Thanksgiving Wrap-Up

Well, we did it. We successfully attended two separate Thanksgiving meals and our stomachs didn't explode. Andy came close, but he managed to survive the day. There was an emergency nap thrown in there in the middle, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Our first stop was at Brad and Lily's new house for their first ever Thanksgiving dinner (well, lunch). We were among the first to arrive but ultimately there would be around 15 people there. Lily and Brad had prepared a veritable smorgasbord of food. For example...

A 27 pound (!!) turkey

Three kinds of mashed potatoes (only two pictured).

Two kinds of stuffing, plus a lovely pomegranate relish.

Creamed collard greens with bacon, mac and cheese, potato/leek gratin, green beans (with a special guest appearance by Rubio).

A lovely table setting - oh, and the mushroom soup! I almost forgot.

This is what my plate ended up looking like. There was also ham. My turkey is hiding under the green beans. And I also went back for some of that pomegranate dressing. It was divine:

Keep in mind that I was trying to eat in moderation, as we had another meal yet to attend. Andy had probably two to two and half plates like this. There was also some excellent wine and beer to go alongside - I think everyone really, really enjoyed the meal. Brad and Lily really outdid themselves. The collard greens (center of my plate) were an unexpected highlight.

We spent about 3.5 hours at our first stop before it was time to load back up in the car and head over to St. Paul, where there was a much more sane sized meal waiting for us:

 

See? Not that there was anything wrong with the amount of food at our first stop, this just seemed much more manageable. 

 

Plate number two. Ying made that cauliflower soup in the cute little bowl. An excellent addition.

 

She also made these almond and chocolate croissants, from scratch. YUM.

 

A good time was had by all. You'll notice that Andy is not in the photo. He had a small amount of soup and then had to go lie on the couch for a while to recover. None of us begrudged him that - he had a LOT of food yesterday.

It was a lovely Thanksgiving and even though it meant a lot of food, I was really glad we were able to spend time with both sides of our family. Tomorrow we'll be headed back over to Brad's place and help them dig into some of those leftovers. I am sure they'll have quite a lot. :-) P.S. - Even the cats got to celebrate their own little Thanksgiving yesterday:

Although they probably spent the whole day doing this: