Complex Numbers

Black Friday dinner

So my pseudo-Thanksgiving Black-Friday-Buy-Nothing-Day dinner is going to happen!

Haven't bought the stuff yet, but will. In addition to the turkey, we're going to have gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans with almonds, a sweet potato - apple thing, mashed potatoes, bread and whatever our guests feel like bringing (hint: dessert would be nice )

Yes, a lot of that will come out of a package; the rest comes from recipes.

A guest (who never got invited back) once told me that using recipes is cheating. Me, I figure being able to follow directions is a rare skill. A lot of people can't; not even simple ones. Partly it's problems communicating, but there's more to it. An aversion, perhaps, to being told what to do. Can't order off the menu; can't bear to make anything without embellishing or changing it. Sometimes the result is great, sure; but sometimes... well, experiments DO fail.

I won't be told what to do, either - but as an engineer, following written instructions comes naturally to me. However, there's another part of that skill, and that's knowing when the written instructions are full of shit. Recipe books have typos, too; more, every oven is different so you still have to know when something's ready.

So yeah, I'm cheating. But it's still going to be the juiciest, tenderest roast turkey you've never tasted.