Warmedover leftovers

That is how Jean Shepherd used to describe the less than delectable reheated foods of his youth. I just had some leftover turkey from our "Thanksgiving" (Sunday, actually) visit to my mother-in-law's house. My MIL is a pretty good cook for an old English lady, but she now prefers not to make the effort to cook for even the small crowd that we were on Sunday. At first she'd make part of the meal, then less and less until she now does no cooking at all.

We bring parts of the dinner, but since we're driving a long way, we don't handle the hot food, someone else does. That person is very smart, a doctor who's head of an important function at a major hospital and lives alone in Riverdale. My experience with single people and cooking, however, is that they fall roughly into two main categories. There are those who take cooking on as a hobby and enjoy cooking gourmet foods for themselves and anyone they might have over. Then there are those who cook because are sick of tuna fish and cereal and they need something to eat in order to not die. This person, unfortunately, seems to fall into the latter category.

As a result, each year, the Thanksgiving meals have gotten progressively tastelesser. The roast turkey is now turkey parts with, at least as far as I can tell, no seasoning whatsoever. This does not yield really flavorful gravy either. The crispy pan-fried potatoes that were a pain to cook but beloved are now mashed potatoes (with no butter or milk for kashrut). Not a pretty sight.

Of course, we have to take leftovers, because it's rude not to. We just had some of them for dinner and they will not make a repeat performance on the table or anywhere else. Even with my making our own roasted potatoes, it was still a difficult slog to get most of the way through the rest of it.

There's no real moral to this story, aside from helping me to remember that it's okay for the point of Thanksgiving to be the company rather than the food and the company was good. Can't make sandwiches from it though.