On Strike for Thanksgiving

The holidays wouldn’t be complete without a little commotion—there has to be at least one big blowup, at least one unrelated disaster, and at least one kitchen mishap. Fortunately, none of that happens in the Kochesfahani household. Unless you count a Thanksgiving strike, a collapsing ceiling, and a burnt turkey as commotion.

Most people look forward to spending the holidays with their family and friends, but let’s be honest—it’s no secret that Thanksgiving is centered around the mass quantities of food. Quite honestly, I’ve never been a huge fan of the typical kinds of food served on Thanksgiving. Stuffing? Mashed potatoes? Cranberry sauce? It’s all pilgrim food, if you ask me.

Since I was in charge of doing the grocery shopping this year anyway, I took matters into my own hands and altered the usual dinner menu. I had already been making desserts for several hours on Tuesday when my brother and I got into a fight. I was in the middle of stirring the pumpkin mixture for my pumpkin trifle—it has to be thoroughly combined without being over-stirred—when Brian began demanding that I give back his Xbox controller (which I stole when we got into a fight the day before; yes, we still fight like cats and dogs at times).

Meanwhile, my dad didn’t want to hear Brian’s incessant whining, so he insisted that I go get the controller. I was ferociously stirring while firing back my argument and in a need to be dramatic, I pushed the massive bowl of pudding and pumpkin across the counter (hoping it would spill but secretly praying that it wouldn’t), as I exclaimed that I was going on a Thanksgiving strike and stormed up the stairs. Sure, I was throwing a temper tantrum, but at least I’ve matured since the days of throwing myself face-down on the floor and kicking and screaming while tears streamed down my face.

I willed myself to stay upstairs and to follow through on my strike, but my bowl of orange-colored filling sat untouched and unspilled on the counter. It was only a matter of minutes before I resorted to going back downstairs. Not without making an entrance, of course. While quietly stirring, I reprimanded my dad for ruining the quintessential dish of the entire Thanksgiving meal and went on a tangent that I did not spend hours cooking for the food to turn out “all right.” Needless to say, Brian did not get his Xbox controller that night, but I did finish my trifle.

On Thanksgiving morning, I met my friend Jamie, who is home for the holiday, at the NCR Trail. We spent two hours walking, catching up, and laughing—mostly at the passersby on the trail. One woman, who was riding on a scooter being pulled by two dogs, yelled out, “On your left! Dogs! Dogs!” We even saw a tricycle thrown into a tree; someone must have gotten aggravated while riding their bike.

As I was driving home, I called Natalie and she told me that we were having some issues at home. I asked her to define “issues” and she told me that the entire ceiling in our kitchen had collapsed. My parents are renovating their bathroom and my dad somehow thought that Thanksgiving morning was an ideal time to get a start on demolishing the shower. Natalie had exaggerated a bit, but the ceiling did start caving inward and leaking.

In addition to omitting a few foods (like sauerkraut), I also took the liberty of buying a 20-pound fresh premium turkey, which supposedly had more white meat than a regular turkey. Instead of taking six hours to cook, the turkey was ready in just under five hours. It wasn’t exactly burnt, but it was definitely cooked a little longer than we would have preferred. Other than that, I timed everything perfectly and we sat down to eat at 6pm on the dot.

I hoped that my sweet potato soufflé would be a success, but I was extremely hesitant to see if my homemade Parker House rolls turned out. Any recipe that calls for yeast has always been intimidating to me, but I was surprised to find out that they were relatively easy to make. The rolls were delicious and were even better with my parmesan butter that whipped up!

I covered my plate with plenty of turkey, green beans, fried confetti corn, spinach and cheese balls, zucchini and peppers, and a roll. The food was yummy and everyone agreed that the recipes were keepers!

After we cleaned up, we all changed out of our nice clothing and into our Ravens gear.

We got cozy on the sofas and watched the game with my aunt and uncle.

Even though I wasn’t at the game, it was still fun to watch NFL history, especially since the better Harbaugh brother won!

We enjoyed dessert during halftime, but only ate our way through two of the three desserts. The mystery dessert that I made the other day turned into Girl Scout Samoas Cookie Bark—chocolate, caramel, and coconut is incredible.

We followed the bark with warm, homemade apple pie and vanilla ice cream.

I was exhausted at the end of the night and crashed as soon as the game was over!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, what was your favorite part of the meal? If you don’t, what was the best thing you ate yesterday?

Does your family ever get into arguments on holidays? Have any funny stories to tell?