Xan: Going overboard...

The Jews have their Xanukah (read: Chanukah), the Christians have their Xmas (Xanmas).  Liz has Shark Week, which I thoroughly approve of, even despite the fact that it isn't a deliberate homage to me.  In fact I think it should be more of a Ramadan-length affair.  I guess then a case could be made for calling it Shark Weex, or even Sharx Weex.  Which would be glorious.

In any case, Liz does not constrain her celebration of sharx to 1 week of the year like everyone else.  And would you know, this year Thanksgiving also happened to be her birthday.  So, we decided to take things into dangerous territory.  We went overboard, and you just won't believe what we found there...

Aren't those the balloons we just gave the birthday girl?  Hey...where'd she go? 

Don't worry, we brought ourselves a shark cage.  Now, at some point in your life, you have probably observed the mild humor in the fact that a "shark cage" is actually a cage for people.  Well, at XCKD Enterprises, things are different.  At XCKD Enterprises, our cages are for sharks.  At XCKD Enterprises, we have black belts* in topology**, so we know that by stepping into the cage and simply declaring ourselves to be on the outside, we can catch all the sharks in the world.  And you know what, that's exactly what we did.  And as a bonus, in the process we also netted ourselves some schools of swedish fish!  Who knew applied math*** could be so delicious?

Liz has now extinguished as many fires in our apartment as Tammy has started.

Jaws.

Happy birthday, Liz.

*But please, understand this in the modern karate sense of "black belt."  Remember that there are puntable 6-year-old children walking around with black belts these days.  It is hardly the universal standard of awesomeness it once was.
**remember, we both wrote our theses on topology.  Mine was titled "Nonrealizable Automorphisms of Complete Bipartite Sharks."
***Take that, Trevor.  Don't tell me I never get my hands dirty.

Xan: Thanksgiving!

We had an epic thanksgiving this year.  In attendance: me, Catherine, mom, dad, Matt L, Tammy Z, and Liz F dropped by too.

Where to begin?  With the turkeys, of course!  Thanksgiving just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without turkey.  I mean, imagine if you showed up to the table and found it bereft of the old gobble-gobble.  And you know what else would be a total mood-killer?  What if you showed up to the table and no one knew where they were supposed to sit?  Like, it would just be a bunch of people wandering around helplessly with nowhere to eat.  Tragic, right?  Tragic like having no turkey.

Well, as exactly one-half of Xan and Catherine, Kitchen Duo (xckd), I am pleased to report that we have successfully planned and executed a groundbreaking strategy for killing two turkeys with one stone.  Behold:

You get the idea.  That's right, turkey cupcake name tags.  Astute readers will recognize the exact likeness of dad's signature in that last one.  Now, since we had 12 people's worth of cupcakes, donut holes and candy corn, we went ahead and made a few extra for the ones who couldn't be here this time:

These are pumpkin cupcakes with gingerbread cookie tails and donut holes for heads.  Seating information has never been so delicious.  By the way, is it just me, or do these turkeys look kinda clueless?  Kinda ignorant of their impending doom?  I guess some of them had longer to live than others.  It was good to be Catherine's turkey this year.  Mom's, not so much.  Tammy's survived/suffered a long time, really no end in sight, probably something to do with the blindness that tends to occur when a turkey is forcibly deprived of its pupils.  In economics, we would say that Tammy Zioux has revealed a preference for animal cruelty.  Yes Tammy, for googlability purposes, it's probably a good thing that I don't agree with you on how your name is spelled.

Anyways, you may be wondering why killing two turkeys with one stone was really necessary, since we were going to have a regular turkey anyways.  The answer is that at xckd enterprises, we don't do turkey.  We do Turbacon:

This method, which I believe originates in some form from grandma, is pretty darn awesome.  This may look like turkey to the uninitiated, but actually it is a sophisticated bacon delivery mechanism.  There is no basting or tenting with foil or white meat overcooking here; no, at xkcd enterprises we have engineered the next generation of superturkey, with bacon seamlessly biointegrated directly into the skin.  I hope I don't need to tell you that this is delicious.

Also on the menu was stuffing, twice-baked potatoes, sweet potato biscuits, cranberry-sauce-from-a-can, herb bread, hot apple cider, brussels sprouts, carrots, corn, gravy, sweet potato fries, apple pie (tammy), and oreo truffles (matt).

Why yes, that is bacon fused to the skin!

 Dessert:

I leave you with this:

At Vongsafood, playing with your food is encouraged.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and welcome to the holiday season!