Thanksgiving Blessings and Thoughts (America, bible, Biblical, Abraham)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
On this eve of Thanksgiving, 2010, we can all give thanks that our country and our families are able to celebrate in ways that elude many on this Earth. (Despite whatever misguided politics may be responsible,. let's never forget the sacrifices our troops are making in other Godforsaken places on this planet. Let's get them back home before another year passes...)
The Thanksgiving celebration is certainly not necessarily religious, though many may well invoke their personal spiritual beliefs in the celebration. This truly is one of the greatest freedoms we continue to enjoy in Western civilizations and America in particular.
Our little ongoing fun-filled conversations here on C-D perpetrate such freedoms, giving us a stage for the interchange of each other's ideas, thus cultivating and fertilizing our interest in the politics, philosophies and science, and therefore the very future, of our civilization.
And so I raise a glass to the family here on C-D's R&P forum, to our continued intellectual exchanges, and to the knowledge and understanding that such open and honest inquiry promotes. And special thanks and appreciation to the moderators as well. You guys can have an extra helping of stuffing!
Oh, and enjoy the little Evolved T-Rexs you'll be nibbling on come Thursday afternoon!!
Thanksgiving gives people an opportunity to promote their agenda whether it is political or religious or whatever. "We can Thank god for....", "Thanksgiving blessings...in godforsaken places...", etc.
The Thanksgiving meal is by far the most overrated meal in history. Bland, tasteless, high calorie: potatoes, rolls, stuffing, bland turkey, corn, squash, gravy (does anybody ever eat gravy other than Thanksgiving?) etc. A meal with early American roots with no spices.
Another opportunity to heighten and expose family tensions, skeletons in the closet, etc. Come on, how many moms out there really like their son's wife? How many dads out there really like their daughter's husband? What about Uncle Joe? Will he get too drunk again and embarrass everyone?
If the hostess or host is asked "Is there anything I can help you with?" more than three times, it means people are bored.
Many people (think they) dress up for this special day. Guaranteed they'll be some guy wearing brown shoes with black pants or wearing a brown belt with black shoes (or vice versa).
For you history buffs, there's always a discussion of the "true meaning of Thanksgiving":
"And then the Pilgrims arrived.
When the Pilgrims came to New England they too were coming not to vacant land but to territory inhabited by tribes of Indians. The story goes that the Pilgrims, who were Christians of the Puritan sect, were fleeing religious persecution in Europe. They had fled England and went to Holland, and from there sailed aboard the Mayflower, where they landed at Plymouth Rock in what is now Massachusetts.
Religious persecution or not, they immediately turned to their religion to rationalize their persecution of others. They appealed to the Bible, Psalms 2:8: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."
This year we have to be thankful for the misunderstanding between the scientists and the political believers in diplomacy remaining in a state of non-violence. And also, of course, China increases it's taxes on inappropriate work and profit; and America lowers it's taxes upon the selfish mistakes as well as the criminal ones.
Well thx to those with a positive message, and since I've now had my very special bourbon toast, I don't gived a flying frick about you others. BTW, as a sort of modest amateur cheffy type, I'm prepping a roast pork alå the Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Camaro-driving fella, "Guy" is his name I believe. Yeah, turkey is traditional, and it does sure smell good, but I wanted to try something out of the ordinary. To investigate the fringes of culinaria, so to speak.
To start with? A classic Japanese Sunomono noodle and rice vinegar salad to start, with fresh large prawns that have been briefly broiled and lightly brined.
Then: Butterflied roast pork (remember: there were wild javelina in America back in the day...) with ribs in, and with a garlic basil pine-nut pesto rolled into it, then re-rolled and tied up, ribs aiming skyward. Garnished & finished under the broiler with a chipotle glaze. All set in a slow roast (210˚ F for 4 - 5h until drop off tender and moist) pan in which I've laid scads of onions, celery, carrots and turnips all chopped and laying in the base of the pan. The resulting au jus veggy and pork renderings sauce is hardly the bland, heavy stuff of traditional turkey gravy. You can even add to that baste and broil mixture a sprinkle of the Nectar of the Gods; specifically a good Bourbon (Evan Williams Single Barrel is the best, IMHO...)
{NOTE: I briefly entertained the idea of harvesting about 24 of the vast quail flock my generous ongoing winter feeding rituals have created out of the original 10 on our property 5 years ago. The current countable population: 150+ hungry, fat birds.
It's also created a target-rich environment for the local rough-legged hawk pair, who visit and dine out at least once a day, which is helpful since I'm running out of names for all them cute little quails. And hawks are so nifty; so nicely evolved and all! So I'll probably recall some of the huge $$$ I've invested in ground corn, millet, wheat, etc., over the last 4 years and "reduce the herd", as it were. Just not this year ('cause secretly, I loves 'em all...)}
Meantime, at the amazing Uwajimaya Japanese superstore in Seattle a few days ago ,we picked up some of the new purple yams that apparently have about 3X the nutritive value of the regular ones, and a rich taste. I'll split and then foil-wrap and convection-bake them, and baste them for the past 10 minutes with a cinnamon-butter-brown sugar glaze.
Veggies? The obligatory Brussel's sprouts, first boiled to "vegetable al-dente", but then briefly broiled, yep, with a secret brush-on garlic, olive oil & sea salt glaze. Plus carrots Jullienned a bit hard, but then briefly flashed in Mirin to carmelize & finish them.
And some other veggie dish not yet decided, as per my wife's desires.
Next: Several loaves of my own French bread baguettes, the recipe for which I've worked on for, oh, about 10 years. All with some excellent WA St. champs, plus a few other red & white variants for those who want to try them out. Of course, lots of our own amazingly excellent and natural deep-well chilled well water, spiced with fresh lemon twists.
So, enjoy if you are of such a mind. As to the original thanksgivings, and to our Native American friends, my continued apologies for the behavior of my white/British ancestors way back then. You really ought to have been more aggressive in repelling them as they landed, but hey: they looked nice enough, right? Sorta like a Democrat politician during an election season....
Thanksgiving is the most unique day on the American calendar: it's the only day set aside as a day of thanking G-d, that is celebrated, each in their own manner, by the 3 Abrahamic religions.
The American pilgrims, who originated the Thanksgiving holiday, were deeply religious people. When they were trying to find a way to express their thanks for their survival and for the harvest, they looked to the Bible for an appropriate way of celebrating and based their celebration in part on the 7-day Jewish Biblical Festival of Sukkot (Lev. 23:33-43).
There is an almost unbroken line of presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations, beginning with George Washington on October 3, 1789, with one thing in common: Thanksgiving Day is a day for thanking G-d.
Portions of many of the past presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations were included in the resurrected New York Sun's annual Thanksgiving editorial, before the Sun stopped publishing.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Dinner.
