Thanksgiving Live Blog: Books, Music, and Turkey

A few years ago, I decided to live blog my Thanksgiving morning. This has turned into indispensable resource when each year I try to remember how long it too to smoke the Turkey and what I should be doing on Thanksgiving morning. 

On that Thanksgiving, I read Krysta Ryzewski’s Detroit Remains and listening to Lee Morgan introduce the band for the Friday, July 10th 1970 performance at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California. 

This holiday, I’m going to start to prep my Greek history class for the spring semester and listen to two different recent albums. I’m going to start with the new Miles Davis Prestige box set called Miles ’54: The Prestige Recordings. I’ve listened to most of this box set just once (although I’m vaguely familiar with most of the recordings). The interplay between Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Kenny Clark is just brilliant with Miles in his smoothest, most liquid, post-cool, mood.

At some point, as I wake up, I’ll switch over to [ahmed]’s fantastic new 5-disk album called Giant Beauty (2024). 

As for books, I’m reading Roderick Beaton’s The Greeks (2021) which I plan to assign as a textbook of sorts for my Greek History class in the spring. 

6:15 AM

Beaton’s book starts with dawn across the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean: in Egypt, at Millawanda (Miletus), at Troy, across the Aegean at Crete and Santorini, and into the Argolid. It seems like a fitting way to start my Thanksgiving morning (and perhaps even my Greek history class). Beaton’s prose is polished and in stark contrast to the pulpy paper of the Hachette/Basic Books paperback edition. I can’t help feeling that Beaton deserved better, but the $35 price is commendable.

I’ve not spun up Miles yet on the streamer, but once I get the fire started, I think that I will. For now, coffee, dogs, and the low level commotion of a Thanksgiving morning.

6:30 AM

It’s 14° F outside with a thin blanket of fresh snow. Perfect for smoking.

7:00 AM

I started the fire a little after 6:30 and will get the smoker ready in the next few minutes. I’ve just finished the first chapter of Beaton’s book. It’s very readable and engaging and managed the big picture scope of Bronze Age Aegean (and Eastern Mediterranean) society without getting bogged down in the details or debates. I was pleased to see him mention the Uluburun shipwreck, for example, and to give Cyprus a cameo, without getting too tangled up in the “coming of the Greeks” conversation. At the same time, I would have loved to see a bit more about “everyday life” in either Minoan or Mycenaean times. The Linear B tablets seem to provide a window into the religion, economy, and production (and consumption) at least among some Mycenaean elites. It seems ready made for a case study as well. 

Miles’s Prestige recordings in the new remastering are so crisp with his trumpet pushed way forward in the mix. His tone, of course, is remarkable. On “Love Me or Leave Me” his muted trumpet almost takes on the quality of the human voice and dances along the skittering drums and pulsing bass lines with grace and precision. Sonny Rollins saxophone solo is expansive without losing intimacy and vibrant without losing his characteristic soul. It’s hard to read when this is in the background. 

8:00 AM

Putting to bird in the smoker with the temperature hanging at 250°. 

Listening to “Walkin’” from Miles ’54. The J.J. Johnson trombone solo is just perfect and Lucky Thompson’s tenor is understated and slick. Miles solo is ringing. Horace Silver’s quote from “When I Dream Upon a Star” brings a smile to my face every time! It’s great hard bop from the dawn of hard bop. 

I’m onto the Dark Ages and Archaic period in Beaton’s book. Lefkandi features as one might expect and the Homeric epics with just enough background to make them seem vivid and less historically confusing than he readily admits they can be. This is a better survey than I can provide in class so far, but I’m only a few pages into this chapter. 

8:30 AM

The world of the catalogue of ships to a sound track of “Aregin” and “Oleo” from Miles ’54. I like how Beaton traces the long influence of the Homeric in just a couple pages. It’s enough to intrigue a student and perhaps to motivate them to do more readings on their own. Beaton’s optimistic reading of the catalogue of ships and his connection of them to the borders of the modern state is nice as well, but probably simplifies the messy reality of things.

I added about two big handfuls of maple chips to the fire which got the grill temperature up over 225°. There are flurries falling and the outdoor temperatures are still hanging in the mid-teens making it feel like a true North Dakota holiday. 

9:00 AM

I wrapped up the second chapter of Beaton’s book. It’s good, but I might have liked a bit more Hesiod and every day life and a bit less Homer and aristocratic travails, but that’s more of a preference than a critique. 

As I start chapter 3 on the Archaic period, I’m enjoying “Doxy” by Sonny Rollins with his lovely tenor solo. Then, back to back versions of Milt Jackson’s Bags’ Groove. Miles’ solo oozes with noire and evokes smokey backrooms. 

The turkey is at 122° and 115° and the grill is around 220°. This feels a bit ahead of schedule, but even turkey goes through a bit of a stall at 150° or so. I might have to add some charcoal in a couple of hours.

9:30 AM

“Beshma Swing” is a favorite tune of mine and the move from it to “Swing Spring” is a nice treat deep in the middle of B-side. “Swing Spring” features Monk on piano and despite being credited to Miles, it carries on with a genuinely Monkish vibe. 

For Beaton, it’s colonization, the birth and development of the polis, and onto Athens and Sparta. It’s all solid, but maybe lacks some of the flair of the earlier chapters. The whimsy of prehistory gives way to the serious business of the pre-Classical polis. 

The grill is sitting happily at 225°.

10:10 AM

From colonization to the Herodotus and the Ionian Revolt, chapter three does a good job of surveying the Archaic period with detours at the symposia, the pre-Socratics, sculpture and Phrasikleia. The writing is more dynamic than the narrative at times. The reader will have to surmise that connection between expanding Greek settlement horizons and the development of Greek thought and political life, but the pieces are all there to connect. Greek identity has emerged as a central theme even if it remains a bit undefined.

The shift from the lovely and lyrical Miles ’54 to [ahmed]’s raucous Giant Beauty seems more than appropriate for both my reading and my feelings as the day comes alive.

The turkey is in a hurry today with the wings at 155° and the breast at 140° while the smoker itself has settled down to around 210°. I added a little bit of unlit charcoal to the hopper and we’ll see whether it lights and gives the coals a boast down the stretch. If the temp continues to lag at 11, I’ll light some more for the final push.   

10:40 AM

Chapter 4 is the Classical period and as one might expect, things get complicated. Beaton opts to conflated the story of Marathon in Herodotus with that in Plutarch and make the fully armed Athenian hoplites run the 26 miles back to Athens to forestall a Persian attack rather than the messenger Pheidippides who had the good sense to discard his arms on the hurry to alert the Athenians. Otherwise this chapter tells a familiar story from Herodotus.

[ahmed] is rhythmic, strident, and alive. So alive.

Turkey is relaxed and cooking. There’s a minor stall as the grill temperature and turkey temperature converge, but the few unlit coals did the trick and got us back to 225°.

11:15 AM

Beaton’s narrative of the Persian Wars is a bit deadpanned which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I appreciate his emphasis on the key role of alphabetic writing, prose and ultimately history in commemorating the Persian Wars ensured that the Greek version of these events becomes so influential.

I’m souring a bit on the [ahmed] album. It’s a lot for this morning. I really like it, but I’m not sure it’s carrying me along in my reading in the same way that Miles did. I’m going to reconsider!

No update on the turkey yet. I’ll check in around 11:30 AM. 

11:45 AM

Beaton’s treatment of the Pentecontaetia connects it with changes all around the Mediterranean world starting well before the Persian Wars, but he quickly reverts to his narrative focus on Athens. For a book like this, it is understandable. The Peloponnesian War passes quickly. The changes to the Athenian democracy are summarized in as a succinct a way as possible and Beaton wisely tempers Thucydides’ assertion that the democracy led to the Athens’ defeat. Instead, intemperate leaders and Persian involvement are the culprits, it would seem (at least on first reading). 

[ahmed] lasted me until the end of “African Bossa Nova.” This album is good, but I suspect it is a bit of an acquired taste right now. Plus, the football has started and that’s as pleasant a background noise as any on Thanksgiving.

The turkey has hit the plateau. The fire is still at about 220°, but the turkey temps are languishing around 150°. Just in case, I’ve started an auxiliary fire that I can use to run up the temperatures when I’ve decided that we’ve enjoyed the slow cooking process enough for one day.

12:05 PM

Mood change: Samara Joy’s Portait (2024). 

12:15 PM

With Samara Joy’s gorgeous Portrait on in the background and the Lions-Bears game muted on TV. I’m making it may way through the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War and the King’s Peace in Beaton’s book. It’s a nice blend of mercifully simplified political history and concise cultural history featuring Xenophon, Plato, Isocrates, Demosthenes, and even a cameo from the aging Euripides.

When I took a break to add more coals to the grill, I was enjoying a measured description of Philip II of Macedon. The new coals should rouse the turkey from its plateau and Susie and I will enjoy a Negroni Sbagliato in hopes that the turkey enters the final stretch.    

12:45 PM

This feels like as good a time as any to conclude the live blog for this year’s Thanksgiving. We’ve entered the family phone calls, rapidly cooking turkey, and pre-dinner cocktail part of the day which means that Prof. Beaton’s work will have to go back on the shelf until the weekend. It is an appropriate book for my Greek history class and I’m excited to chat with students about it next semester.

The turkey is as 160° and nearly ready and we’ll switch over the Bill Evans’ Live at the Village Vanguard box set for the run to the dinner.

Thanks for hanging out with me this Thanksgiving! 

Postscript:

1:35 PM

The turkey came out of the smoker at around 1:30 and it wasn’t perfect. It was just slightly dry (not very dry or anywhere as close to being as dry as one done in the oven), but I think the stall at 150ish was too long. Next time we hit 150°, it seems wiser to run the heat up and finish the bird.