as my carrots boil, I write these words

Pre-Thanksgiving office luncheon checklist:

1. salt-pepper turkey breast with herb-infused butter

2. gravy

3. shaved deli ham in honey-butter-brown sugar glaze

4. sage-herbed baguette-crouton stuffing with homemade sausage

5. peas and carrots (finalizing now)

6. homemade cream corn

7. homemade mashed potatoes

8. homemade cranberry sauce

9. pumpkin pie

I thought about doing the Korean thing and making the ham's glaze into honey mustard, but that would've been such a Korean cliché that, in the end, I said nah.  (Koreans are obsessed with honey-mustard as a salad dressing, and as a dip for fried foods like chicken fingers.)  I'm glad I did:  the ham tastes amazing.

While I tried pan-grilling the turkey breast in herb-infused butter last night, the result was bizarre-tasting:  when I first bit into a sample slice of turkey, I realized that the pan-frying had produced an effect not unlike the toasted bread on a grilled cheese.  Turkey toast.  Very weird.  So I simply salted and peppered the rest of the turkey breast (which is already cooked), containerized it in a microwavable baking dish, then chopped up the rest of the herb-infused butter and put the butter chunks on top of the turkey.  I'll microwave the whole thing at the office, and I hope the effect turns out to be pleasing.  If not, well, my luncheon companions can always bury the turkey under gravy.

My pumpkin pie is ugly as sin.  As if to spite me and show the world how much of an amateur I am, the pie cooled and became severely cracked (photos to come).  The pie's consistency is fine, and based on when I tasted the pie's batter and then smelled the baked result, the thing seems otherwise to be a legitimate pumpkin pie, albeit made with dan-hobak.  According to various pie-making videos, the key to having a pumpkin pie with no cracks is to (1) use a mixture of whole eggs and egg yolks to minimize the amount of egg white going into the pie, and (2) allow the pie to cool slowly inside your oven, letting the residual heat bleed off gradually so that the pie doesn't contract violently, resulting in cracks.  (Egg whites apparently stiffen the pie's consistency, thus also helping to produce cracks.)  I've seen some pumpkin-pie recipes that call for a bit of flour to be stirred into the batter; I'll have to experiment and see whether that makes for better results.  Assessment:  I've got a pie that's ugly and unprofessional, but it's going to taste just fine once it's in your mouth.

The cream corn is awesome and addictive.  Alas, my American coworker says he suffered a horrible corn-related incident when he was younger, so he hates the stuff now.  Well, good:  more for me.  The peas and carrots are good, but the peas seem undercooked.  I'll solve that problem at the office by blasting the veggies in our communal microwave.

The cranberry sauce ought to go down easy; it tasted great after it had cooled down.  Same goes for the mashed potatoes, which I deliberately under-mashed so that they'd have a bit of texture to them—sort of a compromise between creamy and chunky.

For my money, though, the pièce de résistance is the stuffing, which I made early in the week and froze over the next few days.  This morning, I pulled the thing out and stuck it in the oven to reheat; I haven't sampled it today, but I believe it's back to its original glory.

Carrying all of this to the office is going to be a bitch, but that's usually how it goes on days like this.  Kevin's Catering Service, indeed.

In other news:  I've begun reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.  Bryson buys a Gregory backpack for his trip along the Appalachian Trail.  Smart man.