two down

Last week, D and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner!

I flew back from Zurich on Tuesday, arriving just before 7pm. D's parents arrived around the same time; his mom coming from Houston and his dad from Taipei. On Tuesday night, I cooked the brine for our Google-sourced Heritage turkey.

On Wednesday, I made cranberry sauce (with port and orange juice), started the homemade bread, and D made his scrumptious key lime pie.

On Thursday, we made candied sweet potatoes (with bourbon and marshmallows), sourdough sausage stuffing, and sauteed green beans. D's mom helped us roll some maki sushi, and both the turkey and ham (with brown sugar and pineapple) went into the oven for several hours. We timed things pretty well, finishing around 3:30pm.

The guests started to arrive about 15 minutes later, and they brought a ton of food too. In addition to everything that we made, I vaguely remember eating papaya salad, shrimp salad, "oily rice" (aka you fan), glass noodles with pork, bacon mashed potatoes, saltine toffee, and way too many Baked by Melissa mini-cupcakes (fresh from NYC).


Anyway, that's two down for my 35-before-35 list! I declare #5 (cook something for longer than two hours) and #20 (host Thanksgiving dinner) complete. The 17 of us even finished off all 13 lbs of turkey that night, which I think must be a first for an Asian Thanksgiving party. I also made progress on #25 (master a bread-from-scratch recipe), but although the bread was much improved from the last time, it still did not rise as much as expected. I think the kitchen was too cold during the rise phase...will have to try again over Christmas.

Next up, #28 (put up holiday decorations)! Due to allergies, we've decided on an artificial tree, so I guess we'll be shopping for one this weekend...

Thanksgiving + Texas = food overload

This year, I spent Thanksgiving in the Houston area. Thanksgiving being the eating holiday, and Texas being known for its steak and BBQ, of course I spent most of the weekend eating.

For dinner on Thursday, in addition to the regular Thanksgiving food (including two turkeys; one deep-fried and one baked in soy sauce), we had battered fried fresh shrimp, bacon-wrapped sea scallops (also very fresh and very delicious), broccoli salad with olives, ham, and cheese (I'll be trying to duplicate this sometime soon), you2 fan4 (literally "oily rice"), wakame salad, edamame, homemade pot stickers, and homemade pork meatballs. For dessert, there was homemade pumpkin pie topped with chopped pecans (awesome idea, which I am looking forward to stealing), homemade Mexican tea cakes, and coffee-chocolate ice cream cake. Luckily, I had gone directly to dinner from a 4-hour plane ride and 4 hours in waiting and ground transit time (don't ask), having eaten nothing all day but two fan4 tuan2 (rice rolls), so I was able to try practically every dish over the course of the evening.

The next day, we had a late lunch at Ichibon, a Benihana-style sushi/teppanyaki restaurant owned by a friend. The sushi was fine, but was overshadowed by the fried ice cream and fried bananas that we had for dessert. The bananas in particular were decadent and amazing; they were the perfect texture; soft but not gooey, with a crispy but not oily crust, with a scoop of red bean ice cream (one of my favorites, and surprisingly hard to find). It was nearly 4pm when we finished lunch, so dinner was light; clam chowder with leftover scallop and shrimp, served with pumpernickel bread.

Saturday was dedicated to Texas cuisine; fajitas at Pappasito's for lunch, and pork ribs and beef brisket at Pappas BBQ for dinner. (Yes, they are owned by the same company, hence the similar names.) After watching the Rockets demolish the Nuggets at the Toyota Center, we had a midnight snack at Sinh Sinh on Bellaire; some people had congee and/or noodle soup, but I decided to order two desserts, which turned out excellently. The first was an "Almond Crust Pastry" which turned out to be a cup of hot sweetened almond soup with some kind of bean in it, topped with a freshly baked puff pastry. The second was a "3-color icy", which was less creative but still yummy; the crushed ice came with red and green bean pastes, coconut milk, and Chinese green jelly.

For lunch on Sunday, a friend asked me to pick a restaurant in Galveston, where we had decided to meet up. Not knowing anything about the area, I turned to Yelp for help, and we ended up at the strangely named but very good Mosquito Cafe. I liked my appetizer best; listed as a "Walnut Crusted Baked Brie with Jalapeno Chutney and Toast Points", it was well executed, with just the right proportions of cheese and walnuts, and a generous serving of fresh grapes on the side, to balance the softness of the baked cheese. Yum.

forced relaxation

I've decided that the best way to relax is to go to a place where you are literally unable to do any work.

Over Thanksgiving weekend I was at my parents' house. They do have high-speed Internet there, but all three of the computers of decent speed and stability were monopolized by people playing FF XI. I couldn't pay any bills, I couldn't compulsively check e-mail, and I couldn't write holiday cards or wash dishes or do laundry, so my cousins and I basically sat around all weekend. We watched some DVDs, chatted about random topics, reread old books, lounged around being backseat gamers ("What do you mean, it's not your job to heal your party??"), ate lots of yummy food...pretty much the standard definition of doing nothing. It was great fun.