Food Porn Vol I.

Delightfully content

Confession: growing up, my family would go OUT to dinner on Thanksgiving. We would go to a very nice restaurant about 25 miles from our house and, surprisingly, we weren’t the only family to take the easy way out. I was and still am the only carnivore in the family and never had a real turkey dinner until…. last year. In Paris, no less. I certainly never felt the effects of tryptophan quite like this before! The spread was unbelievable for Thanksgiving dinner and you better believe I ate until I couldn’t even sit or stand comfortably. Probably not the wisest eating strategy but I’m not going to pretend to possess self-control. Day one with Chloe, Amber & friends had me laughing as much as I was stuffing!

The table

Grandma Casey’s Spinach casserole… MUST get my hands on this “secret” recipe

Heaven on a plate aka the source of my intense lethargy…

Pecan pie. Goodness #1

Goodness #2: who needs pumpkin pie when you can pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting?

For Thanksgiving dinner part 2, I prepared a pumpkin pie with a cream cheese layer and almondy topping. It’s a modified version of this drool-worthy pie from Bakerella.

Pumpkin purée from Picard (great tip, Little Miss Cupcake!) with rest of ingredients

The cream cheese frosting

The topping: almonds, crushed up Pumpkin Spice Kashi granola bars (smuggled back from the States), maple syrup and brown sugar.

ta da!

Amber prepared a festive meal that was significantly tamer and less gut bursting -marinated turkey breasts, green beens, macaroni & cheese, salad and my pumpkin pie & a sweet potato pie. Both days of overindulgence were delicious and made Thanksgiving in Paris feel like, what I imagine, Thanksgiving would feel like in the States except that in America people begin eating at 4pm and we didn’t dig into the turkey until after 8pm.