Orphan's Thanksgiving

I allowed some people from work to talk me into having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for them, and, since there's no point in cooking turkey for 4, we invited 10. While we had a lot of fun last night, there were a few snags.

First, there's the oven. Our oven makes the Black and Decker toaster oven that I used through college look rather grand. It's waaay too small to cook a real traditional 25lb turkey; I'd have had to hack off the legs and cut it into quarters to fit it. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though, because, at £75 ($150), that was the most expensive turkey I've ever encountered.

Next, there's the size of our house. Although everyone who came marvelled at how big our place is (and I guess it is, as compared to many homes in London), it is not the sort of place acustomed to hosting 12 adults and 4 children. Once again, we had to press into service the card table and folding chairs my grandmother gave us years ago (thanks, gran!), along with a small play table for the kids and one of the chairs from our patio set. Incredibly, not only did we fit the turkey into the oven, we fit all the guests into the kitchen, with seats.

With everyone around the table, though, and the wine glasses, there wasn't quite enough room for all the food, so we had to pass the platters around and then remove them once everyone had some. This system worked fairly well until someone wanted seconds, at which point, several people had to mobilize in order to let him out.

Thanksgiving is, hands down, my favorite holiday. There are no gloopy cards to send, no expensive gifts to buy. All you do is ruck up to somebody's table and eat. It's an entire holiday about conspicuous consumption and tryptophan. Oh, yes, and giving thanks.

My non-American friends were well impressed with the quantity of food laid out (a number of positive comments about the quality were also made). Several people brought vegetables, desserts and salad, all of which were fantastic and much appreciated.

But the real success of the evening were the guests. I think a good party is at least as much about having the right mix of people as about the food, the wine or the venue, and last night's crowd was first rate. I hope everyone had as good a time as I did (despite the extensive clean up).

The cranberry sauce was the hit of the evening, so here's the recipie (props to uncle Kevin for this one):

Red Onion Cranberry Sauce
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, sliced
2 large shallots chopped finely
1 pack (14ounces) fresh cranberries
1 cup red wine
1 cup chicken stock (or turkey stock if you have it)
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 cup sugar
salt and pepper

saute onion, cranberries and shallots in oil until most of the berries have cracked
Add remaining ingredients, reduce until thick and glossy.

This can be served hot or cold, and if there are leftovers, makes a great sauce for pork.

Happy Thanksgiving!