So, What Are You Doing For Thanksgiving?

I love Thanksgiving. Our family tradition is to gather at one of my cousin's houses and eat, drink, eat, watch football, and eat. And sit around. And eat. The person hosting the gathering is responsible for the turkey, and the rest is pot luck. Only the most accomplished cooks in the family are allowed to bring the most important dishes, the rest are assigned ones that can easily be picked up at the grocery store. My favorites are the appetizers which usually take the form of something cheese-based, but also carries the additional requirement of the person assigned this course being extremely punctual. Woe the individual in charge of appetizers being more than 15 minutes late! My mother keeps threatening to bring only raw vegetables for appetizers as she thinks we eat to much and there isn't room for the good stuff by the time dinner time rolls around, so now she is no longer allowed to volunteer for such an important course. Green salad or kid's dessert for her. My brother, being male and unmarried, has only ever been assigned beer or dinner rolls. But I think he messed up the dinner roll responsibility one year and now he's only tasked with beer. There was a recent occurrence (that is now referred to as the the Potato Incident of '08) where I decided throw down the potato gauntlet and bring roast potatoes instead of mashed, and there was a small uprising among the older generation. Concerned phone calls were made. Keep in mind that there are about 25-30 of us at these gatherings, and they've been doing this for 40 years now, so the rules are set. Don't mess with tradition. And don't bleach the good silver.

This year was a distant second to all my family gatherings. Since Thanksgiving is not an official holiday here, I had to work during the day. Luckily there is enough of an American population here in Singapore that a few restaurants were hosting turkey dinners. At the last minute we decided on Dan Ryan's, which is sort of like Old Chicago without the good beer selection. Our friends Cindy and Gary had already made a reservation and were kind enough to let us crash their table as the place was fully booked and I waited too long to make up my mind.

The meal wasn't too bad. The turkey and mashed potatoes were dry (I like dark meat), and the yams were steamed, but there were cranberries and stuffing and gravy, and the green beans were surprisingly tasty.

The only true disappointment was the pumpkin pie. It was definitely from a box and the tiny amount of whipped cream (I prefer a 1:1 ratio of pumpkin pie to whipped cream) was so from a can. Blasphemy.

On the way home we drove down Orchard Road, which is sort of the Rodeo Drive of Singapore. Every year the streets are elaborately decorated to some sort of theme - this year it is "A Christmas All Decked Out". I'll take more pictures in the next few weeks, but here's a preview:

A 20-foot Santa playing the tuba. Makes sense.