Kitchen Adventures: Thanksgiving Edition

Eats Meats West moved kitchens (OK...apartments) over the Thanksgiving break, resulting in a delayed feast.  The belated menu consisted of:

Roast Chicken (there were only 20 pound turkeys left)
Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing
Cranberry Sauce
Asparagus
Pumpkin Whoopee Pies

I'm experimenting with a new thermometer, which was a gift from a die-hard user, seeing as how I've learned to cook meats to the desired temperatures through sight alone.  This skill has mostly come in handy, but on occasion I've produced underdone turkey or overdone lamb.  As this was also the first use of the oven in the new kitchen (which had been used as storage by the previous tenant, New York City style), I was overly suspicious of the device.  It comes with a wireless receiver and two separate probes, so the gadget-lover in my wanted to like it, but the whole premise of stabbing your meat before it has even started cooking (thus robbing it of at least some of the juices) still doesn't sit well with me.

Oh, and a pastry chef I am not, so the whoopee pies were a bit of a disast.  They were singed in some areas, and I was combining two recipes, one of which I was halving.  Not the best plan.  Doubling the amount of pumpkin frosting solves anything, though.  Done.  We still have a tub of it in the fridge, though.

I guess what I'm most proud of is using my giant, commercial-strength Kitchenaide mixer at all.  I had to use it four times, in fact, to make the various elements of the whoopee pies.  Good thing I had two mixing bowls.  Does that justify my buying it at the Williams Sonoma in Columbus Circle a month after moving to New York, only to carry it through Whole Foods while I shopped for groceries as normal, and then proceeding to carry it (and the groceries) home on the subway, transferring to the B57 bus, of course?  Totes.