Thanksgiving Feasts

Thanksgiving is now over and coming back to work has been like a giant slap in the face. I actually had two Thanksgiving dinners this year. I cooked my own turkey and fixing on the Friday after Thanksgiving and had a couple of friends. My turkey turned out great, and I was quite impressed with myself, if I can allow myself to say so.

But the first Thanksgiving dinner I had this year was on Thanksgiving day where I went down to Union, New Jersey (well, in my mind escorted by protective services), and enjoyed a dinner where I chowed down on a huge pig. My friend's family had bought an entire roasted pig and served it alongside the turkey. I think I had about two bites of turkey, but at least two servings of the lechon pig. Mmmmm.

I had never seen one of these whole roasted pigs in person. It's very impressive--like Last Supper monumental, I think. It's so good, that it makes me want to wave it around in front of all the vegetarians in the world and eat it slowly, savoring every morsel. Plus the pig is just a noble animal and deserves to be the center of attention. Even Winston Churchill once said, "Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

After dinner at my friend's family's house, I was too stuffed for dessert but was able to sample some of the hits and misses of the desserts TABLE that was presented. Of all the pies and cakes layed out on display, my favorite was the sugary, grocery-store sheet cake that someone had bought. I loved the balloons made out of frosting, one of which I thought was grape frosting, but was actually chocolate. And I am now actually slightly mortified that I actually thought that there was such a thing as grape frosting (which, in retrospect, sounds totally gross to me). But I suppose it's kind of cute in a I-thought-there-was-grape-frosting kind of way.

My friend had also cooked some stuff at his apartment in Manhattan. He cooked up a storm and had all sorts of salads, side dishes and two desserts prepared. His first dessert was a pumpkin pie. But my doofus friend forgot to put the sugar in! He opened the microwave, and found a full packet of brown sugar, and asked to me and his girlfiend, "I wonder what this is for?" I replied, "Um, it's probably for your pie." Next thing, we all heard "Ah, shit!" Even after putting sugar all over the top (and unexpectedly seeing it melt into the filling), it tasted like a mouthful of raw pumpkin.

My friend's other dessert was an apple tarte tatin, which I thought was pretty good. I liked the crust. But the tarte tatin did provide a priceless moment, when my friend's mom asked, "What is this? Is this supposed to be apple?"

Happy Thanksgiving!