Surfing Ruined My Life

I got overzealous on the size of the Turkey I was going to cook and it just barely fit in my oven. Some how I managed to get yams and the stuffing in there. To make the Pumpkin pies I had to drive them to my boy Tim’s house to cook them there. I had already filled the pies when I realized they would not fit in the oven and had to drive to his house both up and down steep hills. I ended up driving while holding two pies on what ever angle was opposite the slop. I somehow managed to spill very little.

“A trip here (Lisanti Land) really is an escape from reality, and I love how time or even loose conception of such doesn’t even exist.  Things just happen between day and night and it all sorts itself out in the morning”.  These were the words of my friend West, a relatively new member to the court at the Palace.  I was very surprised when I got a call from him back in September asking if he was welcome to come stay with me for Thanksgiving.  The first time I met West was when he innocently accepted an invitation from Kooky Kyle to come up here from San Diego and spend Christmas with him here in Santa Barbara.

I was suppose to go back to New Jersey to see my folks for the holiday and being that the two Jersey kids, West and Kooky were spending their first Christmas away from home I was glad they would find a comfort in one another.  By early December I had decided that I was just not in the right frame of mind to go home and deal with all the family stuff.  2011 was a really tough year for me and at the time I was not ready to answer all the redundant questions that follow.  “What happened?” “How did you blow it this tme?” “Whats your plan now?” And my favorite “You should have never let Sindia go”.

I was not nearly in the mind set for any of that.  I changed my plans, cashed in my ticket and hunkered down for a Holiday in the Barb.   What should have been a fun week vacation for West with an old friend turned into an experience of gnarl he would never forget that involved binge drinking, amazing waves, epic Rincon, good food, a healthy black out, a stabbing and an arrest.  Business as usual in Lisanti Land.  For the scoop on what happened read blogs: Christmas Dread Part I, Part II and Part III.  Most of my regular readers deemed it the most epic saga ever written here.

After all of that ridiculousness the idea that West would even entertain a trip back to the scene of the crime sounded preposterous to me.  When he actually booked his train ticket and was set to come I was flabbergasted.  It seemed round two was inevitable.  Then I was woken up a week before Thanksgiving very hungover, maybe even still drunk a little by a phone call from my friend Dave from Florida, another guy who spent about a month sleeping on my couch last season.  Turns out he just got into town a day or so before.  The stage was being set and the plot thickening for yet another adventure.

The usual turkey day plan for me the past four years was to go over my boy Ryan’s house and enjoy dinner with his lovely family and friends.  This year however his wife went back to work and was not feeling a big event.  Last year Ryan invited Dave, myself and Kooky Kyle and I do believe we all got a bit too inebriated at the table for his quaint mid-western wife.  With no place to go I needed to think fast.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I am a chef, why not cook a feast for my usual Wednesday night dinner crew and all of our closest friends.  As I was mulling this idea over in my head I had a conversation with my new roommate JP and as it turns out being from Belgium he had never experienced a true American Thanksgiving.  That was all the motivation I needed.  I ordered a 22 lb turkey from one of our distributors at work and began promoting.

Rather then compete with the dinners of others I decided to do mine on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, which was more appropriate since my dinners are always on Wednesdays anyhow.  I added my boy Pat another recent NJ transplant to the group rounding it out to a basically entire east coast crew considering my usual Californian invites all stood me up.  Two days out I began getting the menu together.

I decided to brine the turkey for twenty four hours to allow it to be both moist and flavorful. Learn how to do this yourself here.  I made two pumpkin pies from an actual pumpkin another recipe I have featured here on this site click here for that one. Then I did a meat lasagna because I am Italian and in my family there has never been an occasion where there was not some type of substantial pasta dish.  On Thanksgiving someone always made at least one lasagna when I was growing up.  I just had to keep with tradition, not to mention I make a dank ass lasagna, sorry no recipe for this one yet.  I am still at ends with whether or not to post my family’s Italian recipes that have been passed down orally for over a 100 years.  I will tell you what if you want to come visit me here at the Lisanti Palace with the sole purpose of learning I will teach it to you hands on just as it was taught to me by my grandmother, mother and so on and so forth. Of course after such you will have to come get shitty with me at the Wild Cat.

My co-worker Chantelle made a zucchini  potato casserole, cranberry chutney, and a pear upside down cake.  I also did my families Italian bread stuffing, a basic garden salad and roasted yams.  Of course there was plenty of good wine on hand as always.  Like I said it was a veritable feast.  I had expected 11 people, ended up with only nine.  They were nine of my closest friends and in my book if you are a close friend you are family.  Everyone pretty much gorged themselves with food and all were pleased.  As far as I was concerned the dinner was a success.

Even Alfie chowed down on some Turkey. What part of the turkey could that be??? Hmmm I wonder…..

After eating Mark, West, Pat, Dave and I rolled to the Wild Cat, but when we got there we found ourselves way too full to even try and consume anymore alcohol.   Minus watching Pat strike out with two decent looking chicks in town for the night and witnessing some poor schmuck get arrested for blowing coke in the bathroom, it was a pretty uneventful night at the club.

As per every Thanksgiving since I have lived out in Santa Barbara there were waves.  The boys and I woke up and cruised down to Rincon.  The crowd was its usual holiday circus.  I was in decent spirits and did not want a session there to ruin that for me.  Dave and Pat went for it while West and I cruised to Pitas and although not as good had almost 75% less crowd.  You can read the surf log for the details on my Thanksgiving weekend surfs.   I must say it was not the best I have ever seen it for the duration but it was fun.  West and I scored a bonus glassy Jalama session on Saturday the 24th that was about as good a surfing experience one could get after which we went for a fun romp through the valley that West considered a perfect end to a perfect trip.

Overall I found it to be a better then usual Thanksgiving holiday.  I had five solid days off from work.  The company of some really good friends.  I cooked and hosted my first ever Thanksgiving dinner that went down with out a hitch.  We all scored some good waves.  Despite a solid amount of drinking and partying no one got sick, blacked out, got injured, died, had regrettable sex with a mutant (thank you West) and West did not get arrested.  Thanksgiving 2012 may just have to go down as the best ever!  All that in the midst of the “Fall of My Malcontent”.