thanksgiving carnage

in some ways it's better to celebrate thanksgiving as an ex-pat. thursday never really feels like thanksgiving anyway outside of the U.S., so why not celebrate it friday and saturday as well? and that's just what i did.

but first we gathered the americans together for a traditional thanksgiving potluck dinner with all the trimmings, including:

• roasted butternut squash soup
• two kinds of cornbread, one of them sassy (thanks, esther!)
• stewed greens (very southern, cindy-style)
• roasted parnips drizzled with honey and sesame seeds (kim's specialty)
• mac & cheese (more southern homecooking from esther)
• brussels sprouts with pancetta
• brussels sprouts with roasted chestnuts
• sweet potato souffle
• a fresh turkey from my local butcher, stuffed with prosciutto and cornbread stuffing and surrounded by cindy's spicy roasted potatoes
• a very fancy cranberry relish from megumi
• as well as her traditional cranberry sauce - "enough to feed all of islington"

megumi rolled out the pastry for the pecan pie but something happened - i couldn't find corn syrup and the syrup we used was too thin. help! athan came the rescue with meringues from ottolenghi.

it was total carnage and chaos. it's taken me a full week to clean up. of course, on saturday i went over to suzanne & barry's for another round of thanksgiving dinner. they were actually organized enough to make gravy and TWO pumpkin pies. showoffs!!

(let's see how long it takes for chris to notice this picture of him porking out at 3 a.m. in a second? or third? post-thankgiving dinner wave...)