Thanksgiving 2009 (meal #3, post #2)

So how do you cook Thanksgiving for a crowd of 100+ people? With a massive grill of course. And a large cast iron pot over hot coals. And about 70 feet of tables for potluck dishes.

This is Michael - a restaurant chef by trade.

I'm guessing this outbuilding isn't exactly his ideal working conditions, but he looks happy.

Confession time, I'm not that hip on turkey. But if I smear it with enough cranberry sauce, and chase it with mashed potatoes, green beans, deviled eggs or sweet potato casserole, I can manage. I managed 3 different Thanksgiving meals quite happlily this year!

Thanksgiving 2009 (meal #3 post #1)

Every year my in-laws' family gathers at their hunting lodge on the Black River on Thanksgiving. It's the perfect rustic setting for Thanksgiving - see what I mean?

We typically have 100-200 relatives there. And each year the family tree is posted and updated. It goes all the way back to the early 1700s. (PS. We have an early ancestor named "Napoleon Bonaparte Barefoot." I know, right?)


(It takes multiple large charts to post them all.)

(The green sticky notes represent updates by way of marriage, birth or death. They'll be incorporated on the chart before next Thanksgiving.)

I took close ups of our part on the chart but then thought better of posting our full names, birth dates, etc. on the Internet. (Duh.)

Given the size of the crowd, and the possibility of rain, we often rent a large tent to gather in and eat, in addition to the house. But this year the weather was perfect.

The boys always play football.



Some of the crowd gathering by the outbuildings.


Here's the view to the river from the back porch.

My daughter was shocked to recognize the lady in the vest as one of the teachers at her middle school. Remember when you thought your distant relatives didn't have real lives ... like they only materialized out of thin air on holidays? :)

Remember too when you simply could not resist skipping a rock when standing at the edge of smooth water?

I'll post more pics in the next post.

Turkey Dinner #1

I was so hungry by the time I sat down with my plate last night that I didn't pause to take pics of the food. There was tons of food for the roughly 55 international students and roughly 25 faculty that were there. But I did get some shots of the students.

I adored the brunette in the middle of this photo. She's from Finland. We went through the buffet line together and she was asking me what was in all the dishes (well, you take green beans, and you dump mushroom soup over them, and then you cover it with crispy fried onions ...). I was impressed with her willingness to try all the foods.



She also tried convincing me "it doesn't really get that cold in Finland." So of course I asked how cold it gets in the winter. She said minus 25. Yeah, not that cold at all. Riiiight.

Here are some of our table guests. Two beautiful gals from Germany studying business. And one young man from England who plans to become an astrophysicist. Yes, astrophysicist.



Here's my son, plate in hand, headed for the pumpkin pie.



And here's my daughter scoring some chocolate pound cake with whipping cream. Mmmm.


She'll tell you she wants to be a chef. But she's quick to qualify that: a TV chef.

Maybe she'll help me in the kitchen tomorrow, despite the lack of cameras and audience. I'll be cooking Thanksgiving meal #2 here at my house for us and my dad. Then we'll join Rick's family on Thursday for meal #3. That's a lot of turkey. But it's also a lot of opportunities to be thankful - and that I am.

Thanksgiving comes early - like tonight

I haven't put my tree up yet. I nearly did on Sunday but it was just too warm here to really get into the mood. I did, however, start dragging out ornaments and planning what it will look like this year. I tweak it from year to year ... as I previously mentioned, I'm a Christmasaholic.

See them sitting here beside the fall decor? Ahem. Yeah.

I also decided last week its a good time to have my carpets cleaned. That will happen today so I can't put the tree up until tomorrow. But it will be up by Thanksgiving! Anybody posted any pics of theirs yet? Help me feed my sparkle addiction.

Once the carpet cleaners leave, I must abandon my house for a couple hours while they dry. I think that's a good excuse to take the kids and do homework at Barnes and Nobel cafe. Following that, we're heading to a lovely house on the waterfront to help host a Thanksgiving meal for the university's international students. That should be a lot of fun. Anybody know how to say "Happy Thanksgiving" in Dutch? Or Japanese? Or French?

I'll be eating Thanksgiving dinner at least 3 different times this week (anybody else?) so I'm going to try to pace myself tonight. I'll also try to remember to take pics and post them tomorrow.