bubble & squeak day

I realized today that we do actually have a Thanksgiving tradition -- or rather, we have a tradition that follows every Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The day after both of these major feast days, Marcus always makes Bubble & Squeak.  For those who are unfamiliar, Bubble & Squeak is a traditional English meal made primarily by taking every savoury part of a roast dinner (or a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal) -- the turkey, the potatoes, the stuffing, the green beans, the brussel sprouts, whatever -- and frying it all up with tons of bacon until it's sort of golden and crispy on the outside.

It is as delicious and devoid of any sort of redeeming health benefit as it sounds.

Marcus has been making this for as long as we've been married, and at some point many years ago, our friends Trish and Carl came over to share one of his Bubble & Squeak meals.  That made it official:  now, no matter what we do with our separate families on Thanksgiving and Christmas, we always get our families together the day or two after each of those holidays and have Bubble & Squeak together. 

Today was that day.  Because of our kitchen-less state, we packed up the Thanksgiving meal leftovers that my mom and dad gave us on Thursday, and headed over to Trish & Carl's kitchen.  Together with their leftovers, Marcus made a huge pot of Bubble & Squeak, and after, we sat and had dessert and coffee in their family room, lit by the glow from their newly erected Christmas tree.  And it was lovely.

Today, I realized that the holidays don't feel complete until our Bubble & Squeak day happens.  It's a wonderful way to make sure we celebrate not just with our blood relatives, but also our "heart relatives" as well.

Song:  Raisin' the stakes, by Groove Armada (tonight's après-Bubble-and-Squeak music)