Thanksgiving Recap: A Photo Essay

A&Y is a nice Asian couple who I've met through a gay Asian friend, through mahjong we've become good friends. They have invited me to their wedding and every so often they'll cook some homey Chinese food that would make me feel like home. So when they asked me to make a Thanksgiving meal the second year round, I was just too happy to comply. So we spent most of Friday groceries shopping I baked and spent all day Saturday cooking.

The guest list fluctuates which made it very hard to gauge how many people I should be cooking for, at the end 24 people showed up. We served lunch, snacks at 4pm and then dinner a little close to 8pm. This is how snack looks like



The cake you see up front was the Mont Blanc chestnut cake I made. That's before dusting in some powdered sugar to truly make it blanc. I was afraid it will be too sweet but I guess it was ok. I'm very happy that it came out good since it is one of my favorite dessert. Though I have to admit that it's still not as good as the one in Mitsuwa. I can always sample the Mitsuwa one a few times more and then practice on my own. Anyway, having store-bought chestnut cream made my life a whole lot easier and now I just need to buy the right pastry bag tip. The other snack on the table include pineapple sausage skewers, melted brie guacamole and sundried tomato on toasts, apple pine nuts blue cheese on toast and little pineapple cakes.



A&Y are good people, especially the husband who's an accountant but do interior renovations as a side job on the weekends. He pretty much works 7 days a week, which is a big contrast to my life right now. He has a truly beautiful house where they bought, gutted the whole place and rebuilt the interior, they even dug their basement deeper into another livable second living room. They acquire what they have with hard work and dedication in lifestyle which I admire, so it's ok when a regular tablecloth and china were not present



The fruit of a 5-hours plus labor. Oxtail Soup, two lemon rosemary saffron roasted chickens, one 9-pound horseradish crusted beef tenderloin, pasta bolognese, baked jambalaya rice, green bean casserole, corn bread, sauces and gravy. Since we ate earlier, there were a lot of leftovers but they tried everything and I got a lot of compliments which made me happy. A lot of friends said I should start a catering business if not a pastry shop. Some told me I should become a private chef or just sell cakes online. At the end of the evening everyone grabbed a box and took home some leftovers. Maybe I should be selling box lunches in a cart. haha.

After a day of cooking I didn't get particularly hungry when it was time to eat, but it was very satisfying at the end.


Kiss the cook?