Thanksgiving, our way.

Next week for Thanksgiving, all of my aunts and uncles on my mother’s side of the family, with some of their children, will be coming to my mother’s place in Lawrenceville for Thanksgiving. In total, there are going to be 25 expected people for dinner.

I’m not afraid.

Does this look like a man who’s afraid to serve dinner to 25 people?

When we celebrated Thanksgiving in Puerto Rico, we had the use of our restaurant kitchens to whip up our feasts, since we could fit at least two turkeys in our commercial ovens (how I miss those!), and we usually had at least two meals to go to, with one held in one of our restaurants. We did not have really “traditional” Thanksgiving dishes like cranberry sauce, gravy, or sweet potatoes. Instead, we usually had lechon alongside the turkey, and sides like batata and arroz on gandules.

After my dad passed, my mother moved to Georgia to be closer to her family, we started to host Thanksgiving dinners at our home, and after two years of trying to make the turkey herself, I m now in charge of the turkey every year.

See how happy my mom was that she no longer had to make the turkey?

This was from the year I decided to fry the turkey.

My mother’s family was never one to follow the Turkey Day handbook. While I made the turkey, the other women in the family usually make the other dishes, which are usually a mix of Indonesian and Chinese dishes, like Hainanese Chicken, gado-gado, and ikan bilis sambal. There are some benefits to having a multi-cultural family. Good diverse food is one of them. We had an unfortunate guest who brought a green bean casserole that sat sadly next to my grandmother’s chicken curry.

I’m still deciding on the turkey preparation this year. Last year I stuffed around 30 cloves of garlic and other herbs into the turkey before putting it in the oven. I’m thinking of making something different, maybe something along the lines of curry powder or adobo?

It’s also time for me to make my annual batch of caramel pecan pies for friends and family (recipe to be posted soon!).

(I had a post I was working on for an hour that got eaten by my blogging program, that will go unnamed.)