This has been my 5th year that I have prepared Thanksgiving dinner by myself, and without my family in New York. The first couple times were in Korea in a crappy apartment and without an oven so I had to purchase the turkey from popeyes chicken onpost. So in all fairness I would say that I have cooked about 3 birds. Maybe….
This year was the first where everything that was planned worked out perfectlly though. Couldn’t have been happier… Well there was no apple pie and the turkey was 7lbs with no legs or wings, but that’s not exactly a bad thing. Still I guess Apple pie would have been great and I did try but realized that I only have 1 pie dish here and couldn’t find any place that had disposable ones in stock (my fault for waiting until the last minute). So it was a choice between pumpkin and apple and my wife has a big sweet tooth for pumpkin, more than mine for Apple so she got her wish. It’s also a lot easier to cook. =)
I think the biggest difference was that the turkey was so small that we could start it really late. Not even 3 hours in the oven and probably basted it 3 or 4 times total. Gave us access to the oven for other things and focus on smaller things and take our time. I guess I also am not freaking out on how perfect everything has to be and cook exactly everything my grandmother cooks. I still have a full fridge of leftovers and passed out the couch at around 6pm. Now it’s 2am and I can’t sleep. Maybe I can get everyone to wake up and hit black Friday….. Yeah right! =)
Here are some shots from the day.
