An all-American Thanksgiving( 4th Dec, 2008)

This is the first time I've ever experienced Thanksgiving and as we're in the USA, we're definitely in the right place. We were invited over to a friend's house for Thanksgiving. There was a big group of us, about 20 in total, but as we are an international group consisting mainly of Spanish people, I'm not sure how authentic the Thanksgiving meal was but it was delicious anyway. My effort as you already know was the pumpkin pie and mince pies.

Our friends had their work cut out for them, slaving over a hot stove and cooking roast turkey, gravy, apple and sausage stuffing(although as it wasn't stuffed in the bird, here they actually call it dressing)and mashed potatoes with sour cream and chives and of course cranberry sauce. Everything was homemade apart from the cranberry sauce and everything was really tasty. The turkey was nice and tender, not dry at all, the stuffing was yummy...in fact, I joked that they could come and make my Christmas dinner for me. I will definitely be wanting all the recipes. It was all very professional...they were using a meat thermometer and injecting the juices into the turkey which my family certainly have never done.

Our Japanese friend brought chicken yakitori. Lots of people brought desserts including crepes,quesada (a Spanish dessert a bit like cheesecake), a Catalan dessert(panellets) which is like marzipan balls rolled in pine nuts.

I was as stuffed as the turkey by the end of it. I was a little disappointed as the quesada seemed more successful than my pumpkin pie and mince pies. It was really good though, although in my opinion it's a little plain. I also tried eggnog(alcoholic of course!) for the first time and have been made a convert...so creamy and light...just don't think about the calories!!!It's got at least 12 eggs in it!I will definitely be making that in the future!

We spent the rest of the night playing poker, Dance Revolution, Singstar Superstar(a karoke type game of which I have found another new passion!) and playing a card game Werewolves. So, all in all we had a great Thanksgiving, great fun, great food(as you can tell by the photos) and above all great company. We finished at 3am,just in time to dash off to join the queues for the sales on Black Friday although in the end we were too late!