Thanksgiving Dinner at Our Place

We flew out to Seattle in early November to do our traditional "no-parents" Thanksgiving with Phil, Mike, Laura and Addie, but as the actual T-day approached, we thought it might be nice to have a few people over for a small meal.

Originally, we were thinking of just M's parents coming over to have some wine and a really simple dinner (like home-made pizza), and maybe sleep over so they wouldn't have to drive home late. Inevitably, it turned into a little more than that: after we invited Steve, Ron, Pat and Sam, I got a little carried away. Shocking, right? :)

So the weekend before, I polished all the silver, planned the meal and went food shopping, and hung all the Christmas decorations.
We planned to have everyone over on Wednesday night, so I worked from home on Wednesday, which gave me the opportunity to get the oven going in the afternoon for the ham. Yes, ham -- neither one of us is very fond of turkey, and ham worked out perfectly for my all-Southern Thanksgiving menu:

• Peach-glazed ham,
• Kentucky cranberry conserve,
• Green beans sauteed with onions and bacon,
• Corn pudding,
• Home-made bread (thanks, Ron!),
• And delicious crispy potato casserole (thanks, Pat!).
  

And of course, Sam got to lick the bacon pan.

Tastes Like Home

After stumbling across this ode to sweet tea from Slate, I just had to share it. My favorite line might be:

Offering up a glass of sweet tea on a hot day in the South is as welcoming a gesture as passing the doobie at a Phish show.