thanksgiving food baby

Having spent the best part of the last six months cooking and partying with Californian Bostonian Mei of Family Styles, I found myself being invited to my first ever Thanksgiving dinner last weekend. Today Mei is in Boston, and no doubt just about to do it all again there – good luck!

So, last Saturday Mei and her flatmate (or is it room mate?) Chris asked if they could borrow my enormous stock pot to deep fry a turkey… I was appalled, intrigued and excited. Unfortunately, due to the disgusting weather that afternoon, the ritual deep frying of the bird was abandoned – it was way too wet and windy to start abseiling a turkey into a pot of boiling fat on the terrace, and the idea of oil being spattered all over the kitchen wasn’t pleasant. However, there was enough other bizarre food preparation going on to keep me popping into the kitchen to point and stare.

We began our evening with soft doughy pretzels, dipped into a moreish pink dip that tasted like a mixture of marie rose sauce (that seventies prawn cocktail staple of ketchup blended with mayonnaise) and horseradish. Meanwhile the American and Canadian guests rather surpisingly got stuck into snakebite and black – that lager, cider and blackcurrent concotion banned in most UK bars. This was accompanied by a healthy dose of Thanksgiving scepticism and some debate on genocide and plunder…

We then tucked into some deviled eggs, which, unlike the photo below, were really rather beautifully presented in a special deviled eggs dish. I watched with interest in the kitchen as the yolk was scooped out and forked (”not spooned as it’ll go too mushy”) up with a variety of spices. I couldn’t stay watching for long, as hard-boiled eggs make me feel a bit queasy, but the end result was impressive and the eggs were all snapped up within seconds.

Then all 20 plus of us were asked to take our seats for the meal. I’ve never seen so much food – it might even beat an English Christmas dinner. There were two turkeys, moist and succulent from being soaked for 24 hours in brine, trays of homemade stuffing and piles of mashed potato. Then there were the extras… Cheesy rolls were baked baked by Lizzie. There were some delicious “biscuits”, which were kind of like scones (cue US/UK conversations about the pronunciation of scone, Warwick, Gloucestershire…)  Damien’s candied yam was a marshmallow-laden, stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth, really confusing dish for English tastebuds.

Another dish that also ran out in seconds was the “bean casserole”, which involved green beans, bechemel sauce and crispy onions. Then there were the buckets of thick, rich gravy and dollops of cranberry sauce, flown in with the US contingent. I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten some extras, as by this point my brain had turned to mush and my food baby was huge. But then there was pudding, and we all have a different stomach for that…

Mei had baked three pies – yes three pies: apple, pecan and sweet potato. And there were endless tubs of icecream. And a pavlova. And then San Franciscan beers and red wine galore. After five hours of feasting I had to retire home to bed – 10pm on a Saturday night. Impressive. Thanks Mei and Chris for expanding my belly and my mind!