Thanksgiving Casserole

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday weekend (or regular weekend!) and that you are now ready for the holiday season.  Did you fill yourself to the brim with turkey and stuffing on Thursday?  Or were you like me and had some Buffalo chicken at the local bar?  Did you head out Friday morning and fight the crowds?  Or were you like me and you stayed far far away from any store that sold anything on Friday? 

While I may have missed out on the food festivities this year, my thanksgiving was not without celebration.  I just enjoyed my thanksgiving holiday in the morning and spent the afternoon travelling!  Boyfriend and I spent the early morning hours under the sunny skies of New York City, watching the Macy's thanksgiving day parade. 

Having done the New York City new years eve thing once, we were concerned about the sheer numbers of people that would be at the parade.  We were told to expect 3.5 million people to line the streets of Manhattan and watch the parade with us.  The one thing that we neglected to account for was the length of the parade route.  Starting at 77th street and Central park west, travelling south to 34th street and 7th avenue, the parade winds its way over two miles of New York City pavement. 

We decided to go uptown to watch the parade, getting off the subway at 66th street and walking to the park.  By the time we got there, the sidewalks were pretty full and the police had closed off the street.  We stood three or four people back from the barracades, but boyfriend and I have a serious parade watching advantage, we're both pretty tall.  There was also another bonus, we came to see the balloons and balloons float.  The massive characters were flying high above our heads, everyone could enjoy them even without a good place to stand.

With the sunny skies and the warmer than usual temperatures, we thoroughly enjoyed the parade.  Having watched them inflate the balloons the day before, it was fun to finally see them all floating above us.  We each had our favorites and waited the whole parade to wave to Kermit the Frog.  Once Kermit flew past, we darted out of there and flew away ourselves.

Sausage and Gorgonzola Mac 'n' Cheese

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I was so happy to learn that people around the world are starting to celebrate Thanksgiving. While Thanksgiving is technically a "new world" holiday, celebrating the feast between some of the first settlers of the Americas and the native American indians, the idea behind the holiday is something that everyone can get behind.

In essence, Thanksgiving is about taking a moment to think about all the great things in your life. In the United States, we take the fourth Thursday of the month of November to give thanks for all of the positives. We give thanks for family and health, new successes and old friends, sunny weather and juicy turkey. Well, those last few things might just be what I like to throw in there at the end, I really like sunny weather!

Whether you are here in the United States with me, or celebrating somewhere else around the world, Happy Thanksgiving to you. I hope that you have lots to celebrate this year, I know that I do.

Thanksgiving Potato Pie

Would it surprise you all if I tell you that I'm not cooking this Thanksgiving?  The Wilde kitchen will not only be quiet, it will be completely empty.  There will be no turkey in the oven, no potatoes on the stove and no tubes of cranberry sliced on my cutting board.  The lack of thanksgiving cooking does not mean that I'm just heading to someone elses home for the traditional feast.  Thanksgiving dinner will probably consist of pizza, or sandwiches, and I'm very excited about it.

Don't get me wrong, I love all holidays that revolve around food.  It's the main reason I like celebrating memorial day, picnics!  Thanksgiving is a long standing tradition in my family back home in Buffalo.  Every Thanksgiving of my childhood was spent preparing a dish and heading out to my Aunts house for a great big Thanksgiving dinner.  The dish that we would prepare?  Our classic Jell-O dish!

I have many memories of bundling up and hopping in the car, driving all the way to Grand Island.  The drive always felt like it took forever, although these days I know it only takes about twenty minutes to get there.  We would arrive in the house and shed our layers, slowly coming into a warm house that smelled of turkey.  That smell always brings you into the holiday spirit, if I make a turkey in the summer I still think of Thanksgiving.

We would inevitably wind up eating dinner at four o'clock.  The kids would be first in line to eat and my Uncle would always cut in front of one of us, telling us he was taller.  The adults would retreat to the dining room and the cousins would sit around the kitchen table.  At one point in the years we had dinner there, the kids were relocated to the living room, next to the dining room.  I think it was to let us feel like grown ups.  I spilled red Jell-O on the white carpet that year, the next year we were back in the kitchen.

This year is the first Thanksgiving that boyfriend and I will spend together, living in the same place.  What have we decided to do this year?  Go to New York City and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!  Since we won't be at home to prepare a giant feast this year, I prepared a little Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.  It's delicious, it combines everything you want and it doesn't take five hours to prepare.