonight we prepared and ate a six-course dinner. There was no theme to the meal and, strictly speaking, the courses were eaten out of order, but we did not mind. We had a lot of fun preparing the stuff and listening to music—and we managed to get rid of lots of food we otherwise would have to discard, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, which was the purpose of our work.

Our first course was white-bean soup (we had leftover ham we wanted to use). Our second course was a seafood soufflé (we had small amounts of different seafoods we wanted to use). Our third course was fettuccini with shredded steamed vegetables and a light Alfredo sauce (we had small amounts of diverse fresh vegetables we wanted to use). Our fourth course was boiled chicken, which we ate with white rice and fresh green beans (the main event around which we planned everything else). Our fifth course was fresh fruit salad, made with bits of everything from pineapple to coconut to grapes to apples to oranges to peaches to raisins to nuts, put together with whatever fruit we were trying to use. Our sixth course was pear/chocolate tarts, which we made from scratch (they actually turned out).

I think we will do the same thing tomorrow night. Already, I know we will have the rest of the white-bean soup, and make another fresh fruit salad.

Andrew and I decided tonight that we want to put up a Christmas tree after we return from Thanksgiving in Minneapolis. We did not erect a Christmas tree either of the last two years, but that was because we spent much of the last two Decembers at Andrew’s parents’ house, where there was a large tree to enjoy.

This year, we think we may need a Christmas tree to make our December festive. Our problem is where to put the tree. Our apartment is small, and there is no obvious place to erect a tree.

Andrew says we may be forced to put the tree in the bathtub!