Have a lovely Thanksgiving, to those in the US; elsewhere, I hope your day is filled with blessings

When the details don't go as planned, remember that there are no holidays devoted to perfection.

Thanksgiving is a holiday of gratitude, for all of life's blessings, and the lessons learned in our failings.

Some of my personal "failures" from Thanksgivings (and other holidays) past:

• the "turnip" pie. I cooked my pumpkin filling in the same pan that I had previously used for cooking mashed turnips. It was an aluminum pot which absorbs flavors and odors. The whole pie-eating experience was tainted with turnip overtones.
• The Rancid Turkey Fat Disaster of 2011. It was late Thanksgiving night, when I was cleaning up the kitchen from our feast. I had a tall, narrow container of turkey fat/liquid sitting on the counter, with a long spoon in the jar. I reached over to get something, and knocked the whole container over, spilling onto the counter, into a partially opened drawer, all over me and onto the floor. I used every rag in the house to clean it up, along with a couple of bath towels. I threw the whole mess into the laundry room, and added my turkey fat-soaked clothes. I forgot to deal with this until early the next week, when everything smelled like rancid turkey fat. I ran a load of wash, adding additional clothing to the load. After washing, everything in that load smelled like rancid fat. I rewashed everything 3 or 4 times, on hot, with extra detergent. Many items came clean enough, but one sweatshirt and one t-shirt never came clean of rancid turkey fat. I wound up throwing those two items out, as I couldn't wear them without detecting the faint odor of rancidity.
• the too-tough-to-cut-with-a-knife pork roast that I served to my son's girlfriend's parents, for son's GF graduation. I had one opportunity to impress my son's girlfriend's parents -- this one dinner. They live in Shanghai, so it's not like I can invite them for a do-over. I planned this menu very carefully. I really did work hard this day, trying to make everything perfect. But I am lousy with cooking meat. That's just me. I have a good thermometer. I just have bad timing. The pork roast came out so tough, I cringed as I watched our guests work at cutting it into bites, then work further at chewing it all. In the end, they did say that they liked approved of our son, as a BF to their daughter. So, I don't think we ruined his future with them. Maybe I'll get a do-over another year.
• the gravy with more lumps than liquid. I was newly married, and invited my grandparents over to dinner. I made a roast with gravy. I had only made gravy a couple of times before this occasion. My gravy, literally had more volume in lumps than liquid. My grandmother came to my rescue, however. She asked if I owned a sieve (mesh strainer). I got it out, and she showed me that I could push the gravy through the mesh, and make something almost respectable, for gravy. Fortunately, we do get better with experience, and my gravy has improved over the years. (hint: if your gravy looks insipid and pale, use soy sauce to add some flavor and color to the gravy.)
• scorched mash potatoes, burnt green beans, cold coffee served to guests, and more blunders, yet we survived. Holidays are not about perfection, but about celebration. Have a happy holiday, no matter what goes wrong!

Apparently I made raspberry jam this past summer

I say, apparently, because I have no recollection of making this kind of jam. I remember making strawberry, vanilla-rhubarb and vanilla-plum, however. How can I spend an afternoon making something and not remember it?

That's how my summer went. I have several patches of low-memory from the summer. So, when fall slid in, I felt like I never had a summer. I will endeavor to make up for that with Summer 2017!

Anyway, here's the frugal cake that I made to celebrate both my son's (Nov. 19) and his girlfriend's (Nov. 16) birthdays.

The cake, itself, is a scratch vanilla butter cake, using the recipe in this link. I baked it early in the week, and froze the layers. I made a frosting of cocoa powder, butter, confectioner's sugar, vanilla, salt and milk. I had a busy weekend, before the celebration, so I made the frosting a couple of days in advance, and kept it covered in the refrigerator. By doing so, I had the ease of canned frosting, on the day of putting the cake together.

To make our celebration cakes "fancy", I like to split the layers, using my serrated bread knife, and spooning in generous amounts of homemade jam. For this cake, I discovered the homemade raspberry jam in my garage fridge. A delightful surprise to me! (That's the upside of my recent forgetful episode -- lots of stuff come as delightful surprises.) This is a simple trick that really elevates an ordinary layer cake, in a matter of 5 or 10 extra minutes.

Just before putting candles on the cake, I also spooned some warmed jam (warmed, to thin it for pouring) over the top of the chocolate-frosted cake. I love to combination of berries and chocolate.

I estimate that my home-baked, scratch birthday cake cost about $2.50, for the cake, the frosting and the jam. I spent about 1 hour and 10 minutes of hands-on time, making this cake. If I had bought a bakery birthday cake, of this quality, my cost would have been about $25. I compare my scratch cakes to those of a moderate bakery, which would use premium ingredients, such as butter, real vanilla and a fruit filling, in addition to a buttercream icing. In such case, I "earned" about $19 per hour for my time investment.

There are some things in life that matter to me. A cake made with quality ingredients happens to be one of those. I've enjoyed baking since I was 8 years old. It seems fitting that this would be on my personal list of things that brings me enjoyment, both in the consuming and creating.