giving thanks in der schweiz

well, adam keeps trying to needle me about how canadian thanksgiving is in october, so he can never remember when they do it in the states. my retort, obviously, is that swiss thanksgiving is when *i* say it will be, so who really cares? hahaha. anyway, it's really just a convenient excuse to throw a freaking huge party.

as you might have guessed, gentle reader, swiss thanksgiving, by my decree, was this last saturday.

"and i saw every thing that i had made, and, behold, it was very good. and the evening and the morning were the 2nd of december."

(okay, yes, i know i'm a jackass, but damn, i crack myself up sometimes.)

right, well, on with the summarizing. friday, as per tradition, was "pie night." now, unfortunately, we didn't get to make a full "pie-cosahedron" (thanks go to dule for the link). but i did make two pumpkin (starting from the whole real pumpkin, of course), two pecan, and two apple. tia made brownies, and jim made a FABULOUS cheesecake. he insists that its just because i've been deprived for so damn long, but my god, was it good. seriously. delicious.

the last of the apple pies came out of the oven around 3:45am, and i got to take a "nap" between 0400 and 0600 when i had to get up and go fetch my 200 franc turkey (12 kilograms) from the butcher. incidentally, i realized later that i had made a serious mistake in forgetting to ask the nice butcher if he would dispose of the guts for me. that has been strongly noted for next year. i mean, it was dis-tur-bing. honestly the only thing that actually got me to do it was the fact that i knew if i didn't there would be some 40 people without food later that evening. and it wasn't just like scooping them out, either---it's more of a rip-and-tear the connective tissue kinda deal. and i was in it elbow deep. ick.

but i'm getting ahead. first maurice and i had to get everything out of the kitchen and into the car. when it started spilling all over everything, i realized that for reasons unknowable, despite having mixed the filling for the two pecan pies together in the same bowl, and subsequently baking them simultaneously in the same oven on the same rack, one of them set, and the other one didn't... explain me that one, please. anyway, all the stuff in the car, and try to drive to karen's. get lost multiple times. eventually arrive 40 minutes later. get unpacked, and actually start making the stuffing around 10:30ish. then there was the blood-and-guts incident i described, and i think it finally went into the oven at around noon. at which point yours truly consented to follow the advice of those suggesting that he go upstairs and take a nap. it was wonderful.

half an hour later when i came back down, more people had showed up, and more continued to show up. we continued casually preparing and merry-making, and eventually served up the main meal probably around 6:00pm. not bad, if i do say so myself.

and now is probably an appropriate time for me to recount the major epiphany that i had this year, which made my life much easier and happier. you see, it used to be that there would be people around wanting to help, but that means you have to find things for them to do, at which point it becomes difficult to keep up with the things that you are trying to do yourself at the same time (because if you do less work than you delegate, why did you delegate it?). well, see, my new rationalization is this: organizing (delegating/finding things for other people to do) is a *full-time job.* because, really, it is. and it worked out beautifully. i was less stressed, and everybody still seemed to be happy. mission accomplished.

at some point, somebody even broke out a monopoly set, and there were a couple of games that went on over the course of the evening.

oh, and one of the other lessons learned: don't bother buying bread. it always ends up getting forgotten in a corner and distributed as party favors at the end. as krister (or was it dule?) deftly pointed out, bread is usually used as a filler, and with all the other good food (especially stuffing, which is mostly bread itself), why do we need filler? good point. no more bread next year. speaking of stuffing though, i tried to be more healthy and skimped on the butter and eggs. it still got eaten, but in my opinion, it was less tasty. don't sacrifice the flavor, man!

i guess the rest is really just details... a great time was had by all, most of all me (which is the important part, right?), and it was particularly awesome that dule came from zurich and martin from berlin. apparently news of my renowned thanksgiving parties is spreading. (eh, spare me a little vanity from time to time; lord knows it doesn't happen often. [grin])