Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Paulie mixes up mashed potatoes
Babbie and Bekah get the (HUGE) salad ready
Let's eat!!
Ruth E. carves the chicken
I made Dad's orange glazed carrots!Happy belated Thanksgiving!! Here in Korea we Americans were really looking forward to Thanksgiving, even though we had to wait until the weekend to celebrate it (our thoughtful boss at AP remembered it was a holiday for us Thursday and brought in fried and grilled chicken, which was sweet!). We've been planning for weeks now, and since Paul and I were hosting our first Thanksgiving ever, we were pretty pumped.
Being able to communicate via Facebook (and cellphone--yes, we have one now!!) made the whole process a lot easier, what with planning who was bringing what. Paul and I were on the hook for mashed potatoes, orange glazed carrots, and drinks. Since we thought we'd have several vegetarians attending, we also made a salmon salad (which almost no one ate because there was so much food!). Ara, the only one among us with an oven, graciously offered to make a roast chicken, homemade stuffing (with cranberries! Mmmm...), gravy, and meat empanadas (which were awesome!). Babbie truly came through with a HUGE bean and broccoli salad (enough to feed an army!). Kelsey brought two dishes of corn casserole and a fresh veggie tray with french onion dip (made with real sour cream!). Ruth E. brought wine and our old coworker Chris (and his son Kevin) brought pizza ;) Bekah, the resident dessert artist, brought two kinds of sponge cake, ice cream, and peaches (she whipped out several very sophisticated cake a la mode treats!). Then, a little while later, Bryan, Shauna, and Hana came over with a REAL PUMPKIN PIE (that they'd ordered from Costco!).
Originally, we were expecting between 16-18 guests. For whatever reason, we only had about 10 show up. We were a little disappointed (since we'd been planning for so many more), but it was a perfect mix of folks and we all fit on the sofas in the living room and had a great time eating, sharing recipes, and laughing. It is so fun to have a warm, bustling houseful, especially when the house is clean!
Eating all of our family favorites was truly satisfying. Being in a place like Sokcho, it's also just cool to see a big western meal "come together", because people's creativity really does shine. Not having all the conveniences of our homes in the U.S. (like ingredients, counter space, OVENS!) makes cooking an adventure. Luckily, the dumpsters have been quite good to us lately--we scored a small LG toaster oven (the "Home Maker"), a corner cabinet perfect for serving drinks, and 4 table chairs in the trash over the past week. Even though we didn't end up using most of the chairs, we were pretty stoked! And there are many more parties to be had!
Having our friends over was such fun. Bekah and Babbie, the sweet ladies they are, even stayed behind after everyone left to help us clean up. They washed dishes and cleaned the table, while we sorted various leftovers (of which there were a ton! Yay! No lunch prep this week!) and put them away in the fridge.
It definitely made me want to host another Thanksgiving. I know we didn't have the huge task of preparing a turkey, but we did spend most of the weekend cleaning the apartment and cooking (Paul made 45 potatoes worth of mash and I cooked 2 kg of carrots!).
I am very pleased with how it turned out, and appreciate the help and friendship of all our new buddies...thanks guys! Happy Thanksgiving!
Being able to communicate via Facebook (and cellphone--yes, we have one now!!) made the whole process a lot easier, what with planning who was bringing what. Paul and I were on the hook for mashed potatoes, orange glazed carrots, and drinks. Since we thought we'd have several vegetarians attending, we also made a salmon salad (which almost no one ate because there was so much food!). Ara, the only one among us with an oven, graciously offered to make a roast chicken, homemade stuffing (with cranberries! Mmmm...), gravy, and meat empanadas (which were awesome!). Babbie truly came through with a HUGE bean and broccoli salad (enough to feed an army!). Kelsey brought two dishes of corn casserole and a fresh veggie tray with french onion dip (made with real sour cream!). Ruth E. brought wine and our old coworker Chris (and his son Kevin) brought pizza ;) Bekah, the resident dessert artist, brought two kinds of sponge cake, ice cream, and peaches (she whipped out several very sophisticated cake a la mode treats!). Then, a little while later, Bryan, Shauna, and Hana came over with a REAL PUMPKIN PIE (that they'd ordered from Costco!).
Originally, we were expecting between 16-18 guests. For whatever reason, we only had about 10 show up. We were a little disappointed (since we'd been planning for so many more), but it was a perfect mix of folks and we all fit on the sofas in the living room and had a great time eating, sharing recipes, and laughing. It is so fun to have a warm, bustling houseful, especially when the house is clean!
Eating all of our family favorites was truly satisfying. Being in a place like Sokcho, it's also just cool to see a big western meal "come together", because people's creativity really does shine. Not having all the conveniences of our homes in the U.S. (like ingredients, counter space, OVENS!) makes cooking an adventure. Luckily, the dumpsters have been quite good to us lately--we scored a small LG toaster oven (the "Home Maker"), a corner cabinet perfect for serving drinks, and 4 table chairs in the trash over the past week. Even though we didn't end up using most of the chairs, we were pretty stoked! And there are many more parties to be had!
Having our friends over was such fun. Bekah and Babbie, the sweet ladies they are, even stayed behind after everyone left to help us clean up. They washed dishes and cleaned the table, while we sorted various leftovers (of which there were a ton! Yay! No lunch prep this week!) and put them away in the fridge.
It definitely made me want to host another Thanksgiving. I know we didn't have the huge task of preparing a turkey, but we did spend most of the weekend cleaning the apartment and cooking (Paul made 45 potatoes worth of mash and I cooked 2 kg of carrots!).
I am very pleased with how it turned out, and appreciate the help and friendship of all our new buddies...thanks guys! Happy Thanksgiving!
posted by streetwise at 5:28 AM
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