On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day (don’t think that is the actual term but I’m not from these parts) we went out for lunch. ‘We’ consisted of me, George and Virginia, Matthew (G&V’s son) and Sarah (Matthew’s wife), Ed (from the Travel company that is doing the conference) and Marge (Ed’s sister). It’s funny, even though I’ve never had Thanksgiving before I have a picture of it in my head. Going out for lunch was never part of it. Well, they never go out in American TV programmes or films. It’s always at home, usually with the mother getting really stressed about cooking for everyone and a member of the family having some sort travelling nightmare. But it always works out in the end and they have a lovely family time and discover the things that they really ought to be thankful for.
So Thanksgiving was not in a home, Virginia was not panicking about dinner, and there was no travelling disaster to report on. Neither was there an opportunity to share what I was thankful for. Gutted.
My dinner, an odd mixture. Going clockwise from the turkey, green beans, sweet potato with mini marshmallows burnt on top, mashed potato with nuts, honey glazed ham, butterfly shaped crackers with cream cheese, smoked salmon, a strawberry and bread. Sadly there were no tater tots or yams so I still don’t know what they are. It was a nice meal, but I prefer my mum’s Christmas dinners. For a start there are no marshmallows in her meals.
After lunch we went to a fancy 5-star hotel which hosts, wait for it, the 2005 National Gingerbread House Competition. Seriously, I could not make this stuff up. I, of course, took photos.
According to the brochure contest entries are judged on overall appearance, originality/creativity, difficulty, precision and consistency of theme.
I think it’s fair to say they take it preeettty seriously. Entries come from all across the USA. It is beyond me how some of them made it in one piece. They must have been wrapped in bubble wrap, in a temperature and humidity controlled box, travelling in a purpose built car which drove at no more than 5mph taking a route that carefully avoided all speed bumps and sharp corners.
This was one of my favourites. It was the Twelve Days of Christmas and was very clever, for example the three French hens had berets. Oh yes. Unfortunately it did not win.
Neither did this one. But if I had been a judge… The winning Gingerbread house was nice and all, but it was just shaped icing which must have scored big in the difficulty category. But this one was clever. She used ice cream cones (tree trunks), Pez and chewing gum (windows) Reese’s pieces, liquorice, and jelly bellies (domes), and candy canes (pillars) amongst other cleverness that I can’t remember now. It came 2nd, I think.
On Thursday evening I was invited round to George and Virginia’s for dinner. Virginia, Matthew and Sarah are all vegetarian so there was no meat in sight. I used to want to be a vegetarian. My parents were too smart to fight it, they knew if they did I’d be more determined to do it. And more importantly they also knew that I don’t like enough vegetables to make them all I’d eat for the rest of my dinners. Having said that though, the meal was really nice. I’ve never knowingly had spinach before, but on Thursday I had it in some sort of quiche thing. It was alright but I’ll not lie to you, I was disappointed that my muscles didn’t appear a la Popeye.
My favourite thing about going round to George and Virginia’s was talking around the kitchen table. I love doing this at home. Sometimes I wonder if we could actually sit there from lunchtime til teatime. On Thursday night we talked about all sorts of nonsense, from serious stuff about NI, to the way George says vehicle (veh-hay-cul). Good craic.
The rest of the weekend wasn’t half as exciting. I spent a large portion of it in my jammies watching TV and DVDs. So yup, I’m still thankful for jammies.
3 comments:
i want to live somewhere where there is a national gingerbread house competition. I would love it! I once won a cake decorating competition at school. My cake looked like a hat.
Sometimes I just don't know what to say!
sweet potatoes are yams
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