Thanksgiving is my holiday. I get up early, turn on the parade in NYC that's guaranteed to have terrible music, start getting dinner put together, and nip at the extra bottle of cheap red wine I supposedly bought for cooking.

This year was different though.

We had to travel to New York City to be with our daughter Marleigh. Luckily her ailment was caught in time and after a week in at Mount Sinai Beth Israel she was released, looking good!

Pretense aside, this is actually a happy story - watch, you'll see. The hospital staff was really good with Marleigh and when she was moved down from the MICU into another room she had to share it with another patient. She'll stay anonymous but I will say it was an experience to say the least. Ask me in person and I'll tell you. IT was straight up movie material. Back to the story.

Before we drove up to the city Marleigh (and us!) were lucky that she has a ton of friends up there to look after her. One of her friends from Richmond, Rachel, was great about bringing her food and spending time with her. Thanks by the way to everyone who helped Marleigh out while she was there, even those cute, young doctors (you know our daughter is single atm right?)

We stayed at Marleigh's place while were in New York and I contemplated whether or not we would do a Thanksgiving dinner. Everything I bought for it - turkey, sides, pans, etc..., was all in Virginia. The night before Thanksgiving after we visited Marleigh we decided we'd walk to Union Square a few blocks from the hospital to check out Whole Foods. It was close and open by the time we left the hospital. You could guess it was packed! Everyone was trying to get their dinner stuff in order and here we are just mulling over the idea of maybe making one (I'm chuckling right now as I right this.)

You might assume we did roast a turkey because of the header photo for the post and you would be correct! But you know how much we paid for the turkey?

15¢

That's right, $0.15, that much. "How!?" might you ask, Whole Foods stuff costs hundreds of dollars! Well, that's actually not true because our go-to Tuesday night drinking wine, Don Simon Tempranillo, is only $4 and it's does the job.

Back to the turkey.

We shoulder our way through the throngs of people picking through what was left on the shelves and spy a display freezer with some organic turkeys in them. They were priced on average about $35 which isn't bad for being labelled free-ranged and organic. As we dug around we pulled one up from underneath the solid, frozen birds that had us both raise our eyebrows.

It was about a 15 lb turkey priced at 15¢. We did a double take and then expressed awe. The weight was listed wrong and whoever was printing out tags didn't notice? I mentioned that maybe I could ask a manager about buying it at the marked price but Shelby said just go to the register and buy it. Duh, I over-think things sometimes. So I tucked our prize under my arms as if to protect it from anyone who might have caught a whiff of what was going on and went to the front of the store. This was a sign we were supposed to make dinner while we were up there and by god I was going to do it.

Sooo many lines! But I'll have to say the store handle it likes pros and had people out of the store quickly. We would have been out quick too if I hadn't stood in a shopping lane that I thought was a check out line.

Womp, womp.

Union Square BSOD, I had to take a pic lol

We get in the right line and finally to a register. The woman behind the counter grabs the the turkey and passes it over the scanner. What?! That's the look on her face if you can imagine. She swipes the tag again and comes up with the same price. A penny a pound. She looks up at us, gives a little shrug and says what we wanted to hear, "I'm going to go ahead and give it to you for that price." She then smiles and says something about the holidays and it was her birthday soon anyway. I said, "Mine too! November 28th!" We bonded and Shelby and I walked out of the store with the most inexpensive turkey we have ever bought from a store.

We picked up the rest of what we needed elsewhere and took the train home. Try to imagine the two of us carrying bags of groceries from Union Square to the train station to get back to Brooklyn - and it was freezing that night too! I mean it really wasn't that bad I think because of the score we landed. When we got back to the apartment I did some prep work and planned on getting up early the next day like I always do on Thanksgiving. It was queit otherwise and the whole place smelled that way it should when I'm cooking. It felt like home.

The next morning I got up, used Shelby's laptop to watch the parade, and got to work. I was able to manage using what Marleigh and her roommates had in the kitchen to put together a decent meal. Roasted potatoes, stuffing, spaghetti squash, stock for gravy, and of course, the turkey. They have a gas stove and it was nice cooking on gas again, it's been years.

We picked up containers for take-away and got everything packed up when it was done. After we got ourselves ready we took the train downtown. We walked Marleigh down the family day room and setup dinner. Marleigh seemed to like having a homemade dinner and it was nice to be able to spend time with her relaxing during a stressful time.

After dinner we went back to the room and relaxed a bit and watched some TV. Marleigh wasn't released until the next day which she was ecstatic about. She was going a little stir-crazy being stuck in the hospital, she wasn't allowed to leave the building the whole time she was there because she had an IV hookup. Apparently people used to be able to step outside but some patients were caught injecting stuff into their lines outside so they nixed that priviledge to prevent that from happening.

Once we got back to Marleigh's apartment she got cleaned up and we went out for a little dinner then returned to her place. I took the leftover turkey and carved up the meat and portioned it out for her with some gravy in baggies to freeze. All she had to do afterwards is take out whatever portion she wanted to eat and heat it up! I took the rest of the carcass and made turkey soup. Her roommates (who had returned to NY at that point) said it smelled good, that was nice. I told them to help themselves.

We meant to leave Saturday but we ended up going to IKEA Brooklyn and you know how that goes - hours of time browsing. It was fun though and Shelby picked up some shelving for Marleigh to help her organized her stuff. Shelby is huge into organizing and building stuff. I like to cook :)

The next day we got our stuff to leave and Marleigh was going to head to brunch with one of her best friends, Balin. When I went to get the car I notice that a car that looked similar to ours had it's driver's side window shattered. I thought, "Wow that sucks!" Then turned around and walked back towards our group. I turned around again and headed back to our car to pack our stuff. I went to the same car, because it was ours, and realized that our car had been broken into.

@#$%! Com'on man!

So our fairly new car had been broken into and the thief (thieves?) got away with about $4 in change and my old, ratty cheap sunglasses. It only cost us a $500 deductable to fix it. Nice. So we cleaned up what we could and packed the car then found a hardware store to tape up the window. I'll tell you driving 6 hours in a car with plastic taped to your driver's window is no fun. No fun at all.

After my initial pootiness and large coffees we made our way south. Shelby drove about halfway to let me rest a bit which I greatly appreciated. We made good time and I actually went out real quick that night.

This was definitely a trip to remember and we're glad Marleigh is bouncing back and hopefully will have this thing knocked out ASAP.

Driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel towards Virginia Beach

Shelby and I were lucky enough to buy tickets to one of The Landing's chef's dinners recently. This one was held on the Cromwell's Produce farm within the market building. This was after a day of crazy running around that I usually do on a Satruday - and I'll say it was very welcome. The weather became grey on the way out to the Pungo where the farm is located.

Fun fact: Shelby and I were married out in Pungo!

By the time we got there there was a steady drizzle and we were happy to see that the dinner was still on and would be located inside the market building on the property. We got there right on time as the rain started to come down a little bit harder. We saw some familiar faces, including the two walking into below; I mention them for a reason I'll point out later.

After making our way around the space, it was time for a drink! Pleasure House Brewing was on site offering a couple of their brews with and Country Vintner provided wine. Here's what Chef Brent Cowan and crew put together on the menu:

Braised Lamb Shank with Robuchon potatoes, carmerlized Malibu carrots, Zinfandel pan jus.
Crispy Eastern Shore Oysters - pickled succotash, Old Bay Bearnaise, baby arugula.
Maple Leaf Farms Duck Breast - baby kale, candied pecans, dried cranberries, Concord grapes, mountain apples, plum gastrique.
Cartwright Farms Pork Belly - spicy peach glaze, cherrywood smoked potato salad.
Fall Squash Bisque - Alaskan snow crab, shaved nutmeg, micro fennel.

All of our favorite things!

It wasn't long before the place was full (it sold out) and a lot of bottles were opened up loosening up the crowd. The food began to file out - dinner was being served by small plates with the option to eat as many as you desired. Always a bad idea when I'm around, just a fair warning to ya'll out there!

Oh! Remember the couple I told you remember a couple paragraphs ago? They're names are Keith Hunt and Bridget Goeke, I did a little write-up on their pop-up Pro Tem. They Keith popped the question to her that night and she said "Yes", that was pretty exciting!

Brent came out several times to introduce a new course and to check on how everyone was doing. Great - everyone was doing great! Brent asked if I'd like to take a look at the operation in the back which was pretty cool. I always love seeing where the magic happens. Shelby and I got to say meet everyone "back of the house" and Brent even shared a couple of swigs from his Four Roses bottle stashed in the walk-in.

After the tour we went back out to hang out with our new friends Heather and Victor Arcelay that we met through Insta. Great couple and we have a lot in common too. Love meeting people in person through online connections.

As the night winded down and after I attempted to eat everything in sight the crew came out and thanked everyone for coming. They received a standing ovation for the excellent meal and being good people in general - everything was relaxed, delicious, felt homey. Catch the next one if you get the opportunity.

I posted all the photos from the event below, enjoy!

Instafood

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