Hot Cranky People

As some of you know (because I posted about it last year), one of the Pnut Family Thanksgiving Traditions is the ceremonial Carving of the Cheese Sculpture for the top of the cauliflower au gratin.

Every year, this responsibility falls to me.

Frankly, it’s a lot of pressure.

To recap:

Historically, the cauliflower au gratin is laden with an intricate lattice made of Kraft Old English Slices. None of that real cheese. No, only “cheese food” is acceptable, because of its ability to withstand heat and still maintain its shape. The strips would puff up into hard, brown plastic-like rectangles.

It was actually kind of gross.

Sadly, no photographic record of these works exists.

In 2002, Mom left off the strips. This sent a panic through the household. NO PLASTIC CHEESE STRIPS? Sure, they may be gross, but come on, you don’t mess with tradition. Mom said, “But nobody ever eats them.” We said, “Yeah, so?”

I decided to top the cauliflower au gratin myself. Rebel that I am, I decided to try something new, shunned the lattice, and instead opted for the pastoral scene you see below.

Note the turkey, the native foliage, and the giant head of cauliflower (that’s the blobby thing on the right). The hot sun beats down on the land, and in the sky you can see the tiny airplane that carried my sister and I home for the holiday.

(Ok, fine. The plane was supposed to be a bird but it didn’t come out so hot.)

This work withstood the heat of a 350 degree oven and came out pretty much intact.

It was not only decorative, but delicious.

2003 rolled around, and once again I was given this responsibility. Being short on time, and also concerned about being able to live up to the hype of the previous year, I copped out and opted for a lame yet still relatively intricate Cheese Cornucopia. A Cheesehorn of Plenty, if you will.

This one did not hold up so well during the baking, and ended up looking more like a Blob of Plenty.

Before we move to 2004, I should mention that at some point between 2002 and 2004 there was another, non-Thanksgiving cauliflower au gratin at Pnut’s Mom’s table, at some family event which I have forgotten. I can’t find the photos of this one but I will instead describe my work. I took a scientific approach, opting to sculpt the chemical formula for cauliflower au gratin, which was, of course, a giant:

CAuG

It was well received.

Moving on to last year, 2004. This time I dug deep and went way, way back in history.

And carved a Triceratops.

He browned nicely.

Which brings me to today. I took suggestions from many friends, and decided to go with an architectural landmark, in honor of my relocation to San Francisco.

I present…

The Golden Baked Bridge.

I must say I was pretty please with this one.

I think this is the first year the cheese actually looked better after baking.

I am now taking suggestions for 2006. I’m open to pretty much anything. Except dinosaurs. They are totally played out.

Ok.

Here it is.

Ready?

I watch The Ghost Whisperer.

Yes, I know it sucks. Hard. But there’s something mesmerizing about the RIDICULOUS FALSE EYELASHES that Jennifer Love Hewitt is wearing 24/7. Her eyelids must be exhausted from holding those things up.

I can’t look away.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the laundromat. My friend Dot was kind enough to visit me while I was doing my laundry (now that’s a good friend), so while we were waiting for the industrial dryer to finish shrinking my clothes beyond recognition, we wandered over to the Asian grocery store around a few doors down.

I had seen this store a zillion times over the last year, but never gone in. Now, I love food. I’m always one to try new foods, embrace the cuisine of other cultures, all that good stuff. I was excited to find some new and unusual things to try. WOOHOO!

We entered the store and started the adventure by heading over to what I can only describe as the “Wall of Unidentifiable Meat”. Frankly, I don’t want to eat any sort of meat with the word “flap” in the name. While I’m sure most of the items are delicious, to my untrained American eye an awful lot of them were just plain scary.

And speaking of eyes.

Near the Meat Wall was “Seafoodapalooza”. I’m surprised there wasn’t a sign saying, “Now with more eyes!” Seriously, there must have been about 900 eyes in that place. Connected to things. (Later on we found a jar of more eyes. There were at least 438 eyes in that jar alone. EYES.)

And those were just in the fresh food sections. We cautiously ventured down the other aisles. “Cans of Crazy!” was one of my favorite areas. Is that fruit or fish? I CAN’T TELL. I also enjoyed “Tapioca-rama”. I had no idea how many sizes, shapes, and colors tapioca balls came in. It was like a chewy carnival in there. Awesome. Dot called one particularly festive bag a “birthday party in a package”.

Unfortunately, the clock was ticking and we had to get back to my laundry. That, and the sheer number of eyes took its toll on us and we had to JUST GET OUT.

There was all sorts of cool stuff though, so it was decided next time we would take our time, be adventurous and find some interesting (eye-free) items to purchase and try.

I’m all for the kitchen gadgets.

But this is ridiculous.