Gifts and food

I have a lot of photos to post lately. It's the holidays I guess...

Anyway, beginning with gifts received... The last few years a forum I participate in has done a little gift exchange. I've joined in last year and this year. Names are drawn by one person so you don't know who will be sending you gifts and you get to surprise the person whose name you get. It's pretty nice, especially since we live all over the place, so you don't know where your gift could come from, plus a lot of the people on the forum are pretty artistic and make some cool stuff. So the other day my package arrived in a UK envelope. A handmade card and a bunch of little gifts were inside. Here is what I got:



The girl made a lovely piece of art with a sort of abstract design, and she sent a notebook with a Russian doll on the cover, one of those handy compact shopping bags with cute, happy food all over it, and a piece of tambourine from one that broke during a Decemberists show in London. I thought it was all very sweet.

Then I finally got around to making the gift I got last year. Amongst other things, I was sent a sewing kit to make a chicken cushion. I know, sounds a bit weird, but I thought it was pretty neat. Here's my chicken:



It's aimed at kids actually, so it's pretty simple, though it took me some time to get the hang of the stitching. I got there in the end, though the most tiring part was cutting up some old clothes to make the stuffing. It took a lot more to fill it than I expected; there's 3 shirts and 6 socks in there! It's lucky that in the process I didn't accidentally cut a hole in my pajama bottoms (yes, I lived in my pjs today). It took me most of the afternoon to finish, but in the meantime I listened to some music, and then to Billy Connelly and QI mp3s, which was good for that kind of work.

I guess I didn't feel like I've had enough food in the past few holiday party-filled weeks, so I made a full turkey dinner for myself. I realized while cooking that it was probably the most food I've made at one time in my little kitchen. I had to shuffle things around quite often.

The little kitchen that could


I had so much food. Which is the mark of any good holiday dinner, I suppose. In the photo on the stove is a big pot of mashed potatoes, gravy, and leftover sweet potatoes from Christmas that I had planned to reheat, but just couldn't be bothered with by the end. Then in the foreground is the turkey (just a fillet) and stuffing. Mostly hidden to the left is a big bowl of homemade cranberry sauce. It's the first time I've ever made it, but it was a really simple and delicious recipe using orange juice.

Let's eat!


Guess what I'll be eating for the next couple of days....