My First Thanksgiving

This year was the first time I've ever cooked my own Thanksgiving!
Of course, after high school, there was a Thanksgiving or two that I didn't go home; but I would always just go over to someone else's house and eat all of their food... So this year was a pretty big deal for me.
Since all of my roommates and I are all from the west coast, it just made the most sense for us to all stay in Brooklyn for the holiday. As soon as we realized that we would all be home, we got to planning our menu:

• Turkey 
• stuffing
• mashed potatoes
• green bean casserole
• sweet potatoes
• sweet potato fries
• cranberry sauce
• gravy
• rolls
• pumpkin curry soup
• lemon meringue pie
• peanut butter chocolate pie
• yam pie
• And of course... beer, wine, mimosa's ;)

I have a long standing tradition in my family of always doing the mashed potatoes, so I was delighted when my roommates said they'd let me make them for us!

Every year, one of my favorite things to do is get up early, and watch the Macy's parade on TV. Now that I'm living here, I really wanted to take advantage of being able to finally going to watch the parade live in person. I had heard that the night before the parade, you can go walk the parade route and watch them blow up the balloons, so of course I immediately put that on my "must-do" list. 

As it has, many times in the past, NYC likes to put me in my place and laugh at me just a little bit...

I got off my subway stop around 7:15pm, it wasn't until almost 8pm that I finally made it out of the subway station, and onto the street. Apparently I'm not the only one who thought it would be fun to go check out the balloons.

Once I finally got out to the street, and just around the corner of the Museum of Natural History, I finally got my first glance of the balloons!

I finally made my way through the mass of people to 77th street and Central Park West to walk down the route to see the balloons up close and personal!

I started walking down Columbus towards 71st street but there were so many people, it literally took me 40 minutes to walk from 77th to 76th, and across Columbus, so I decided I had seen enough. It would probably be better if I just went home. I was originally planning on going back in the morning to catch the actual parade, but after that fiasco- I decided that maybe the parade was better left a TV tradition. 

As soon as I got home, I started making my pie, and rolls!

After cooking until 3am, it was time for bed. After all, we were planning on getting up at 7:30am to put the turkey in the oven! 

My roommates Lois, Alaina, and I all got up and got to cooking and last minute shopping right away!

Before we knew it, it was noon, and our house was filled with lovely people, and beautiful music!

I have the most talented friends and roommates!

Finally around 4pm we were finished cooking and got to eat our feast!

It was so fun collaborating with all of my roommates each cooking different dishes. 

Emily's pumpkin curry soup with roasted sunflower seeds:

 Allen's green bean casserole: 

We had a few minor setbacks including accidently turning off the oven at one point, burning the sweet potato fries, and blowing up a stick of butter in the microwave... oops. 

Our turkey was honestly one of the most delicious I've ever had- ever!

All in all, it was a really wonderful first Thanksgiving experience. I couldn't have asked for anything better. 

A huge thank you to all of my roommates, and Brian, Chris, Marcus, Cecil, and Cherie- without you guys, this day never would have been the same!