Happy Thanksgiving!

Ollie got to go to two Thanksgiving dinners with us, since my family and my in-laws both live in the same city we do!

So I've heard that ham biscuits are, for the most part, unheard-of outside of Virginia.
This right here, which Ollie is helping to plate (or maybe just sneaking bites of!) is "biscuit ham."
It's Smithfield ham (even saltier than straight salt) cut in scraps and sold as biscuit ham,
because we Virginians like to make biscuits and put slices of Smithfield ham in them.
It's really as simple as that. Anyone can do it! But this way of buying the ham is much
cheaper and easier than getting a whole ham, especially if you've just using it for ham biscuits!

Watching the re-airing of the Macy's parade, since we were busy making
mac and cheese during the live broadcast.

Watching my husband and his mom playing ping-pong while we wait until it's time
to start making side dishes.

Baked brie as an appetizer!!! Take a large Brie, cut off the top (but leave it on), bake it at 350F for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix 1 cup each of Kahlua, brown sugar, and pecans and heat on the stove.
Take out the Brie and remove the top skin, then pour the pecan mixture over the top. Serve with crackers.

Pretty table setting! My mother-in-law is very good at this.

The beautiful turkey!

Thanksgiving Mac & Cheese

That isn't a tradition for us, or anything. My dad called a few days ago and asked if I wanted to bring anything to Thanksgiving dinner, and I decided on mac and cheese. We actually just made this for the work potluck two days ago, so we already had all the ingredients! This time, Ollie wanted to share the recipe with everyone.

Step One

Step One: Get a pot of water boiling for your pasta. Boil a 1/2 pound of pasta (we use rotini because it holds the cheese so well in its little ridges) according to package instructions and drain. Also, preheat the oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet (with raised edges!) with foil and parchment paper, and lay bacon in a single layer. When the oven is ready, bake bacon for 15 minutes, then check on it. (We usually let it cook another 5 minutes but I like to check it at 15 just in case.)

Step Two

Step Two: Look at that beautiful bacon! Sneak a piece because nobody else is up yet, and it just smells so good... plus, this is about twice as much bacon as we actually need. Let it cool for a minute, then layer paper towels and bacon to pat the grease off it. Then chop the bacon into little pieces. It will be going in our crispy topping!

Step Three

Step Three: Speaking of our crispy topping, it's time to make the rest of that! In a small pan, melt 1 Tbsp of butter. Add 1/4 cup of panko crumbs and stir to coat with the butter. Add Parmesan (I usually add almost 1/4 cup) and stir well. When it's almost all toasted, add garlic powder to match your personal tastes, and finish toasting. Turn off the heat and add the chopped bacon. Let it sit on the side until later.

Step Four

Step Four: By now, your pasta has finished cooking and been drained. Hang on to that pot! Melt 1/4 cup butter in it. Then add 1/4 cup flour and whisk well to remove large lumps. Slowly add 2 cups milk, stirring as you go. Let the milk mixture warm for a couple minutes (not boil!). Add 3 cups shredded cheese (we have 2 cups Italian mix - Provolone, mozzarella, Gouda, and Parmesan - and 1 cup sharp Cheddar here, my favorite combo) one handful at a time, stirring to let each melt before adding the next. When the cheese is all melted, add the pasta back to the pot and stir to coat.

Step Five

Step Five: Pour the now-cheesy pasta into a baking dish (mine is an 8" square metal pan and it fits PERFECTLY) and top with the panko/Parmesan/garlic/bacon topping. Bake at 350F for 5-10 minutes (it should be starting to bubble around the edges when you take it out). Let it cool before posing any LVs with it for photos.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

VA Comicon

I'm sorry I don't have more photos of it, but honestly, I was only at this con for a couple hours and I had several things to get done. (Most importantly: meet one of my favorite cosplayers, Ivy Doomkitty!) But Ollie did go to VA Comicon in Richmond with me today:

(If you recall the photos of him helping me with the Daryl Dixon cosplay, I was going to wear that to this show, but then I realized that I should be Han Solo for the Star Wars premiere instead of Rey, so I'm saving the vest for that, then adding the wings after the movie so I can be Daryl some other time.)

Library Fun

Since I'm a librarian, Ollie will get to spend a lot of time in our library. It's a unique library though, because we're a Joint-Use Library. It's a community college library (which I work for) combined with a public library.

This week, I'm holding drop-in citation workshops for students who don't know how to cite their sources. Ollie helped me set up yesterday:

And last night was our book club (a program by the public library, so I participate as a member outside of my work hours). Instead of everyone reading the same book, we pick a genre every month and we each read something different. So our program leader puts together a little game based on the genre each month to start with. This month was romance books, so she printed out the book covers to the top 20 romance books on Good Reads, and we had to arrange them in what we thought was the right order, as a group.

Ollie inspects the results...
The three that are further to the right than the others
are the only ones we placed correctly!!!

There will be a lot more library-based adventures, I'm sure, so I'll try to spread them out.

Christmas Tree

Yesterday, I found myself with some unexpected free time before I had to get to work, so I took apart a table we had in the living room and put it on the porch, like we had planned to do when we moved into this apartment over the summer. With that done, the space I wanted to use for the Christmas tree was available, so I pulled it out and put it up. It isn't decorated, just up. Ollie got a... unique perspective on it!

Cosplay - Daryl Dixon's Crossbow and Wings

Ollie got to help me with a humorously fitting cosplay today. You see, Ollie is from the same place Walking Dead is set (at least, for a long time) and next weekend I'm going to be cosplaying as Daryl Dixon!

First, Ollie borrowed my recently-checked-out-of-the-library Walking Dead books
to do a little research.

Working on the crossbow. This much was done when Ollie got here, but we needed to add the string.

We cut out the fabric for the wings on the back of his vest.
The paper under the wings is the pattern for the vest,
which we also made today.

I can't want to take Ollie to his first con with me next Sunday!

New Friend: Gimli

Usually my kitty Gimli ignores my LVs for at least a month or two, if not their entire visit. Apparently Ollie is more interesting to Gimli because he came sniffing around the table where Ollie was sitting, and when I moved Ollie to safety, Gimli spent several minutes inspecting where he had been sitting.

Welcome, Ollie!

Ollie is here! Hooray!

Since I was in the middle of making dinner when I opened the package, Ollie jumped right in like a helpful little LV:

Then he got the best seat in the living room...

If I had stopped at home between work and presenting at a conference today, he could have joined me for that, but it wasn't on the way. So we get to start our adventures tomorrow!

Introduction

This is Ollie! He'll be my Little Visitor this winter. He isn't here yet... this is the photo Wolffepsyche shared to introduce him.