The Man Who Smiled

My nephew, Mark, is engaged to the most wonderful woman, Trina. We had Thanksgiving at his house this year and we started the festivities with a toast to the couple. The wedding will be at the end of March. We are all beyond happy.

I cooked the meal with help from all friends. It was really good. We started with a magnificent hot crab dip that Natalie made. Wow. We had olives and salami and a great cheese that Karen and I found that reminded us of the cheese vendor in a market on our canal trip. I fixed Smoked Paprika/roasted pepper soup that Adrian decorated with sour cream and cilantro. Wow that was good.
The turkey was perfect. We were very lucky to have it, since I didn't think to order it early. Karen and I went to the Ferry Building farmer's market on Tuesday to gather food for the day. I don't know why I thought this great market would have my turkey without knowing I was coming. We lucked out and got an 18 lb. bird, no doubt because I looked like I was going to cry.
I made pancetta and ciabatta rosemary stuffing. And was surprised that they liked it. We had a butternut squash layered with creamed spinash; cranberry/zucchini muffins, slaw with pears and grapes, and mashed potatoes with candied shallots. Groan, moan. Dessert was pumpkin pie with ginger ice cream (or Kool Whip) and samples of wedding cake.

Thanksgiving included Trina and her mother, on the far left of the left photo. Maggie is looking over my shoulder at the book her mom made for me to celebrate my birthday this summer. It is full of great photos and thoughts from that very fun weekend. On the right you can see Maggie enjoying her dear grandmother. Karen is a great grandmother. She and Peter played with Maggie all evening. Maggie plays great by herself, but she is hard to leave to her own devices. I read one of Natalie's favorite books to Maggie. It always makes Natalie cry. I think Maggie might have been disappointed that I didn't cry. I did love having the little sweetie in my lap, but the book was about a grandmother who puts broken special things into a cupboard. All I could think about was how strange it is to take up real estate with broken stuff. The grandmother's idea is that it is just stuff. What matters is the memories of where they came from and the memories of using them. I know I have a few special things, but it's still just stuff. Maybe the grandmother had a really big house and lots of room to keep broken things.

My dear friend, Per, is a great reader. He tends to read in languages that would look like Scandanavian scratchings to me. He likes mysteries as do I. (Did you know that?) He's been recommending books about this Swedish guy. I found a Kurt Wallender book in Audible and thought I would try it. This is The Man Who Smiled, not Mark, although I like Mark much better than the guy in the title of this book. This is a series. So I think I came into the middle of it. As with most series, it doesn't matter. I like the detective. He is a little depressed, but what Swede isn't. It is a good example of the genre. And it was fun to hear Swedish names and places spoken out loud. I even heard about a guy named Per! I appear to be pronouncing it correctly. I'm just glad our Per does not have some of these other gutteral names. I may read other books by this author. But I think I will read about the Master Butcher's Singing Club next.

Oh, did I say that I am flying to India on Thursday. :)