A Weekend of Thanks- The Big Day

After a run Thursday morning, in the bright sunshine and mild weather of Huntington Beach, I arrived back to Nicole's Grandma's house to the smell of cooking! Multiple different smells in fact!

The oven was on, the turkey was stuffed, and half the pies were already refrigerated. That's right, we didn't just have one or two pies, we had 4 different desserts, not including fruit! But more on that later; first things first!

Once Liz's homemade stuffing (an eclectic array of ingredients) had been pushed deep inside the turkey, and its entire body had been pasted in herbs, it was my job to lift the 21 pound bird into the oven! While that was cooking, we pealed apples and pears, assembled a corn cake mixture,  and chopped the potatoes.

4 hours later, after I'd shoved a thermometer inside the turkey's butt, the meal was ready!

While we were waiting to take our seats at the big kitchen table, I'd been enjoying the company of Nicole's wonderful family; her Mom, Grandpa, Aunt and Uncle, Kiki and Nicole's great cousins Shanaya and Aiden. Sadly Nicole's Dad and Mari had taken a Thanksgiving cruise to Hawaii, so they were missed. We had all been sat learning about the best way to escape a car sinking in water, and how many times you really can fold a piece of paper in half, courtesy of Mythbusters!

With the table set and the food all cooked, we began our meal. Starters was a yummy salad consisting of artichoke hearts with a sweet citrus dressing, which tasted great, despite being frozen by accident a few minutes previously. Talk about chilled salad! I enjoyed the appetizer, but Nicole's uncle considered it a waste of time, and was eager to get to the "proper" food. The plates were quickly cleared, and Nathen was satisfied, as we piled our plates high with Liz's wonderful Thanksgiving dinner: large helpings of turkey; moist, flavoursome stuffing; smooth mashed potato; candied yams/sweet potato topped with cinnamon and marshmallows (I never did find out the difference between yams and sweet potatoes); bourbon flavoured corn cake; and of course, incomplete without the cranberry sauce and gravy to top it off. I almost forgot the broccoli, which added some much needed green, both colour and healthwise to the meal!



Such a feast, we had to wait an hour after our main course before we could hit the desserts. They looked so incredible, that I couldn't decide which one to have, so I ended up with a little of 3 different ones; sumptuous pumpkin pie; an exquisitely light, home-made, lemon chiffon pie; and a fulfilling apple and pear baked pie. All topped with whipped cream from Liz's new whip cream maker! I never even got around to the chocolate birthday cake baked for Aiden's birthday and hand decorated by Nicole.

I almost passed out from that calorific intake of yumminess, and spent a good few hours on the sofa recovering after that, chatting with everyone before it was time to part ways. We did enjoy watching "Punkin Chunkin" though, a national event which attracts thousands of spectators, as competitors try to "throw" pumpkins as far as they can. By throw, I mean fire, as they use all manor of equipment to get the distance: aircannons, catapults, trebuchets and hand powered. Should you feel inclined, you can check out the official website here http://www.punkinchunkin.com/ and videos here http://science.discovery.com/tv/punkin-chunkin/



The best of all the food? The leftovers. Who could grumble at a turkey and spinach omelette the following morning, or turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwiches to take on the plane? One of the things I find in the US is the willingness to use leftovers. I am sure its the case in most countries, but particularly in the US, I notice that every house hold has a large supply of Tupperware containers and ziploc bags, on hand ready to save food. In restaurants it is even more noticeable, where  asking for a box to take home food is a common occurrence, much more so than in England. And why not? You paid for it!

I really enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. It really is a family friendly holiday, where no-one has to worry about putting up the decorations, getting the right presents for everyone, or spending a ton of money (unless you count on food!). It was a very relaxing occasion, with time just to enjoy each others' company. And, it was nice early taste of a Christmas dinner, albeit with some interesting additions.

With Thanksgiving however, comes Black Friday. A crazy day (or rather night, as a number of stores now open at 4am, or even earlier at midnight!) where shoppers flock to get the best bargains on anything and everything. While it would be nice to pick up some bargains, there is no way I am fighting with a big crowd just to save 20% on a TV, or something like that... even if it does save big bucks! I always find sales are overrated. To give you some idea of the number of people who attend Black Friday, you need look no further than the barriers which were in place outside of Walmart on Thursday morning when I went to get facewash (I was surprised Walmart was open, but it was certainly handy!). Outside of the store, metal gates had been set up in a snake like pattern, to form the kind of queuing area one would expect to find at Disney, not Walmart. And at 10am, there were already people with tents set up and deck chairs in place, ready for the store to open and to snatch up the sale items at 4am the next morning.

No thank you, not for me! I'd much rather relax at home and enjoy some delicious food!



P.S. Courtesy of Wikipedia, apparently this is why Yams are called Sweet Potatoes (they are kind of the same thing in the US)... The sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato (Solanum tuberosum). The softer, orange variety is often called a yam in parts of North America, a practice intended to differentiate it from the firmer, white variety. The sweet potato is botanically very distinct from the other vegetable called a yam, which is native to Africa and Asia and belongs to the monocot family Dioscoreaceae. To prevent confusion, theUnited States Department of Agriculture requires that sweet potatoes labeled as "yams" also be labeled as "sweet potatoes".^[1]