Gobble gobble

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Ok, as usual, a little late, but am finally recovered from our Turkey Day feast, which, given the fact for some reason it’s not a national holiday in this country, we celebrated on Saturday.

I tried to be so prepared – which meant making the cranberry sauce on Tuesday – but that was about as far as my early preparation went. At least I remembered to ‘stale-ify’ the stuffing bread by leaving it out over Friday night.

Menu for the day? Pretty much the classics – turkey, stuffing (my first that didn’t start with the words ‘Stove Top’), sweet potatoes, green beans, aforementioned cranberry sauce, spicy cornbread, and of course dessert & more dessert. Pumpkin pie of course (though, sacre bleu, it’s not one of my favourites, so luckily the one other American attendee volunteered for that one!), chocolate brownies (you must have one chocolate dessert for any dinner party. It’s the rule.) and cranberry apple crisp – all topped with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Yum, yum, and double yum - If I say so myself.. though I think the empty plates give a good indication of the yum factor. And also serve as a sign that we did a pretty good job of consuming our estimated 4,500 Thanksgiving meal calories. Each. Some of the carnage can be seen in the photo here – unfortunately we forgot to take any of the shiny untouched meal before the knives came out, so remains are all you get...

Key learning from hosting a dinner party for 12? SERVING SPOONS! The last time around I borrowed so many dishes & other implements from Kim, who we missed this year (though I’m sure you enjoyed that week in the Bahamas...) Ah well – we’ve got a while to amass a few more of our own before our next one...

So many thanks to ‘the other American’ (only 2 at this year’s festivities, counting me) for bringing 3 dishes (especially that pie!) and my dear American-in-spirit husband for the best mashed potatoes ever as well as delicious gravy, and our guests for the wine, champagne, charades and company that sweetened the evening and my favourite holiday all the more.