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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Thanksgiving at Black Angus

It's really not as incongruous as it might seem. I traveled to Long Beach for the annual "Shovel Day" festivities with little brother Jim and his partner Joe.

In previous iterations of this trek, Jim and Joe have been invited to a big feast at a friend's house, but this year the friend kind of flaked out over the summer and that option wasn't available.

Although Joe can definitely cook (and his breakfast presentations are superb), he simply didn't want to for Thanksgiving, and I certainly wasn't going to argue. I'm not particularly a foodie; give me something edible, I'll eat it and like it.

Joe is, frankly, also a bit of a coupon whore. He discovered a $15 Thanksgiving special at Black Angus - no, not five pounds of porterhouse, but a real live Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, stuffing, mashers, yams, gravy, and all the trimmings.

So off we went, after first doing some Black Friday shopping. Regardless of the news reports saying BF went off pretty well for merchants, our survey of the Costco parking lot and its dozens of open spaces told us that people definitely are cutting back this year.

The Black Angus wasn't packed either. We arrived early for our mid-afternoon reservation but were seated immediately and promptly chowed down. Every bit as good as the innumerable family and extended family feasts, with the possible exception of lack of football on TV.

After gaining several pounds, I bit Jim and Joe adieu on Friday to take the show to Las Vegas, where I observed crowds about 20% smaller than during similar Thanksgiving weekends in the recent past.

Hope you all had a wonderful "Shovel Day" as well.

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