thanksgiving 2005 redux

a good time was had by all...

It was a success, but utterly exhausting. I'm not sure I'll want to tackle something quite so ambitious again in the near future. The reason Thanksgiving is such and American holiday and has not really caught on elsewhere is because we tend to have great big American-sized kitchens that can accommodate cooking for 16!!! I took some shots of our Amsterdam kitchen (luxurious by local standards) so you can witness the lack of counter space...



* click here for more pics


We ended up with a 6 kilo turkey (13.2 lbs) and 16 guests. In addition, we made stuffing, veggie dressing, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes (i wanted to roast them but there was no space in the oven for anything but the turkey), roasted green beans, cornbread and 2 kinds of cranberry sauce. Aaron ditched work early Friday afternoon to help cook and we were ready to serve about 8:30. Burnt fingers, arms and sore legs aside, I think we did an amazing job of not killing each other in the process.

We had quite the international crowd with guests from the US, Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Belgium and Canada!

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and even the stress of not serving right on time was reduced by the happy sounds of everyone chatting together around the empty table. We had a lot to be thankful for - great conversation and good friends, everyone brought loads of great wine and special thanks go out to Lisa & Simon for the flowers, chairs and yummy pumpkin pies; Emma for the delicious chocolate cake and borrowed cutlery; Simon for his turkey carving expertise; Lianne & Ben and Jack & Jasmin for the salad and fresh greens; Lesley for the Turkish bread; Marjorie for the delivery and dishware loan; and Marc & Tiff who couldn't make it but helped save our butts with extra chairs!

It's a good thing we bought a smaller turkey this time around, I've had it with leftovers - turkey & sides, turkey & pasta and last night, turkey quesadillas...

anyone for thai food?