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Monday, November 23, 2009

5th Annual Thanksgiving Dinner


I've noticed as I've gotten older, its been harder for me to make new friends. Maybe I've become too set in my ways. Or maybe I'm just too satisfied with the friends I already have. As I've mentioned before I moved to New York a little over 6 years ago. I thought making new friends here would be as easy as it was when I lived in Japan back when I was 20 years old. Don't get me wrong, people out here are very friendly and always wanting to go out. Most of New York City is populated by transplants, so we all want to make new friends here. But there is a big difference between someone that wants to go get a drink with you every night and someone you know you'll keep in touch with for years to come ... someone that is like family to you in this big overpopulated lonely city called New York.

In the early years of grad school, we hung out almost every night. The stress of being in grad school can really only be understood by someone else in the same boat. And so we may have all started as a group of people that drank together every night, but we evolved into a small family. As the years have passed, we've all gotten more busy. Our gatherings have dwindled down to big events like departmental retreat, weddings, and engagement parties. The one big event that always brings us together is our annual Thanksgiving Dinner held the Sunday before real Thanksgiving. This is highly anticipated event for us. We take days to prepare. I usually do shopping on Friday night, brine the turkey and other prep on Saturday, and then the actual dinner on Sunday. All my friends are excellent cooks. Science benchwork is so similar to cooking, you shouldn't be surprised how good everyone is. Its so good, we all think our group Thanksgiving outdoes our own family Thanksgiving dinners.

Menu
Recipes to come

Appetizers
Warm Spinach Artichoke Dip
Marinated Mushrooms
Deviled Eggs

Dinner
Herb Brined Turkey
Turkey Rollatini Stuffed with Wild Mushrooms
Sage Gravy
Spiked Cranberry Sauce with Apples
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes with Candied Pecans and lots of Marshmallows
Peas with Bacon and Onions
Caramelized Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta
Cornbread Stuffing
Bread Stuffing with Sausage
4 Cheese Mac and Cheese with Bacon
Glazed Carrots
Green Bean Casserole with Shitake Mushrooms
Corn Casserole
Broccoli and Cheese Casserole

Dessert
Pumpkin Bread
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Pumpkin Pie
Blackberry Pie

And of course plenty of wine!
Cheers to my New York family!

5 comments:

Tasty Eats At Home said...

Sounds like it's a lovely party!

penny aka jeroxie said...

That is a feast! And I agree, we tend not to make new friends as easy as we used to. But we keep the good ones though :)

Camille Cares said...

Wow, these photos are great and it shows that you guys really threw down and then ate yourself into a coma.
check out a cool way to spend the holiday with the kids in your family.
http://camillecares.com/2009/11/24/thanksgiving-treats-kids-love/

enjoy,
Camille

Mr. P said...

2 turkeys? And look at all the desserts! And the sweet potatoes with marshmallows sound... an adventure!

Can I come next year?

Jenn said...

Tasty Eats and Camile, we def eat alot. I ran into one of my friends the next day and she was just coming back from buying a salad. She felt so heavy after eating all night, and leftovers the next day.

Penny, good friends are definitely hard to find. Tho I must say its nice getting all this support in my blog writing. Thanks everyone for always leaving encouraging comments!

Mr. P ... get yourself a ticket next year ... be sure to have an empty tummy and tupperware so you can take home leftovers! :)

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