Nov-Dec to Cathy (Lichtenstein)

Long time no see - on these Lichtenstein stamps. Once again - I ended up ambivalent about many of them. I deeply regret that E. Although, to be fair - this envelope was a miserable mess for quite a while. There are a ton of layers. The T is a little too strong, and that first R should have been made up of parts. If there had been 20 of this stamp on the page I might have gotten into a groove. 

I didn't say Happy New Year yesterday - so I'll say it today. Happy New Year. I'm writing this on Nov 9th. It's the day after I cooked a turkey. For the first time in my life I made spectacular gravy. I've always said that it is hard to cook something that you do not care for. The *men-folk* at my house like it.

Waring: the rest of this post is just drivel about gravy

If anyone is interested - I used the America's Test Kitchen recipe - where you let the heart, neck, giblets, and wings simmer in broth until they boil dry and create some fond. Then you deglaze, add aromatics and more broth and simmer for a couple hours. It seems a little crazy - but it works. You don't have to wait and see if there is enough fond in the turkey roasting pan. The gravy can be ready way ahead of time.

Second day gravy was even better - because I deglazed the roaster and saved that *liquid gold* for day two. I had some bone broth left from the first batch that I had not used to make gravy - so I combined those two - and voila - perfect gravy.