1. Make your own cranberry sauce! Seriously. Do it. You have no excuse. It takes a half hour, you can do it whenever and throw it in the fridge, and it is so much better than the purple cylinder that comes from a can. Here’s how to do it:

- Get 12 oz of cranberries (they come in a 12 oz package in the produce section.)
- Add (are you ready? this is the hard step…) 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 2 cinnamon sticks, 3 cloves, half an orange peel (just the orange, get as little white part as you can), and the juice of 1 full orange.
- Simmer until most of the berries break.
- Cool; remove the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and orange peel. (okay, really, this is the hard step. Finding the cloves can be tough.)

If you’re missing some of those ingredients, improvise (some ground cinnamon instead of sticks, for example).

2. Timing, timing, timing. It’s about 50% of good cooking.

3. Boil your potatoes a little longer than usual if you’re going to mash them.

4. Almonds and green beans go well together. Cook the green beans more than I did, though.

5. Make your own stuffing croutons! I didn’t, but I should have. Get some bread about 2 days before, cut it into cubes, and leave it out to get all hard. The harder, the better. I guess you could toast it too; I didn’t think about that.

6. If you put this meal together competently, and you’re not expected to know how to (say, if you’re a college student), people will talk about how great it is so much that it’ll make you uncomfortable.

7. Listen to the band BOAT; they’re what might have happened if Wolf Parade had been less whiny and more happy. Of course, I judge bands based entirely on singers' voices, so that may not be accurate. RIYL: any of those goddamn cutesy bands like Architecture in Helsinki. Starting points: Quickly and Quietly, Last Cans of Paint.

8. If Tom Robbins started a religion, I would probably follow it. Also, dudes and Christianity are messing up our world. Read Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

9, 10, and 11. Thank you for everything; I have no complaints whatsoever.

Comments:

Anonymous - Nov 0, 2006

Good call about making Thanksgiving dinner. Did you go home for it? I obviously couldn’t, so my flatmates and I did the traditional American feast. I stuffed and baked the turkey and made mashed potatoes and gravy and my friends covered the other things (including the home made cranberry sauce).

Also I just got back from Copenhagen today, which was very cool. I’ll tell you about it some time. Hope you’re still enjoying yourself.

- Erik