Thanksgiving Eve

Rained hard on the way into work and throughout most of the day. After lunch, I went to the Secretary of State's and got my new license plates (they changed the design in Michigan, so it's not just a tab this year, but a whole new plate). Well, I didn't exactly "get" my plate; they have to order the handicap ones, so it will come in the mail. Plus, I found out I could have still renewed by mail or on the website. I thought I had to go in.

Once home and changed, I started to work. I have to make my turkey-shaped pumpkin-cranberry cake for tomorrow's feast at Jake house. Lesson learned from the trial run: chopping fresh round cranberries with a chef's knife is like herding cats. So, this time I sat at the table with the small cutting board and, using a paring knife, cut each on in half, one at a time.

When I was about half done with that, I took a break to call Luanne at her step-mother's house in Florida. She had left me a voicemail saying she'd be there at 6:30 PM. We talked a long time and I caught her up on what was going on with Mom and the rest of the family. After hanging up, I finished halving the cranberries and got going on the rest of the recipe.

It was around 8:00 PM when that went into the oven. I was starving, so I warmed up a burger and ate it while making this weekend's go-to dish, beef and black bean chili. I sorta used a recipe (for the spices and amounts) but basically made it up. I used two pounds of the 2006 stewing beef, cut into small cubes. I put small batches of them into a baggie with flour and house seasoning and then into oil heated in my cast-iron Dutch oven. When I had them all browned and draining, I poured off most of the oil and saut�ed a chopped red onion and five Jalapeno peppers, diced.

I took the cake out of the oven to cool. While all this was going on, I also talked on the phone with my brother Joe and my brother Jim.

I removed the onions and peppers and deglazed the pan with a bottle of beer. I let that cook down to almost nothing, the put back the beef, the onions and peppers and added the spices: ancho chili powder, regular chili powder and ground cumin. Then came two cups of chicken stock (sadly, NOT homemade) three cups of water and a drained can of diced tomatoes. Once I got it boiling again, I turned it to simmer and set both the oven timer and my bedroom alarm clock for three hours (12:30 AM) and went to bed to read and sleep.

I got up to pee just before the alarms went off, so I opened two tall cans of black beans, put them in a colander and rinsed them off. I added them to the pot, brought it back to boiling, then down to simmer and went back to bed. Next time I got up for the bathroom, I cut a lime in half and juiced it into the chili and turned it off, trusting on the heat-retention of the heavy cast iron to carry it through the night. And, it did!