Food for Shabbat, Passover edition

(And yom tov; yay for two-day rather than three-day yom tov :-)

I got a frozen turkey last week, and today cut it up for a variety of things. Now in the oven are three trays of bird'n'stuff. One tray* has the drumsticks and third joints of the wings, with matza farfel, vodka tomato sauce, and spicy green olives. One tray has the thighs and tail over a bed of diced organic mandarins (with peel), sliced rhubarb, and chopped onion, and topped with some of last year's lemon-lime chutney. The last tray has the turkey breasts over a bed of diced onion, tiny organic shiitake mushrooms, minced sage leaves, and lots of chestnut bits, with just a bit of hot paprika on top. They're all baking, covered, in a slow oven. The rest of the turkey (frame, wings, neck) I put into a pot of soup, which is currently pushing the limits for how much I can fit in the pot; I already had onions, carrot, sage, and celeriac in the pot.

* Hey FJ!!: Tray A, Tray B, and Tray C!

Yesterday I baked a bunch of sweet potatoes. If there's room in the soup pot later, I might add some. And while I debated kugel-ating them, I think I'm too lazy after all, so they'll just be plain baked sweet potatoes.

I also started a fruit compote, using some passtionfruit juice (which, based ion the order of ingredients, is likely more pear than passionfruit, actually) to poach some rhubarb (ie, the other two stalks I got at Russo's this morning, so I won't have to figure out how to store such long stalks in the fridge), diced lime (with peel), and chopped dried apricots. I haven't added any sugar yet; I'm waiting to see how it tastes after things have gotten friendly (I've been enjoying sours recently, so it might be very little sweetener, especially since I only managed to get brown sugar, not white, which feels not quite right for this). If it's too liquid, I get to play with tapioca starch, too.

Other possibilities include green salads and pickles and cheeses, which can all be done later.

Made earlier this week: a turkey meatloaf with vodka tomato sauce, spicy green olives, sauteed onions and mushrooms, and horseradish ketchup on top. Also, fish cakes with a can of salmon, chives, mayo, parsley, a minced lemon, some whole-wheat matza meal, and an egg (the first egg I've used this holiday, actually). They were a bit more crumbly than ideal (ie for serving other people; it was fine when it was just me :-), likely because I didn't use enough binder, using the mayo instead of much of that, but they suited what I was in the mood to eat.

Also, for future reference, a kfP caramel chocolate dessert, perhaps to make next year.

Misc.

CBS has a new-this-season cop show called Unforgettable, based on the premise of a detective who has total recall (I figure it's not a spoiler if this is apparent in the first 15 minutes of the first episode, right?). They show her walking through her own memories, picking up on small things that became more important later. Which now has me wondering: when she's recalling a previous experience, is she re-recording it in her memory as she walks through the previous one, so when she thinks back to a time she already recalled once, she's there twice? How recursive can this get?

And while I'm thinking about current television, a peeve about Once Upon a Time (which I like, for the most part; not only is the storytelling enjoyable, with lots of opportunities for excellent costumes, but also not something that's been done before): they start out with all fairy tale characters, then some episodes in start adding Greek myths as well, without seeming to notice how they're switching universes a bit. I might be the only person this bothers, though.

I wonder why it's more stressful for me to leave the car parked farther from home than usual, even when it's a legal spot.
(And I'm amused that I didn't have to circle for parking once this winter, when there are often fewer spaces, but did this week due to recommencement of street cleaning.)

Somehow, Pesach always inspires a desire for dishes with eggplant. Weird.

According to the 1940 census, my house was occupied by a family renting the space, a boilermaker (no, not the drink :-) who earned $1200 the previous year for a full year's work, his wife, three young children, and either his mother or his mother-in-law (the handwriting was hard to read).