Sizzle-snap.
Pop.
Sniff-sniff…ahh.
Stir. COUNTER-CLOCKWISE…
Pour. Blend. Chop.
Bzzt. Ding!
Ah-ha!
==========
I bend over a pot, its bubbling contents spitting sticky brown goo at me at the strangest intervals. Wiping off a dollop on my cheek, I add the onions, watching the marsh-like gravy suck them up.
Don’t you just love any excuse for a feast? In this case, it’s Thanksgiving. Or at least, that’s what the aliens told us after they visited earth. We just call it an excuse for a Gaian feast day. C:
Around me, several others cook their own preparations. Fae stirs orange peel into a pot of steaming, ruby red cranberry sauce, sniffing and smiling at the aroma every few seconds. Even I’d do that. It’s like candy. ^^ Yunsi is busy crushing graham crackers with an unknown vengeance for the pie crust, and Adri stands beside her, mixing the apples in brown and white sugar, flour, cinnamon, lemon zest, and a small amount of clove. Yyugi is busy peeling red potatoes, a mustard mixture beside him. Sar carefully places colored mini-marshmallows onto a nearly baked sweet potato pie. Yum…
“Hey, stop pinching the coke!” Des cries out, swatting away Adri’s hand. “It’s for the turkey!”
Ooh…right. Can’t forget about the turkey. As of now, though, it hardly resembles one. It’s more like a ruffled, colorful pillowcase.
“SQUAWK!!! Gobble-Gobble! HONK!!!”
Poor thing. It sounds as if it’s molested. Des runs after it with a cleaver, and with deft, practiced ease, we all duck out of the way somehow or another, never stopping once at our tasks unless a feather or two happens to fall into the food.
“Hey, Sar,” I whisper, “You think this’d make a pretty plume?” I hold a feather up, tinged turquoise and amber.
“Ha ha,” Fae laughs, “We’re not marching turkeys.”
Sar throws a feather into Fae's cranberry sauce, smiling. "It looks prettier in there."
"Hey!"
At that moment, something settles down on my feet. I look down to glare at the turkey.
"Off. NOW."
It squawks indignantly, settling down a bit more comfortably. Fowl do not make nice slippers, you know.
However, before I can do anything about it, Des runs in, hollering. I hardly have the time to blink before I see the flash of a cleaver before me, it's silver edge glinting dangerously as it nears in slow motion...
"SQUAWWWK!!!"
I blink, covered in red blood and rainbow feathers. Lovely.
"Ha har, hee..." Adri snorts in laughter, doubled over. "The feathers look best right there."
I open my mouth to make an indignant retort when something flashes, blinding me.
A CAMERA?!? No fair. :C
"Got the picture," Nerfe snickers. He waves around his cell phone.
"And finally got out of bed." I brush myself off.
"Aye." Sar looks at the clock on the microwave, squinting slightly. "It's already 6:59. Shoulda been up at four like the rest of us."
He just shrugs, rummaging through the fridge. "How does homemade donuts sound? We've got just enough milk, and there's definitely enough flour..."
Yunsi and YYugi share a look, then take up the large flour bag between them. Each taking a large handful of the powdery stuff, they advance, predator-like, upon the unsuspecting person still rummaging through the fridge.
"Oh, strawberry jam...that'd make a nice filling. Caramel! I didn't know we--"
At that moment, the white dust is littered all over him. Standing up slowly, he wipes himself off, then sneezes. A cloud comes up, dissapating in a few seconds.
"Nice. Really nice."
PLOP. Splash.
I'm drenched in...sticky stuff. Not gravy or turkey blood, but...
"Coke?"
"Coke. Eww."
"COKE!!!"
"No wonder you need 18 liters of the stuff. Wasting it by drowning a turkey..."
Des sniffs. "It's for marinating. Now leave the turkey alone for the meanwhile...and the coke." He looks pointedly at Adri, who fidgets guiltily before turning back to the apples. "Thank you."
----------
Two hours later, preparations are truly underway. The vegetables are sizzling happily, waiting to be stuffed in the large turkey's bowels. The gravy and cranberry sauce steams, and the potoates grumble good-naturedly from their pan on the stove, waiting to be pushed in the oven.
But besides that, it's strangely...quiet. o.o
"Anyone want to listen to some music or something?" Fae asks abruptly.
"Erm, sure?"
"I guess."
"Why not?"
"Okay."
Letting her sauce simmer, she steps out into the hallway. A few moments later, she reappears, carrying a large, old-fashioned music player.
"Do we even have anything to play in there?"
"Of course." C: She pops in a tape, and it crackles with static for a moment, before...
"EEE!!! Ahh-ooo!!! Ee-eee-EEE!!!"
We all wince, covering our ears with our hands.
"Turn that infernal thing off!"
"GAH!! My ears!!!"
Someone chucks a large pot at it, and a resounding crash hits the floor, followed by silence. Fae stares at the broken device, then shrugs.
"Eh, I've wanted to get rid of that thing, anyway. You know, the new ones at the Faktori sound rather cool."
No, not again, I groan. No more shopping sprees. We barely made it home from the other one, and Des' office still looks like a dump. x.x Adri and Des, backed up by Yunsi, Sar, and YYugi, however, protest for me.
"No."
"Erm, yeah. No thanks."
"I'd rather not."
"We can live without music for a little, right?"
"I don't really want one, anyway..."
Nerfe sees our sheepish faces. "Why not?"
"Well, cuz, you see, last time we went..."
"...there were aliens and energy drinks and..."
"...scary things. Yeah."
"Oh, okay."
Fae stares at us, then shakes her head, muttering.
Back to more preperations.
----------
"Is the turkey ready yet?" DDDx
"It's been like...three days!"
Des raps Adri and YYugi on the head, and Nerfe's hand as he makes a move to say something too.
"Stop exaggerating. It almost is."
Immediately, we all crowd around the conventional sized oven. A hand reaches up, punching the button to turn the light inside the oven on. We all stare at it.
Its skin is a crispy, beautiful amber. Sauce bubbles lightly and cheerfully from the pan beneath it, and the vegetables, orange and yellow and green, peek out from the flesh of the roasting bird.
"Ooh..."
"Ahh..."
"Yummm..."
"Stop drooling."
Des reaches over to the door handle as the oven beeps, sniffing experimentally, then reaching in to pull out the large bird.
"OUCH!"
"Erm, here, an oven mitt."
"Ah. Thanks."
We all move out of the way, standing in a kind of column, as if the turkey was to be followed by a procession or parade or something we all wanted to watch. He puts it on the table, and begins to carve it.
"Come on," Yunsi says sensibly, "Let's go set the table. The sooner that's done, the sooner we can eat."
"I'll get the cider and the cups." Sar reaches up, her long arms managing to reach to the top shelf to grab the glasses.
"I'll get the silverware," Nerfe announces.
"NO," I interject quickly. Not after what happened with the knives that day so long ago...
"Fine," he grumbles, going after the plates.
Yunsi happily takes the napkins, folding them into pretty shapes.
Fae takes the dinner mats, followed by Adri and YYugi, who carry out the first of the dishes.
Des carves the turkey.
I'm left to wash the first of many dishes. :C Why me?
However, the kitchen is never empty. People come in constantly in twos or threes, peeking at the turkey as they come back in to carry more of the food or silverware outside. I'm certain I spotted Nerfe and Fae sneaking out two bottles of wine...
We're all gonna get drunk! =D
I wash with vigour, and it seems like no time at all in which we sit down to eat and my hands are so wrinkly from water that they're about the peel. Ah well. I study the dishes before me, wondering what to eat first.
"Someone pass the mashed potatoes?"
"I need the pepper and the gravy."
"Where's the ketchup?" o.0
"Aha, stuffing."
"I can't taste the coke!"
THUMP. "Don't throw the knives!!!"
"Oh, desert first for me. Sweet potato pie..."
So we whittle away the night. Gradually, the food fades away from the plates. Mountains of food become hills, which become soggy plains, which then turn into valleys. How, you ask? They've begun eating the plates. -_-;;
"Oof, I'm stuffed."
"Ha ha, too much stuffing?"
BELCH. "Excuse me." C:
"Eww...digested onion."
"How long do you think it'll take to lose these 58 pounds we all just gained?"
"All year."
"Yeah, just in time for next year's feast, you know?"
I groan. Next year's feast? Who just said that?
==========
Author's notes:
Yay! Long entry! C: This one was fun to write. Hope you guys like the present. xDD
I didn't want to say Thanksgiving because we might not all celebrate it. Hence, the alien recommendation. C:
Okay, I'm off to see how long this look on the actual entry... *yawns and stretches* It's only 9:00 in the morning, too... Dx
SnowPheonix · Wed Nov 22, 2006 @ 05:18pm · 13 Comments |