As we do almost every year Celeste, the kids and I spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws just outside Charleston, SC in Isle of Palms.  Various in-laws own condos down there so they stay in theirs and those of us who don’t own our own condos rent some others.  Every year we end up with 40-50 people there.

On Turkey Day we reserve the conference room on the first floor of one of the condo buildings.  It has a kitchen attached to it and at about 8:30 in the morning Celeste’s Uncle Johnny fires up the stove and starts fixing pancakes and bacon.  That’s also the time that two exterminated turkeys are shoved in the oven to begin cooking so that we can kick off the big meal at mid-afternoon.  After the pancakes are wolfed down all of us retire to our respective condos to fix the side dish we’ve been assigned.  The past couple of years Celeste and I have been assigned the sweet potatoes while her brother and sister-in-law have been tasked with the macaroni and cheese using their Grandmother’s heart-clogging recipe that includes prodigious amounts of both American and Velveeta cheeses.  Of course others bring the stuffing, some others bring a corn casserole and there’s the ever-present can-shaped cranberry sauce.

I mention all of this only because I want to fit in with my fellow Piedmont Triad bloggers who shared their Turkey Day culinary escapades. Esbee, recovering from a bout of pneumonia, convinced her husband to grill out on Thanksgiving.  Ed Cone writes about his contribution of wine to the fried turkey dinner his family enjoyed.  He’s questioned about his choice of wines in the comments and rightly ponders if there’s really a proper wine to pair with fried turkey.  Personally, I wonder how so many people actually know what a Meursault-Genevrières and a Margaux actually are.  Of course despite taking a couple of wine tasting classes at Salem College I still base my wine purchase decisions on whether I think the labels are cool and by utilizing my fine grasp of economic theory which states that any wine under $5 a bottle is probably gross and any over $10 is likely overpriced.  And then there’s swine-o-phile Fec who’s ideal woman would have a head made of ham.  As a group I think we had a splendid Blurkey Day.

Our kids were so busy traipsing around the beach and playing the Wii in one of Celeste’s cousin’s condo that I don’t think they gained a pound, but we adults certainly packed a few unneeded pounds on our waistlines.  Time for the guilt-trip to the Y.