Sunday, November 30

Giving thanks

Thursday was Thanksgiving here and it has become an American holiday that we truly love. Christmas with friends sans the complexity of gift giving...Ok so it's all about the food and being happy!

This year we were cooking for 21 adults and 6 kids! Talk about huge, but we pulled it off just fine thanks in part to the helpful contributions of our guests. My job was a turkey, two chickens, three potato bakes, four boats of gravy (and a partridge...oh wait wrong holiday), bread stuffing, and making sure everything hit the table on time! We also had a second turkey, a baked ham, roast pumpkin/sweet potato/parsnip and such American classics as green bean casserole, whipped mashed potatoes and oyster stuffing, and this year we even had a Norwegian/Portuguese fish dish!

My turkey sure browned up well. Nothing too over the top this year, just butter, sage, pepper and some citrus in the middle. 

I cooked the two chickens (for those oddballs who don't like turkey) on the rotisserie of the BBQ so they were so tender and moist! Not that you can tell the difference but one is honey, soy and ginger and the other is spicy adobo. As usual I can never throw out a carcass so I have just now completed the epic stock making session of '08, totally worth it!


You can see some of the food here (we were still bringing it out at this point) but I'm sure you get the idea.


Then there was the dessert table! A lot of Aussie contributions here, 2 pavlovas, 2 lemon meringue pies, a heaving plate of lammingtons plus a pumpkin pie and a whole lot of fresh fruit.


As usual we had an eclectic but incredible group of people. Only 4 Americans this year, lots of Aussies, and representatives of Norway, Sweden, Canada and Ireland.

One of the long tables required to seat 21+ people...John and Jo are the masters of large scale entertaining now!

The other fabulously laid out table!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Holy crap! Can we come to your Thanksgiving next year?

Jac said...

Course! Mind you, you guys are so close we could always come to yours...

:D

Anonymous said...

Fantastic work. You and your helpers, really pulled off a great feast in an idyllic atmosphere. Well done. Makes my chocolate brownies and lemon polenta cake, that has just come from the oven, seem very miniscule to your feast. Perhaps when back in Tassie, we will have to have this tradition too. Incorporate it with the stirring of the Christmas pudding, which we did for you both.
Hugs,
Mum