I'd invited my old friend's college age daughters to Thanksgiving. I'd
told them they were welcome to invite a friend. The friend did decide
to come afterall though she left it to the last minute. That irked me
at first, but I decided to get over it, and I'm glad I did. She's
really delightful. She fit right in.
I was most worried about sleeping arrangements as all I had to give them
was one double bed and as much as they liked in the way of bedding and
quilts for the floor. No one complained. Good thing. It wouldn't have
done them any good.
The biggest surprise was the way the kale with garlic, lemon, pecan, and
dried cranberries went over. One guest tried it and pronounced it
excellent. She observed the way it was made. The other two didn't go
for it, but I think one out of three was still excellent.
We forgot about the cranberry sauce until everything else was on the
table. It only takes a few minutes so we completed it while sitting
down to eat. That was our only absent minded mistake, and it wasn't a
big one.
The last-minute guest turned out not to be a foodie, but her manners
were good. She ate only the tiniest amount of turkey and potatoes and
didn't try any of the new wonderful dishes on the table, but she didn't
call attention to herself or make any demands. I noticed that at
restaurants she tended to go for bland fried foods, fish and chips,
grilled cheese, french fries on the side. Or sweets. At a crepe
restaurant yesterday for lunch, the rest of us got things with mushrooms
or meats. She ordered a dessert crepe filled with berries.
For breakfast yesterday, I put the guests to work at peeling apples, and
we made a sort of apple strudel making up the recipe as we went along.
It was chopped apples, pecan pieces, dried apricots and raisins, baked
in phyllo triangles. Everyone ate them like crazy.
The last minute guest is originally from Serbia and Croatia. When I
googled on cuisine of the region, it was too much information and too
varied to absorb at once. I did see phyllo dough which I'm familiar
with working with so I bought a package with the idea that we could
decide what to stuff it with later. That turned out to be a good move.
She was familiar with it, and the other guests chose the apple
stuffing instead of apple crisp. I'd been thinking we'd use it for
something savory like cheese, but I'm glad I let them decide. They got
to learn to use a new ingredient, and they went over well. That might
have turned out to be the most successful Thanksgiving item, the apples
in phyllo for the next day. It might turn out to be a Thanksgiving
tradition.
This morning we're preparing crepes suzette for breakfast. The batter
is resting in the refrigerator while the teenagers sleep in. Then we
deliver them back to their campus.
--Lia