Thanksgiving

I must say that I had a pretty enjoyable Thanksgiving. I don't think I was expecting that much from it, because my mom invited a bunch of her Japanese friends that weren't planning on having a big Thanksgiving affair and my dad invited two of his students that didn't have anywhere to go for the holiday over to our house. Usually when we entertain, I'm stuck babysitting, but that didn't happen this time, so I was extremely thankful for that.
Since we were going to have a total of ten people at our house, my mother and I had to do a lot of cooking. We started Wednesday afternoon and cooked for about five hours. Then, on Thursday we cooked a lot. And cleaned. We cleaned a lot as well.
Out menu consisted of:
Turkey (duh...)
Stuffing
Pineapple Stuffing (my favorite)
Streuseled sweet potatoes and dried fruit
Mashed potatoes
Cranberry-kumquat chutney
Terragon marinated mushrooms
Grape chutney
Brussel sprouts au Gratin (which is absolutely delicious)
French beans with bacon
Lemon tart
Bourbon pecan pie

That doesn't even include the stuff that the guests brought. It was truly a big feast.
I think that this is the first time that we've made such a big deal about Thanksgiving since we moved to Pittsburgh. Last year my dad was off on a work trip somewhere and so my mom and I got a room at a nearby Bed and Breakfast ( I love Bed and Breakfasts-they're all so cute).
It was kind of nice to cook and make the food. I think I appreciated it more because I actually made about half of the stuff on the menu above. My mother was constantly reminding me that "cooking is about precision" and then once I would show her what I made, she would say "oh, just dump a little more of (insert ingredient here) in that." Also, the French need to learn how to spell. But of corse, that's nothing new.
The entertaining part was pretty fun. My dad was talking to his students about computer stuff. They sounded like they were talking in code with all of those weird terms.

It snowed today. I love snow. There's something magical about how it covers the whole world. It was the first snow of what I hope to be many many more. We need actual snow days this year. That's something I would be extra thankful for.