My Idaho Thanksgiving Adventure

I just have to tell you about my fun Thanksgiving.  I have a very special group of friends that I consider "family."  In fact we call ourselves "Ohana" which means extended family in Hawaiian.  So, as tradition has it, we spent the holiday together.  This year we went to Lynn and Neil's who live on Hoodoo Mountain in Idaho.  Packed with pies and all the ingredients to make a new Cranberry Yam recipe, my son and I drove up right after work on Wednesday.  All 14 of us decided to spend the night (just because it's so much more fun).  Big, huge, silver dollar size snowflakes started to fall just as I was starting to drive up the mountain.  And they never stopped.  It was fun to watch them coat the ground, the trees and the power lines.  You get where I'm going now, don't you?  (Power lines was the clue)  Early (like 4 am) on Thanksgiving we lost power.  The 26 lb turkey was suppose to go in the oven at 6:30 am for dinner at 2:00.

We never feared that we'd starve, but our Turkey dinner was in jeopardy.  (Oh, and the pump that keeps the plumbing working is electric - so, no water or facilities either!)  Of course, being on a mountain in Idaho, they have a wood stove.  So we huddled around that in our jammies for a few hours.  On the stove we heated a ration of water for coffee.  Mary even managed to cook some chicken apple sausage and scrambled eggs on the stove for us.  Much to our relief (and a touch of disappointment) the power was back on by late morning.  And the turkey went in the oven. I managed to stay in my jammies until about 3:00pm when it was my turn to use the shower.  What a great day.  Dinner was about 4 1/2 hours later than planned - and what a feast it was.  Much to all our surprise, my 17 year old son asked if he could cook up the cranberry sauce. My pies were gone long before dinner and the new recipe for Cranberry Yams got rave reviews and we decided it was a keeper. Debbie 

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