Leftovers

Turkey Day was a success this year! Kudos to everyone involved.

Since my dad is in Seattle visiting my newborn nephew, I could not spend Turkey Day with him. I am going to Seattle for winter break when I'll have two weeks off. My plan for TD was initially to just stay at home and watch the game. I don't do holidays, so it doesn't make a difference to me.

It was kinda odd that Del's mom didn't invite me over at all. Every holiday while Del lived with me, she invited us over for food. Of course, I always declined since I had family to visit. Heh, and the one year I don't visit my dad, I don't get invited either. Ah well. I could have called up and invited myself; they had just assumed I was busy.

Well I was pseudo-invited to a coworker's Turkey event. His and his wife's families live in Georgia, and they didn't feel inclined to make the drive this year. It was the first day I met his wife, and I think she was just being polite. So I pseudo-declined that invitation. But I hung out with them a bit more that week, and it seemed she was serious about the invitation. However, she never asked again, so I didn't get a chance to change my answer.

Then I was invited to another coworker's Turkey event. Spontaneously, his brother called him and invited him over (this was the day before TD). My coworker hadn't planned on doing anything, but he's the lazy sort of person. His roommate was invited, but declined, instead going to other events. So I got invited, but I had intended on going to the first coworker's event. (Of course, I was going to call first.)

So I called the first coworker, and it turned out they instead were driving to Georgia. His wife is pretty cool, and said they would have stayed in town if they knew I wanted to come over. I think they just lazied out of cooking. So I called the second coworker and accepted his invitation.

I seem to have gotten used to going to "friend-of-a-friend" parties. My coworker's younger brother is pretty cool. I thought it odd that the younger brother would invite the older ... but the younger is married. *shrug* It was cool hanging out with someone's family for TD. We fried the turkey (keeping safety in mind). It wasn't the first time they've fried the turkey. I can't say it really improved the taste at all. I'd really need a side-by-side comparison test.

However, I must say that without a doubt, the stuffing was AMAZING! I'm not much of a stuffing fan. Perhaps because my step-dad would serve stuffing once a week ... and it got boring. But this stuffing ... it was different! It had small pieces of Italian sausage in it. OMFG!!! It was ridiculously awesome! I could have eaten just that for the rest of my life. It was that good. I told them I would be back next year. :)

***
When I think of TD, I think of leftover turkey sandwiches the day after. It was a little different this year because I didn't have mayonnaise. My dad will slather mayo all over his sandwiches. Mayo has a bit more fat than I should be eating, so I neglect to buy it. And of course I'm too lazy to go to the store just to get a little. But I really can't complain, since they were still good.

Now for a sad story about leftovers. It appears that my current roommates are pretty lazy when it comes to food. They go out to eat a lot, generally bringing home Taco Bell. When they do make food, they leave their plates all over. I can't openly complain to them, since I'm not paying an equal share of rent. Since they're out of state this week, I figured I'd surprise them by cleaning all the dishes laying around. It really wasn't that bad.

I also decided, however, to clean out the fridge. Dun dun dunn!!! It wasn't as bad as that one Cowboy Bebop episode, but it was pretty disturbing. Looking back on it, I should have taken an inventory of everything I trashed. They had milk that expired a month ago (not too bad), and a gallon that expired in July (ack!). There was a gallon of orange juice that expired in August, and another from July 06!!! A year. It had been sitting in the fridge for an entire year! WTF?!? A brick of Velveeta dated Oct 06. Some butter from March. A few leftover boxes from some restaurant dated July. Luckily I didn't have to look at what was inside. However, I did accidentally crush the Styrofoam box and I may have touched something in there. I don't know, but I immediately washed my hands. There was a hotdog from a month ago, some sausage patties that should have been frozen in August. Rock hard shredded cheese. Old lunch meat. The worst to be seen was a clear, unmarked Tupperware container of mold. I don't know what the contents started as, perhaps leftover chili meat. It was bad ... really bad. Because one of my roommates is a high school math teacher, I had to wonder if this was a high school science project. But considering everything else I threw out, I'm sure it was just neglected ... for a long time.

I also cleaned out the chip cupboard. I had been told that the majority of the bags were just crumbs. So I was intending on making crumb salad. However, they were expired crumbs. I don't know if chips can grow mold, but they do go stale. I'm fine with eating certain stale chips, but it's hard to tell if the spots are just corn chip spots or mold. So I had to be safe and chuck it. There's only two bags left in there.