Thanksgiving has to be one of my favorite holidays. Actually the whole span between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve is my favorite time of year. Colored lights, holiday cheer, festive food and family time. This year Heather and Anthony hosted a lovely Thanksgiving dinner for Nate and I. Then we were lucky enough to have Nate’s Mom, Dad and Nana join in on the fun. This is the first time anyone beside myself from the Socha gang has mingled with Nate’s fam. SO MUCH FUN! Nate and I spent the night with Nate’s Mom in High Point and I had my first and definitely not my last helping of fried okra and collard greens to go with my BBQ platter at a family run Christian restaurant.
The next day we headed over to Carrboro to aid Heather and Anthony in the turkey prep but were greeted with the most organized couple I know. They were dressed, house cleaned and prepared with a typed up timeline of food prep for the day. Heather even planned enough wiggle room in her meal plan to handle a disaster. I will fess up now. I almost ruined Thanksgiving. Heather got the bird all ready and stuck him in the oven and set the timer for 1 hour. Then she needed to flip the bird and put him in for another hour and start the basting process. Naturally I am a helpful sister, so when the timer went off after 1 hour I helped her pull the bird out and silenced the timer. Little did I know that I turned the oven OFF instead of the timer. An hour later we pulled the bird out and noticed that it didn’t look as cooked as we had hoped. That’s when Heather noticed the oven temp. WHO TURNED OFF THE OVEN! Yikes! That would be me. Luckily we got back on track and the bird turned out fine. I ate plenty of it. Nate’s family had been warned that my sister had an enthusiastic dog before they accepted their dinner invitation. My biggest concern was how Norm the ferocious bulldog would behave around all of the holiday guests. I could just imagine him jumping all over Nana and being a wild beast. Much to my surprise he was SO WELL BEHAVED. I don’t know how he did it. They must have put a spell on him. On top of all the delightful dishes we had our entire meals was gluten free. Heather and Nathan’s Mom are sensitive to gluten so we made some adjustments. You could hardly tell with the exception of my own personal bowl of Stove Top Stuffing. Heather made this AMAZING eggplant dish; I don’t even like eggplant but was hooked. It was marinated in some sort of vinaigrette. She got the recipe from Michelle… Conte, Corbierre, Obama. I don’t know which one but I would like to get the recipe so I can make myself a platter of this stuff. HINT HINT…Nate even tried it. We were lucky enough to have plenty to eat and good company to share it with. Everyone had a good time and hope we can have more of these family gatherings once I make a home base in NC.
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