j a n s e n. i. s. m.

It’s the first time I’ll be helping in hosting a dinner here in Dow Avenue and it’s for my first ever Thanksgiving. A few weeks back, we received a whole turkey for free from our last grocery shopping that Rico decided that he’d cook it for dinner and invite the rest of the group for an advanced Thanksgiving celebration on Sunday. Anne volunteered that she’ll cook Pinoy-style spaghetti, while her housemate Mitzelle will bake the apple-dates crisp cake she presented for Grace’s surprise dinner a few days back. Excitingly, I said that I’d prepare the appetizers and was determined to impress the group as if i joined myself in a cooking fest and they are judges or as if am looking at a new career opportunity and they are my potential employers.

Preparation is a key to achieve this goal, so I spent quality time in a recipe site, watched how-to-videos, list down the ingredients then went to a solo trip to a grocery the day before only to find out that most of the ingredients i needed are already in the fridge. I’d be cooking two variants of deviled eggs and a simple appetizer i’d like to call ‘gafts’ — gastronomic alternative for serving toothpick.

Sharing an apartment with two other boys, house cleaning is not something we do together on a regular basis. We are expecting about 4-5 visitors for this day and i knew this was enough motivation for us to do some tidying up in our little abode. To accomplish this, we hired a domestic helper  in the morning– who swept the floors, washed the dishes, cleaned the living and dining area, threw away the trashes that’s been hanging around for quite some time. Let’s hide the DH’s ID with the initials JC who did a decent job in transforming the house to something the residents don’t recognize for a while.

The improved version of the house which i swear looked neater before this shot was taken.

Spending a few more hours of labor in the afternoon, my little kitchen project is finished:

Appetizer 1: the deviled eggs

(1) with onion, celery and paprika (2) with honey, mustard and cheese

Appetizer 2: the gastronomic alternative for serving toothpicks (gafst)

Tofu versus Spam

During the festive dinner which started late because the turkey-cooking-time and Anne-with-her pasta are late, the diners all agreed that the appetizers tasted as good as they looked and they didn’t seem forced with their comments just because they were in our house. Anne’s spaghetti and Rico’s turkey are also treats to the taste buds. The apple-dates crisp cake could have been a great dessert but it never came to the dining table and so as the absentee baker, so we made the most of what we had: months-old ice cream, leftover grapes, and chocolates.

The divine turkey, Rico cooked for hours

Attacking the thanksgiving dinner

Over dinner, discussion included topics ranging from scoliosis, human and turkey anatomy and that three letter word that rhymes with ‘text’. Twit’s Wii and Mike’s Xbox provided the rest of the entertainment and proved how short span my attention is with video games in general. We didn’t do the traditional thanksgiving blah-blah. In conclusion, it was a fun, successful and long thanksgiving day (we wrapped up past 1am).

Thanksgiving feast

*Photos taken by Rico