Well, Christmas Eve's Operation Brine Turkey Leg worked out pretty well: I roasted the leg/flank/whatever, made up a pot of mashed potatoes, and used the turkey drippings and a dash of white wine and Wondra Gravy and Sauce Flour to whip up some gravy. A few bumps, but that's to be expected: a bit too much salt in the brine, the roasting pan was too small and lightweight to handle well on the stove, and the mashed potatoes came out a bit lumpy, since I had to mash them with the only potato-mashing tool I had, a steel pasta ladle.
For Christmas itself, I decided to spend it in the traditional American way: shopping for gifts. Mostly for myself, as a way to treat myself. So I spent some time wandering the garishly lit shopping areas of Shinjuku (lots of Christmas lights strung up everywhere), and wound up buying a new Apple computer mouse (thinking buying an entire computer to go with it next year), a new Apple keyboard (the old one is acting up), a polarizing filter for my video camera, four foreign magazines at Kinokuniya Books, and, from Tokyu Hands, because they have everything, a potato masher.
Comments