We hadn't done much the past few weeks socially.  I think we were a little burnt out from Halloween and various end-of-fall outdoor events.  It was a pretty relaxing few weeks, and it was great timing because I was under the weather.  But unfortunately, "we sat around the house and chilled" don't make for very interesting blog posts.  December should be a little busier, so we probably needed a little break.

For Thanksgiving, we went to my brother's weekend house for a food orgy.  Headlining the meal was an 18lb fried turkey.  I think turkey is a pretty meh meat, but deep fried is one of the better ways to prepare it - the meat seems to retain more flavor.  Or maybe all the oil gives it more flavor.

My brother seems to go to all the yuppie food places in Manhattan, so he found a Japanese butcher in his area.  Apparently, pretty much the whole store is wagyu (the Kobe beef cow).  So he got a whole bunch of wagyu NY strip steaks.  On paper, this sounded perfect because strip is a chewier steak cut, and the extra marbling should put it over the top.  TBH, it was a little to fatty for my taste.  Yes - it is possible for beef to be "too fatty" for me.  I know - who would have thunk it?!?  So I think on the wagyu, the skirt is still my favorite.  Of course, this doesn't mean I didn't eat like a pound of it - because, c'mon!  it's still high quality dead cow!

As good as the meat was, I think some of the best items were the side dishes.  Everyone brought either a side dish, appetizer or dessert.  Mrs. Fly brought the sweet potato casserole (recipe in a few days) and sausage stuffing (both of which were excellent).  And some friends of our brought a creamed spinach that was outstanding.  They also brought homemade pies.

The appetizers were really good too.  The best thing was a hybrid crab salad / crabcake on a lettuce wrap.  I could've eaten the entire platter by myself, but I refrained and ate just one (one wrap - not one platter of wraps).  If that doesn't show much I love my family and friends, I don't know what does.  The other thing that was a little unusual was they actually had a foie gras spread that I've never seen before .  Usually, people will serve a pate that's has some foie gras in it, but I've never seen a pure foie gras spread before.  It was really good.  And I must've had like a dozen of the assorted puff pastries, to absorb all the wine LDO.

Alas, no tales of drunken ribaldry ensued...  Just a nice quiet family get-together.