Thanksgiving: cornish game hens dry brined, then rinsed & dried, then buttered thoroughly on top, dusted inside and on top with black green white pepper, onion and garlic powders, smoked paprika, and on top large-grain salt. Up butt a lemon wedge, onion wedge, and garlic clove. In hot oven 15 mn, medium oven 30mn, very hot oven 15 mn. Eat skin off top before squeezing lemon from inside over rest.

Brussels sprouts: slice thinly, and separate slices with ability to maintain integrity from bits and pieces and lone leaves. Hot grease of choice, fry slices in single layer with Berber spice, flip individually as browned. When not all browned, lose patience and toss in the rest. Fry till crisp.

Hope someone else made pie because I didn't.

What I did make was mom's chocolate sauce that is the bottom of her black-bottomed ice cream pie, the kind of sauce that turns fudgy when it hits cold ice cream:

Stir constantly through whole recipe:
Melt 2 oz bitter chocolate in 6T coffee (or water)
Add 1/2c sugar and a pinch of salt, cook till it thickens, 10-12-15 mn
Add 3T butter and 1/2t vanilla extract. It is ready when everything has been stirred in. Leftovers will solidify in fridge, reheat slowly to eat rest.

Took 3 bird carcasses with brussels spicy grease and boiled down to a half-cup of delicious spicy buttery goop I haven't decided what to do with yet.