Thanksgiving 2008

It is fun to cook an elaborate and huge feast once in a while. It is memories like these that lingers in the mind and bring joy all the time. So on Wednesday I started to work on the feast. I read about feasts abroad and it is so fun. I like to find out how other people celebrate but what's even more fun is to celebrate right in my own home.

The mess in the kitchen, cooking means a lot of cleaning up but I don't mind. Sometimes cleaning up is fun just like unloading the dishwasher. It is fun putting all the things back into the pantry and using everything that I have accumulated over the years.

This restaurant size stove was working overtime, cooking sometimes two things at once, other time cooking one thing right after another. It was a matter of coordinating the cooking time, different dishes cooked at different temperature setting.

The flowers have been bought, some narcissus 'paperwhites'. Where are the 'orange' colored things? Orange is not my favorite color so there are no 'orange' anything in my house not even in Fall and at Thanksgiving.

The house is cleaned and the beds are made.

Don't forget the bathroom...

The table is set and ready.

Here a melange of berries for the mixed berry clafouti.

The mixed berry clafouti, a recipe from Donna Hay. Thanks Donna, it was good.

I need to work on this presentation. I always set the buffet on the preparation table in the kitchen but still it can be spruced up. This definitely needs work.

Time to eat, everybody got up for seconds and thirds, a compliment to the cook. The only thing missing was the popovers, they came out hot from the oven, was passed around and eaten so fast that no picture could be taken.

The feast was so well worth the effort. Here I am left with the clean up and the putting away of the leftovers. One dinner down and there's another one coming up, Christmas. I'm working on the menu right now. It's been a great year and I'm looking forward to the the next year. The question thrown around these days is 'is your life better after 8 years?' Mine is, very much better. While others have great trepidation about the new year, I have none but excitement. I'm truly thankful....