what's left to do

For my Thanksgiving luncheon prep, there's just a little more left to do. Tonight, I'll chop up the carrots and boil them until soft, then add the frozen peas and finish everything off. Drain, add salt, pepper, and butter—voilà. Peas and carrots. Containerize. For the proteins: the turkey I bought is already fully cooked; it merely needs to be cut to size and gently reheated, which I'll do in a mixture of butter, salt, and pepper. Box that up, too. The gravy needs some milk added to it, but I'll do that on Thursday, right before we eat. The ham steaks are a bit fatty; I plan to fry the steaks up first without adding anything, then I'll drown all the steaks at once in my lovely glaze and containerize everything.

I've got so much food that I've been bringing it to the office in batches. Today, I brought along my stuffing (two containers), the apple pie, and the apple crumble. This was a lighter load than yesterday's, which included mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet-potato casserole, and cream corn. With only one good arm to hold stuff, I lopsidedly lugged my Costco-sized bag of goodies to the office yesterday and stuck everything in the office fridge. Did that today as well; the fridge is now looking well stocked. Tomorrow, I'll bring in the gravy, the proteins, and the veggies. It's going to be epic, as it is every year I do this.

I guess the easiest way to serve the food, tomorrow, will be to present it cold and to let everyone use the lone microwave to heat their individual plates—except for the cranberry sauce, which they'll have to come back for, unless they want a red, bloody ocean of sauce to surround islands of other food. Reheating all the food in advance, with only one microwave to do so, would be too much of a chore. Individual plating and heating is the better option. I do have a gas range and bokkeum pan, which I'll use for reheating and thinning out the gravy, but that's all it'll be used for. Tomorrow, I don't want there to be much to do when it's time for lunch. Just serve, eat, and enjoy.*

High hopes that tomorrow's meal will be a hit. I'm morbidly curious as to how dessert turned out (oh, and maybe I should buy some vanilla ice cream to go with the pie and crumble), but it's too late to worry now: we're committed.

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*There are persistent rumors that we'll be moving to a new, possibly bigger office, maybe across the way in the Songpa district, close to where my relatives live. If so, I'd say we need our own fridge, microwave, and oven (at least a toaster oven). And I might start moving certain aspects of my kitchen back into the office, depending on how big the new space is. But will the new space have a kitchenette somewhere so I can wash dishes without having to do so in the men's room? We had to suffer that indignity when we were in the Cheongshil Building.