Here we are friends, you first Tuesday dinner with my family. I have to say, you picked an excellent meal to join us with ! What a fun night.
Dad made his amazing grilled turkey. It is always moist, and smokey and sweet. Just the smell walking up to the house was enough to make your mouth water. He always uses applewood along with the charcoal when grilling turkey and I think that might be the trick. There were also sugar snap peas lightly sauted in butter, mashed butternut squash, homemade scalloped potatoes and of course bread. Tonight’s bread was simply home made white bread. Soft and tender with just the right amount of crust.
A couple different red wines accompanied the meal (there are usually at least two different types any given night), apple cider, water and milk for those of us not drinking wine at the moment.
As the food passes around little miss I am almost two is sticking her fingers into everything except her own plate (perhaps that is because she was sampling dinner as Papa was cutting it up to serve). A small lull in conversations lasts only for a brief second as we all start to dive into our food.
The volume quickly goes up from there. Conversation about the food erupts, as Nikki who formally only liked dark turkey meat is enjoying the breast meat thoroughly, and Chris decided that the new wine Dad pulled out was maybe a little too spicy for his tastes. I remind my sister Amanda I do not like green peas so feel free to pass those on. Aunt Royleen declares miss sassy pants needs some turkey skin before the terrible twos erupt and the baby starts to yell, just for fun from her walker seat.
Now to truly follow along you must be an expert eves dropper and be paying attention to make sure a question wasn’t being directed at your amidst the request for butter to be passed.
Tonight Dad was sharing with us about how growing up the motto was: He who eats the fastest, eats the most. He retold a tale about how one night at the dinner table as a boy there happened to be an extra biscuit and his brother George licked the bottom of the biscuit and set it by his plate, thinking he had laid claim to it. Not to be out done my father promptly licked the top of the biscuit and set it by his plate. Needless to say, they split the biscuit that night. This story lead to me sharing about how when the same Uncle came to visit when I was young would pour us a glass of milk and say “Say When.” And he kept pouring, and pouring, even though we wailed Stop! No more! That milk spilled everywhere until we finally yelled WHEN!!
“Please pass the girly red wine.”
“Please pass the cider.”
“Girly wine, kinda like my girly light beer?”
“Where did the toddler go?”
“Would someone please give the baby something to chew on?!”
“So guess what I did the other day.”–Oh that one is directed at me!
So neighbor Nikki, described a great day about how she recently visited a farm locally and got to visit the cows (She is an awesome photographer who is working on her very own magazine publishing!). Wanting to get some great pictures of the cows she lay down in the field (with the farmer near by) and waited for the cows to approach her. And sure enough one by one the creeped closer and one would lick her shoe and another would sniff her hair until they were all circled around her. Then the bull came and the farmer said it was time to go!
Time for dessert! Apple Pudding Cake with whipped cream. Yumm what a rich fall treat! Apple pudding cake is a soft spice cake with chunks of apples mixed in the batter. Then through the magic of baking the apple cider, spices, chunks of apples and raisins become a pudding on the bottom. Fresh hommade whipped cream adds just a touch of decadence. Everyone is well into enjoying their dessert when Mom sits down with hers after dishing it out… and she makes a face. She is not impressed, apparently it tastes “not right” to her. This is clearly Dads fault because he used the pan she wanted to bake it in for the potatoes. She wanted a glass pan and used and aluminum one. While their might be some validity to the aluminium causing an off flavor because of the acidity of the cider, no one was complaining! In fact the boys are on to seconds.
“Please leave enough for our little equestrian when she gets back from her pony party!”
Time to help clean up the dishes. Oh a birthday coming up soon? Well, its yours first one with us! You get to choose your meal and dessert.
“Turtle cheescake for both.” “Well maybe something Italian for dinner, not spaghetti.”
“Home made ravioli!”
“Its not your birthday.”
“I’m just saying….”
And on tapers the conversations while the Littles get tired and start drifting off and people start saying their good-nights and head for home.
I hope you enjoyed your time with us tonight. We all sincerely look forward to seeing you again. You are always welcome, and everyone was glad to hear you would be joining us tonight.
The Tuesday Table 