Author: doug

This year I am trying something different with our Thanksgiving turkey. At 23 lbs it’s far too big to fit into the oven if spatchcocked (butterflied) — which was my original plan — so instead I have partially disassembled the bird. I’ll cook the leg quarters (partially deboned) and wings sous-vide to give them a head start, and add them to the roasting pan with the breast when it’s time to crisp the skin. The plan is that this will result in tenderer dark meat and moister white meat, and also be far easier to carve.

My nephew Daniel brought his girlfriend Jennifer to meet the Boston-area Larricks this weekend.

I picked up our Thanksgiving turkey today. I ordered a “large” this year because as far as I am concerned there is no such thing as too much leftovers.  With 10 people expected, a 23-pounder should be plenty.

The state is installing a raised crosswalk / speed hump in the road in front of my building at work. It’s the height of a normal curb, but from the 7th floor it doesn’t look like much.

Jeff and Claire got hitched!

Those of you who have been following my 365 since the beginning will recall that, early on, I posted a bunch of photos of this view from our big conference room on the 7th floor in Quincy Center. I have become pretty much used to it, though on some days (like today, a bright clear morning with fall colors just starting to come in) it still catches me. I have to enjoy it while I can, though: my office is now officially moving to downtown Boston late next spring. Our office will be only on the 2nd floor so our views will be of busy streetscape rather than panoramic Boston Harbor and skyscrapers.

Cooking some pasta for my lunch today, I noticed that the individual rigatoni arranged themselves vertically in the stream of boiling water bubbles.

Decorations in our break room

(*) not full size

I went to the one-day Networking@Scale conference in Boston today, a series of lectures on large-scale computer networking. It was well worth the trip if for no other reason than this view from the 33rd floor.

In the foreground, leftover Brussels sprouts from a restaurant. In the background, raw Brussels sprouts waiting to be home-cooked. I hope the restaurant bought tiny sprouts to begin with, and did not set someone to the task of peeling down normal-sized sprouts.