Starting with Halloween every year, things are kind of non-stop for us through the end of the holiday season. This year, I honestly felt like we were in good shape to get everything done in a reasonable timeframe, but toward the end of the month, things took a turn.
I started the month with an interesting cooking project. We used to be able to get ribeye cap at our local Costco. (A ribeye kind of has two parts – its center eye and the separate round of fat-striated muscle around it.) It was delightful, because it was bar-none some of the most flavorful meat I’ve ever eaten, and it had the added bonus of being unrecognizable to many people. Well, Costco stopped selling it. Maybe people wanted their ribeyes with the caps still intact; I can’t blame them.
One of our local meat experts, Jess Pryles, posted a video showing how to start with a whole ribeye roll, separate the cap (the spinalis dorsi, for you anatomy nerds), and cut the remaining ribeye rounds into thick, lovely steaks. And so Sean bought the single-most expensive piece of meat we’ve every purchased, and I proceeded to try my best to not screw it up.
I separated the ribeye cap, taking care to trim away all the silver skin and weird bits that would ruin the texture of the cooked meat. I trimmed off what Ms Pryles called “the tail” from the remaining loin-like part of the steak. This resulted in huge piles of hard fat and a nice strip of meat that I piled up with some other meaty scraps. Later I ground these meat scraps up and again vacuum sealed and froze for future burgers. Then I tied the remaining ribeye center into good, thick sections and cut it into steaks. I kept out one piece of ribeye cap for immediate grilling. I vacuum sealed and froze the center-cut steaks and the remaining piece of ribeye cap. Later on, I rendered the beef fat to make a nice pile of tallow that I vacuum sealed and froze for future meat-pie projects. (There may be better ways, but I did this by dicing up the fat and cooking it in my slow cooker over low for something like 12 hours, stirring it occasionally.)
The grilled ribeye cap was amazing. In deference to Maya’s aversion to grilled food, I kept a serving aside and cooked it on the stovetop for her. All of this was served with a lovely red wine, Eight Years in the Desert, by Orin Swift (in case I want to remember later). All the Woodses were big fans of the steak, but especially Ian may be our next grilled meat connoisseur. He wanted to know if we could eat that for dinner every night. No, son. Neither our cholesterol-levels nor our wallets can afford that.
The weekend of the 11th and 12th, we went to Inks Lake State Park for the makeup Cub Scout campout that had been rained out in October. We got all of our training done ahead of time. We filled out all our forms. We set out all our things to pack up. We made sure we had non-grilled options for Maya.
We showed up at camp just a little early, so we wouldn’t have to rush before the scouts’ opening ceremony. We had just eaten lunch, gotten ourselves checked in, and were setting up our tent with a minimum of fuss. And then, I went to lay out the sleeping bags. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. We hadn’t brought them. The night before, we had chosen to leave them in the closet when we laid things out, so the cats wouldn’t mess with them. Whoops. After some quick discussion, we decided there was nothing for it but to go back and get them. Sean and Maya went all the way back to our house, a little over an hour away, grabbed the sleeping bags, and then drove all the way back … for a camping trip that would last a grand total of maybe 24 hours.
It turns out, there’s not a lot of downtime on a cub scout campout. There’s hiking and cooking and tent set up and meeting and eating and campfire singing and sleeping and closing ceremonies and camp breakdown and woooooooo, it was nonstop. Even though it wasn’t our den’s turn to handle the cooking chores, I volunteered to help, figuring my ability to volunteer otherwise would be limited. Ian climbed trees, sang campfire songs, and made s’mores. Plus he hung out with his scout friends. I think especially for him it was a good trip.
We rushed home and bathed quickly so we could all go to Maya’s music performance. Several members of her music school did sort of an open mic outdoor event at a small local concert venue. First, there were singers and songwriters performing. The first lady who performed, played her guitar and sang songs that she had written herself. Maya was entranced.
Maya’s performance later on was sort of funny. They usually arrange the piano students in order of increasing complexity, but there was a significant jump in difficulty in the piece Maya played and the one prior to her. So here comes Maya, hoodie pulled up, walking with absolute focus to that stage. She plops down, shoves up the sleeves of her hoodie, and proceeds to play a very well-practiced piano piece. Singer-songwriter lady was sitting next to me, and I heard an audible, “wow” as Maya played. It was awesome.
During the week, in between music lessons and swim lessons and choir practices, we snuck in a concert with the kids. We are in the alleged live music capital of world, after all. We went down to Parish and watched a Korean surf band called Say Sue Me play. Opening for them were a local band called Skateland. I think Maya and Ian liked it well enough, but it was a “standing up concert,” and they got worn out on that after a while. It got late enough that we didn’t even get to stay for all of Say Sue Me’s set. Our elementary school kids did have class the next day.
Maya’s birthday this year was at Playland Skate Center. She invited a handful of friends and they skate-skate-skated the night away. Ian discovered at that party that he really loves roller blades. That kid was flying by the end of the party. Maya for her part at one point contentedly sighed, grinning, and said, “It’s so nice to have friends.”
She had detailed specifications for her birthday cake this year. She wanted a kitty cake, vanilla with orange icing. But the icing couldn’t just be colored orange; she wanted it to be flavored orange as well. We pulled it off! Thanks to combining recipes I have since closed in my web browser, I think I augmented regular buttercream with some orange juice and orange zest. It was really delicious! (I wish I had written it down.)
On the day of Maya’s birthday, we took her out to eat at Maggiano’s. Gone are the days of kids’ menus, so Maya had a giant bowl of shrimp scampi and Ian had a giant bowl of linguine and clams. However, something you can do at Maggiano’s is order a take-home pasta for $6 for every adult entree you purchase. We figured we could put them in the freezer for nights we didn’t feel like cooking. We went home with a baked ziti, a lasagna, and a spaghetti and meat ball to stock our freezer.
Immediately following Maya’s birthday, we all boarded a very early flight to Orlando to spend a few days at Universal! I wrote about that trip in more detail in a separate post (with separate photos). It was an excellent trip and for visiting Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios, I think we definitely had plenty of time to see all we wanted to see with three park days.
Since we would be out of town the four days immediately preceding thanksgiving, I tried some do-ahead magic. We bought on package each of turkey thighs and legs and I made a confit. Then I cooled it completely, ensuring the meat was mostly submerged in the fat, and then stored the whole mess in the fridge to reheat once we were back. I planned for side dishes with easily stored ingredients and shorter cooking times: mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, a green bean saute for which I’d use frozen beans, and the must-have cornbread dressing. I was a little antsy about how well the celery would weather the week in the fridge, so I finally decided to try the “wrap it in aluminum foil” trick. And then, in case the celery would rot anyway, I diced some up and stuck it in the freezer.
I needn’t have worried. The foil-wrapped celery looked fresh from the store. My confit turkey reheated like a charm, and the kids more or less found something they’d be willing to eat from our spread.
Earlier in the month, we had booked a visit to the light show at Mozart’s for the day after Thanksgiving (when I prefer to start considering Christmas). In the past, pre-pandemic, we just kind of showed up and hung out and watched the lights. Now it’s a whole ticketed event. After getting some hot chocolate (some of us got peppermint and some got Mexican with cinnamon), we found our prepaid table and settled in. We saw their light show, synced to popular music. In between light show numbers, they had a college-level music student playing their light-drenched piano (which turned out to be a keyboard set in a piano body). He did an excellent job and it was a treat to hear him play. I bet you can’t guess which composer’s music he performed (it was Mozart). It was a fun way to see the lights this year, but it didn’t feel as festive as it has in years-past.
And then, over the next few days, every single Woods in our house fell prey to some kind of craptacular fever, headache, snotty, coughing illness that lingered for several days and zapped us all (yes even the kids) of our energy. It was all we could do to make sure everyone had food to eat (Maggiano’s and leftover Thanksgiving food, FTW!) and had meds on a schedule. Ian and Sean had the worst fevers – up in the 103 degree range. Maya and I had the worst of the coughing – she finally seems to be past it, but even a month later, I’m still coughing. That’s how we closed out our month: belting down meds and chicken soup, watching our lead on holiday planning dwindle to nothing and then become a deficit. Alas.
