thanksgiving feast

WOW!!! i was pleasantly surprised by our indian thanksgiving dinner. originally, we told them to have it ready around 9:30PM as we thought we were still going to be working until 8PM. the customer agreed to let us go at 6PM, so i told the hotel to make it 7:30PM. so, i get to the bar about 7:20PM and they ask me how they want the turkey prepared. AHHHHH!!! no, don't do this to me. if you they are asking that, they haven't even started... turns out, he wanted to know how to serve it. we said just bring the bird, a big knife and a big fork. about 7:45, the head chef comes out and says "dinner at 9:30PM, yes?" NO, NO, NO, now... he said that would be ok because all the food was ready anyways (so they were going to let it sit for almost two hours?). they brought small plates and an army of silverware as is typical for indian fare. we told them to get us each one big plate, and we each made place settings with the silverware and got rid of the excess. then came the food. we got an appetizer by accident. we asked for stuffing. the directions for stuffing were something like "saute onions, celery, mushrooms and green peppers in butter, then mix that with day old bread chunks, chicken broth, milk, butter, put in a pan and cook until golden brown on top". i'm thinking the chicken broth threw them off. we should've said just a little. we ended up getting stuffing soup. soups are appetizers so we got the first. STILL, that stuff was excellent. serendipity, one might say. again, another pleasant surprise. now i need to get the recipe they used from the recipe we gave them because stuffing soup rocks.

after the stuffing soup came THE TURKEY. i mean, it isn't a butterball, but beggars can't be choosers. i still thought it was a good turkey. adam did the carving as he is the best chef of us all and loves to cook. he did a good job of it, too. i have no turkey carving experience. when everyone was done i manhandled the thing in what could've been misconstrued as a delinquent manner in order to wrest the remaining bits of meat from the carcass for leftovers...

the dinner turned out amazingly well. this is not a bad thanksgiving dinner, considering. and with drinks and everything it was only about $170 for 5 people. the hotel did good. the chefs got very good tips. i think they will want to do that EVERY week. we asked for pumpkin pie (they couldn't get it), we asked for pecan pie (they didn't understand pecan), and we asked for apple pie but maybe it was a bit late of a request. still, they offered us this apple toffee a la mode. i'm not a big sweets eater, but this stuff was heavenly. the hotel really did us right. thanks anand regency, chiveram, and the hotel chefs for making us feel a little bit closer to home. next year, i'm making some stuffing soup.