A Much-Belated Thanksgiving Post

Turkey

This year's Thanksgiving was a momentous one, for a couple of reasons.  For starters, it was the first year ever that I haven't made it to my family's traditional Thanksgiving Dinner.  My parents are part of what they call "orphans holidays" - three couples and their kids who don't have extended family in the area, and who celebrate Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas together every year.  This tradition predates me (the oldest of the kids), and it's become such a well-oiled, perfect machine that we barely have to think about it every year.  The food is almost always the same (the veggies change up a bit, and occasionally we add a seasonal dessert), and while we occasionally invite other "orphan" friends in need of a place to go for the holidays, the core people are also pretty unchanging.  So I was a little sad when I ended up having to work on the Sunday evening and missed out on the traditional family dinner.

Stuffing, salad, potatoes with gravy, and yams

But everything was alright!  Because from the moment my roommates and I moved into our epic new house, I knew that I wanted to host Thanksgiving Dinner here.  I love to cook for people, and I enjoy entertaining; and now I finally lived in a house big enough to do both!  And two of my roommates hail from different provinces and don't have family to celebrate with, so we wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving.  So we invited a bunch of close mutual friends, and then all of us went about making our own traditional Thanksgiving dishes, taken from our years of family celebrations.  In the end, it was a wonderful celebration with good food and great people; and we all got a chance to honour our own Thanksgiving histories while also moving forward.  I felt so incredibly grown up cooking and hosting my OWN Thanksgiving Dinner, with the close people in MY life - somehow, knowing I was capable of putting a holiday dinner on the table proved to me that I really can handle some of the big changes in my life.

Pumpkin apple soup

And the best part?  How low-stress we all were!  We started cooking on the Friday, and by Saturday afternoon (dinner was Saturday evening) we were taking naps, relaxing, leisurely getting ready, and enjoying some fine cheeses.  Our washing machine overflowed, a couple of glasses got broken, and our coffee machine exploded; and yet, beyond a couple of harried 5 minute intervals, everyone was calm and having a good time.  I call that the true measure of holiday success!

Apple pie

The Menu
Appetizer: five kinds of fancy cheese, exotic crackers, and some red pepper jelly
Soup course: Pumpkin-apple spice soup!!!
Dinner: turkey, brown rice dressing*, baked yams, garlic mashed potatoes*, gravy (turkey or vegan*), succotash, cranberry-orange salad*
Dessert: apple pie, vegan-gluten free pumpkin pie* (both homemade, of course!)

All the starred recipes were the ones I had a hand in, and I'll address them in other posts to follow.  And I hope that all of you had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving dinner yourself!