I can’t believe I ate the whole thing

Well, our first Thanks­giv­ing in Lon­don, as par­ents, has come and gone. I real­ly did want the lit­tle scrap to have as much fun as pos­si­ble, giv­en her feel­ings about being away for Christ­mas and how hol­i­days are meant to be spent at “home.” So the most home­like thing seemed to be to have peo­ple over! It was per­fect, I must say, except that I think we all ate much more than we have ever eat­en before. Ooof. Nobody even made a stab at dessert! Except for the chil­dren, who have the good sense to stop eat­ing when they’re not hun­gry any­more, unlike we adults who just kept on fill­ing our plates.

I raced home from my screen­writ­ing class to find Mr Turkey much clos­er to being done than I had expect­ed, look­ing gold­en and lus­cious on his bed of fresh sage and rose­mary. So I did a sort of nov­el thing, with the twofold pur­pose of free­ing up the oven and keep­ing him warm: I put the whole roast­ing tray on the burn­ers of the hob and turned all four of them on real­ly low. The liq­uid that was even­tu­al­ly to pro­duce the most deli­cious gravy I have ever had (sor­ry, can’t sum­mon up any false mod­esty) bub­bled sweet­ly away while I peeled mas­sive amounts of pota­toes. I used up all three vari­eties I’ve been exper­i­ment­ing with: King Edward (rather a for­get­table, white pota­to, suit­able, as they say, for mash­ing), Lady Bal­four, and Nico­la, which are both sweet and yel­low, and waxy. As they boiled, I lis­tened to a voice mail from Becky say­ing she was­n’t sure if I had want­ed her to bring her green bean dish, and if not, what green veg­etable would we have? I pan­icked for a moment, real­iz­ing I prob­a­bly would­n’t reach her in time, and then remem­bered John had bought a bag of brus­sels sprouts. Not, as my favorite culi­nary mys­tery author Kather­ine Hall Page would say, nor­mal­ly a veg­etable to make peo­ple stand up and cheer, but I felt sure I could rem­e­dy that. (And use them before John could make me drink them for lunch, I have to admit.) So here’s what you do (peo­ple did stand up and cheer, pret­ty much):

Brus­sels sprouts with Pinenuts (aka “Good Brus­sels sprouts”)
(serves 12 if you have sev­en oth­er side dishes!)

2 tbsps wal­nut oil
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 pound Brus­sels sprouts (in Eng­land you can get them on the stalk, lovely)
3 cloves gar­lic, fine­ly minced
1 tsp soy sauce
juice of 1 lime
1/2 cup toast­ed pinenuts
salt to taste

Pre­pare your sprouts by cut­ting off the bot­tom of each, and pulling off any leaves that look dam­aged. Then shred them by cut­ting each into four length­wise slices. Throw them in the skil­let with every­thing else, and saute over super-low heat until they get a bit caramel‑y. Of course you can turn them off and tend to oth­er things, like mash­ing your pota­toes with copi­ous amounts of cream and but­ter, and then turn them back on to heat up at the last minute.

Love­ly.

Peo­ple began arriv­ing as John lit the can­dles and Avery changed out of her rid­ing gear (although you can see the gor­geous birth­day gift from our Con­necti­cut friends Anne and David, on her dress: tiny pewter rid­ing boots!). Becky and I looked at the kitchen table where I’d thought we could fill our plates, buf­fet style. “Where on earth are we going to put every­thing?” she asked in alarm. She had brought two kinds of sweet pota­toes, one topped with brown sug­ar and wal­nuts, and the oth­er with… marsh­mal­lows! To feel tru­ly Amer­i­can. Claus and Susan arrived with Sophia, and imme­di­ate­ly the girls clos­et­ed them­selves to prac­tice their bless­ing song. So hard to believe that these girls could ever be any­thing but angel­ic, but chil­dren are noth­ing if not inher­ent­ly unpre­dictable, I reflect­ed, as mem­o­ries of last spring float­ed through my mind. Got to stay on our toes. But Thanks­giv­ing brought out the best in them, and aren’t they moments to dwell on? Dar­ling, gen­tle, dreamy Anna, dra­mat­ic and beau­ti­ful Sophia, and Avery, how did she ever get includ­ed in such august com­pa­ny? I felt incred­i­bly lucky to have, not even a year after mov­ing, such heart­warm­ing friends and their chil­dren. They sang “We Gath­er Togeth­er,” in their lit­tle Eng­lish girls’ school accents, and I think even super-sophis­ti­cat­ed Ash­ley and lit­tle Eleanor were impressed.

We raised our glass­es of cham­pagne, gin­ger ale, Pimms # 3, Win­ter, and toast­ed the girls on their beau­ti­ful song, and tucked into food!

I’m head­ed out to din­ner with John at the Man­darin Kitchen, so must tell you more about the din­ner lat­er, includ­ing a cou­ple more recipes. I can’t believe I’m hun­gry. Avery’s spend­ing the night with Anna, and I think Becky is in for an ear­ly night for those two: between Thanks­giv­ing (Mrs D report­ed today that all the Amer­i­can chil­dren were trashed!) and run­ning in Regen­t’s Park at gym (“Mum­my, it’s child abuse! It real­ly is,” was Avery’s com­ment), they will be down for the count pret­ty soon.