Thanksgiving leftovers

Okay. You need to understand something about our microwave: it’s old. We’re talkin’ 16 years. We’ve had it longer than we’ve been married, so we’re a little attached to it. I mean, the thing has as much sentimental value as our wedding rings--practically. But, because it’s old, food takes 5 times as long to heat. People often ask why we don’t get a new one. The biggest reason: because it’s roomy (we might have another baby someday and could possibly use it as a nursery).

Anyway, you need to know all that because everyone rolls their eyes at me when I heap a pile of Thanksgiving leftovers on my plate and punch in 5 or 6 minutes on the keypad. See, I like my food to get so hot that I have to wait for it to cool down before I eat it. (Plus, it’s pretty cool to see turkey shrapnel stuck to the inside walls of the microwave). Besides, have you ever tried reheating mashed potatoes? The things just don’t get hot unless you torch ‘em! Plus there’s the leftover gravy--now more like a tub of Jello gone wrong—that needs to melt and you can’t do it without investing the right amount of time. And it is an investment, because there is nothing better than Thanksgiving leftovers. That is, prepared the way I do.

What Heather does with Thanksgiving leftovers, on the other hand…um…that’s just so wrong in so many ways.

Although I do enjoy Thanksgiving dinner, I actually love the leftovers best. Unlike Troy, I eat most of my leftovers stone cold, with the exception of an occasional bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy, and sweet potatoes. Very often I will not eat any turkey or stuffing hot except for in the kitchen before I serve dinner, and at the dinner table. I almost never eat leftover green bean casserole. I like it the day of, but I never end up eating it again after the fact.

I love to make sandwiches of cold turkey, stuffing (we call it that rather than dressing because I cook it STUFFED inside the turkey and please do not leave me comments saying that I will die of salmonella or something like that. My family has been eating it that way for generations and nobody has ever gotten sick) jellied cranberry sauce, butter and salt and pepper. I eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack.

Moving on to pie. I love my pie cold too. Often I will not actually eat any Thanksgiving pie until breakfast on the day after Thanksgiving. Especially when we have Thanksgiving here in Spain because we often do not eat until 7 or so at night since nobody gets the day off here. After eating dinner that late I can’t handle pie too. But I find it very satisfactory as a breakfast food.