A Week of Feasting

Hey everyone! First, the pic to the left is Thomas (looking oh so thrilled) wearing the scarf I knitted Creede for his birthday . He requested orange and black stripes. These are the colors of OSU, so he'll be very spirited indeed when donning it. It was my first time making stripes and fringe, so it was a good learning experiment. When we come home for Christmas, he'd so better be wearing it!

For Thanksgiving, Thomas and I went to Jackson, MS to visit his family. Click this link to see all the pics. Once again, I've never had so much good food. I got to eat all of my favorite things - catfish one night from the Cock of the Walk (if you're ever in Jackson this is a must stop as they also have the best cornbread, hushpuppies, turnip greens and fried pickles imaginable), ribs another night, and finally Thanksgiving dinner itself. However, the best treat of all turned out to be growing in Allison and Jess's backyard. My new favorite fruit, the persimmon. I've never before had a persimmon and this is just a crime against nature. They look like a cross between a mini-pumkin and an orange tomato. They're very pretty, great texture and extremely sweet. Marlene sent us home with three and we shared the last one last night. I miss them dreadfully already. As a shot in the dark, I asked Thomas to see if Whole Foods had any. They did! They were bigger, so I was a little suspicious. And rightly so. These persimmons were v bitter and seemed to coat my mouth with a chalky substance. Also the texture was much less crisp. Allison must have seeds to the the most magic persimmon tree in all the land. We kept our seeds from the three sent home with us and hope to plant them on our deck. I'm not holding my breath, but here's hoping.

Also over Thanksgiving Thomas and I made Bobbi's kiffles recipe. I'd never heard of kiffles before last Christmas when Thomas had a hankering for them. They take a few hours to make, but are worth every minute. They're basically a slim pastry stuffed with a sweet walnut filling. I guess they're well known back East, but no one in Oklahoma had heard of them. They were a huge hit both there and in Jackson. We'll be making them again in a month.

During the trip we also introduced Allison and Jess to Settlers of Catan. I was a little peeved that Allison won her first game ever while I'd yet to win a game, but later that week, my win finally came and boy did it feel good. I think we have two more converts to Catan now.

Finally, I got to meet Thomas's imaginary friend, Mark, who proved to be quite real indeed. We met him and his Argentinian girlfriend Kendela at The Two O'Clock Bayou a cajun joint in Jackson and then got to spend some time on Mark's sailboat, The Silver Fox 2. That was it! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

-sunday