Gluttony: My Favorite Deadly Sin

...though I'm also quite fond of Sloth and Lust. Anyway, I'm trying to give some love to my poor neglected blog here, so I've decided to post our menu for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner. It's just the two of us, plus Rob's mom and dad, so (believe it or not) we're trying to keep it relatively simple. ("Relatively" being the operative word, of course.) Rob's parents are bringing the wine, the bread, and the pumpkin cheesecake. We're making:

• Roast goose (which we've done a couple of times before in past years)--allegedly free-range--with bread stuffing, to which I'm adding water chestnuts and apple.
• Gravy. Of course.
• Mashed sweet potatoes with caramelized leeks and butter (this is sort of an experiment)
• Green salad.
• Brown rice mixed with wild rice.

I'm very excited, though I'm still attempting to thaw the goose, which is sitting in water in the sink. The goose requires day-before prepping--you have to dip it in boiling water for 1 minute to dry and tighten the skin and then let it sit in the fridge for a day. I realized earlier that I already passed the 24-hours-ahead mark for that, but oh well. I don't think a few hours will be critical in this case. I need to wait for Rob, though, who is a lot less grossed out by raw poultry than I am. I don't know what's worse--the moist and flabby texture, or the grease it leaves on my hands. Still, it's worth it for the sheer gluttony which we will gratefully exercise upon this meal's consumption.

And, of course, there's the thankfulness. That's there. I just hate sounding sentimental.