Giving Thanks

I never grew up with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since moving to Cambodia 3 years ago, a lot of the expats who are left in town to celebrate the occasion without their families and loved ones often seek solace in each other's company and host their own Thanksgiving / X'Mas parties.

Last night, I had a fabulous, fabulous, FABULOUS home-made-from-scratch Thanksgiving dinner courtesy of Chef Leigh Ann and Nicole - our upstairs neighbour :) It being their first celebration away from home, they invited us over for the scrumptious meal. For Chef & Nicole, entertaining guests was like second-nature to them and they have really nice dinner wares and themed table-settings (Chef can be rather particular about how her food is presented - even off work!!) - so you imagine how stressful it was when I invited them over for a home-cooked Bak Kut Teh dinner just last weekend. I had no matching plates nor cutleries. At least I was "civilized" enough to have place mats! (And Nicole actually brought STRAWS - just in case I didn't have straws to drink the Mojitos which they prepared and brought over as well!) Not to mention - I still do not know if Chef approved of the Bak Kut Teh meal :P At least Nicole said she did :)  

Anyway, whilst I've had my fair share of turkey and all the fixings, this was actually the first time I'm having an entire Thanksgiving meal that had been passionately prepared from scratch - from the bird being given a one hour 'spa bath' of sea salt, lemon & garlic to the freshly made croutons and turkey drippings for the stuffing and gravy right down to the pumpkin cheesecake!

Those who know me would know that my "healthy days" (when it comes to food) are Mondays to Fridays and yesterday being Thanksgiving Thursday and all, I had to break the rule. Chef did indeed "try" to go easy with the ingredients she used - freshly baked WHOLE WHEAT rolls as opposed to plain white rolls (take my word for it - the rolls were to-die-for) and light sour cream for the cheesecake as opposed to the full-fat version (and despite the "healthier version - pumpkin cheesecake was to-die-for too!). And a bowl of grilled brussel sprouts and carrots too! But then of course, she had roasted a leg of ham as well and I couldn't resist the crispy skin and then, she had to serve the pumpkin cheesecake with a scoop of ice-cream. To top it off - she told me after the meal that she rubbed butter underneath the bird's skin before putting it into the grill to make sure it was moist.

Weigh-in before dinner was 46kgs and weigh-in the morning after dinner was 46.6kgs. But you know what? It was 0.6kgs well worth putting on because truly, it was a remarkable meal. So - I ran an additional 5km this morning for my training (maybe all that food had given me extra energy after all :P). Big deal. I train so hard, surely I deserve an additional "bad food day" in the week if I wanted to, yes?

Well, as Nicole said - it IS Thanksgiving. And I for one, have lots to give thanks for. For great friends who can whip-up such a lovely meal (I can't get over this meal - it had been really too superb), for the great love of a dotting hubby, for the unconditional love of my family, and for being a lucky, lucky girl - in so many ways but mostly, for all the love I have around me. So life's a bitch sometimes - but I still have a lot of love in my life. Is that lucky or what?

I got the almost Yaba-daba-doo drumstick!! :) :) And

the to-die-for whole wheat roll and stuffings *smack lips*

 

Grilled Turkey and Roast Ham.... mmmmm

absolute divine pumpkin cheesecake and I also learnt what is
plated service "stacked 2 high / 4 high / 6 high / 8 high / 10 high" :P