In Your Face, Indigenous Peoples!

In Your Face, Indigenous Peoples!

Yay! Thanksgiving! Let us gather together as a Christian Catholic group and celebrate the bringing of Heresy to the USA and the crushing of innocent aborigines! Smallpox-infested blankets optional.

It's one of those odd holidays, isn't it? Incomprehensible from a British perspective – you have only just survived a devastating failure of your crops and so how do you celebrate? By eating everything in sight. This, oh illustrious Pilgrim Fathers, demonstrates what we call a failure to plan.

Anyway, 300 years later the ceremony has settled into the following; i) Purchase more food than God ii) cook said food iii) eat it.

So, armed with the aforementioned more food than God, we arrived at Mike's house (the venue for this charming day of gluttony) and let ourselves in. We prepared the turkey and slapped it in the oven with the appropriate trimmings etc. Then we did very little (I had a beer).



(There is a turkey under there - somewhere... (LR) )



And then we waited, and periodically fiddled with various bits of stuff. For those of you who have never cooked an 18lb turkey before, I point you in the direction of the classic abjuration about battle – nine tenths of it is waiting. In fact, it's more than nine tenths – there are flurries of activity interspersed with terrifying periods of soul-crushing ennui. Look, really, this is why people drink whiskey until the whites of their eyes resemble pickled eggs and watch Roger Moore Bond movies at Christmas – there is nothing else to do.

Anyway, at around 1230 hrs our illustrious leader, Michael “Never Knowingly Conscious In The Bottom Half Of The Day” Voris wakes up and ambles downstairs in the manner of a bear who thinks it might have left the gas on before it settled down for its hibernation. He and Liza then proceed to the store to spend yet more money on yet more food – including the de regieur potatoes.

I wait back at the ranch and kill another one and a half hours. The turkey is still doing the turkey thing.

(Men in the kitchen - ahhhhh...bliss (LR) )

Mike and Liza arrive back. Don and Matt arrive with desserts in tow. Sweet Merciful Jesus – the desserts. Okay, there are six of us here – Mike, myself, Liza, Don, Matt and Mike's dad. Mike's dad is convinced that “He can't eat like that any more” and tends to push his plate away after looking at a sausage. There are six of us.



We have seven desserts – two mince tarts, a cherry chart, a cake, some fudge, a pumpkin pie and a cheesecake. We also have nibbly things, an 18 lb turkey, batter puddings, stuffing, potatoes, about 15 pints of gravy, sausages wrapped in bacon, vegetables, sweet potatoes and enough beer to make Germany think twice.

(Mmmmm...chocolate..... (LR) )

There are six of us.


(The rest of the guys, waiting for the feast. (LR) )


Anyway, the hour draws near. The turkey comes from the oven and is cooked and lovely. Then we begin the flurry to do everything else in the last remaining hour. Yes, for those of you who have never cooked a large meal before, heads up – you cannot boil the carrots at 10 in the morning and then expect them to still work at 4 in the afternoon. It does not work that way. An 18lb turkey takes longer to cook than a batter pudding.

Oh., mum? I finally managed to get batter puddings to work – dunno how. I was a little drunk at this stage and can't remember the exact proportions I used. But they worked – look, a photo.

(These were perfect and tasted fantastic! (LR) )


Anyway, we then ate until we were full. And by “full” I mean “my stomach is dangerously distended and I fear that if I am to move I will rupture.”

We then sat down and tried to digest this vast amount. Mike, Matt and I had a discussion about the nature of authentic Christianity while Liza, Don and Russ went to sleep and digested their meals.

So, a microcosm of the Church, there.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Commentary and photos by LR)

More photos:

(Gotta love the mess of cooking for a planet. (LR) )


(The bird emerges.... (LR) )


(Mike and his dad, Russ, carving up Simon's Masterpiece (LR) )


(The table all set and pretty (LR) )


(Yep - I was there too, usually cooking or behind the camera. (LR) )