I am regretting the fact that Thanksgiving is a holiday about food. I started showing signs of having a cold on Monday night. So, I've been dosing myself with this stuff called Zicam... a homeopathic supplement that contains zinc. Perhaps the effect is only psychological, but, my own experiences with Zicam and various zinc lozenges shows that they can be effective in shortening the duration of colds and sore throats in particular. A little searching on the web shows that serious pharmacology school types are also looking at this -- so far the small number of studies on the subject show some positive results, but the studies also seem to suffer some flaws. So while the academic jury may be out, they've got my vote.
The only problem with all this zinc is the bitter taste. Thanksgiving is, after all, a holiday about sitting down to a feast. It really doesn't help to sit down to a lovely Thanksgiving meal with your taste buds numbed by the bitter taste of zinc -- at least not if the food is good. If the food is bland and the wine is "Two Buck Chuck", zinc might be there to help you. We are spending the day at Mrs. Geek's Dad and Step-mom's house tomorrow. Mrs. Geek's Step-mom is good cook; I'm sure the meal will be excellent.
I'm not actually cooking anything. I've got a bottle of Renwood Old Vine Zinfandel that I'm bringing... which I hope will be good with the meal. I'm also bringing a bottle of Compass Box Eluethera to share... my step-brother-in-law (wife's step-sister's husband... let me check that again... yes, that's it) is also becoming a bit of a whisky connoisieur and hopefully he will enjoy as well.
I'm still cooking however. Mrs. Geek and I are having "Thanksgiving II" with our friends D. and J. on Friday. We're having roast duck. I've committed to bring some Craig Claiborne-inspired cornbread stuffing and a dessert item -- in this case, a pecan pie. I spent today making some turkey stock that I could bring along with stuffing... I like some gravy with my stuffing.
All the cooking is bringing out my worst tendencies in the kitchen. I seem to have a pathological problem with burning my hands in the kitchen. We got all this nice Calphalon tri-ply stainless cookware in the last year or so... and I'm not used to having cookware and I can put in the oven. Sure, I'll use an oven mit to take it out of the oven... but once on top of the stove, I consider those pot and lid handles fair game. I often tend to regret reaching for those handles very quickly.
Other than that, it was a rather quiet day. We got a copy of the last Harry Potter movie on DVD from Columbia House today. The Prisoner of Azkaban is Mrs. Geek's favorite book in the series and the movie did not quite meet her expectations. As Ms. Rawling's books become thicker and thicker, squeezing them into a two hour movie is getting harder and harder. Subplots are jettisoned, and much of the little incidents that tend to flesh out the secondary characters in the book are lost. Dumbledore really wasn't a character in the movie... none of the faculty were, really, with the possible exception of Lupin. It's getting to be a shame... what with Gary Oldman and Emma Thompson appearing in the film, their roles appeared to be little more than cameos. It was really more of a "Harry Potter Action Adventure Movie" with more of the action holding the movie together than anything else. Oh well.
To all my U.S. readers, have a Happy Thanksgiving! To everyone else, I hope your day is lovely... and pray for peace. We seem to have a distinct need for some peace in the world these days.
said drgeek
on 2004-11-24 at 10:41 p.m.
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