I interupt your holiday festivities...

I interrupt my usual belated retelling of a vacation to say I hope everyone had a fun, nutritious n' delicious Thanksgiving. Mine was a teensy bit different from usual at the outset because I have a house guest, my friend Barbara who is staying with me for a bit. When I got connected to my Thanksgiving buddies Rick, Nancy & their boys, Diego and Adan, I found out instead of Thanksgiving at their place, it is at Leila's home. Leila is a long time friend of Rick & Nancy, both families and their 2 sons each, have been friends since, using Traveling Wilbury's lingo, "..since they wuz babies". I've been acquainted with Leila over the years through R&N.

My first attempt ever at sweet 'tater pies - not bad!

First off, Leila was amazingly kind enough to automatically not only extend her invitation to me, but to my house guest Barbara. So, armed with a pair of Chez Claire sweet 'tater pies, one with, the other w/o walnuts, we headed over to Leila's quiet little neighborhood.

Leila, making the Thanksgiving miracle happen

I'd never been to Leila's house, but somehow when I saw the two HUMONGOUS boys in the front yard, I recognized her sons I've met in years past, and her ex, Peter. YIKES! The last time I saw Leila's sons, Matt & Evan, when they were wee ones, racing through R&N's house like turbo dynamos, Wii gaming or some such with Diego & Adan. None of the four boys are wee ones now.

Diego and Evan (am godawful with faces/names, so if I'm wrong, forgive me Evan!)

Adan and Matt

 Soon all the guests, which happily even included Tippy (R&N's faithful doggie) had arrived and we all pitched in to do some little task, as Leila worked kitchen magic. She earnestly told us she was no cook, then turned about, preparing the most awesomely delish Thanksgiving feast I've had in years. It was amazing because Leila is Lebanese so, as with us all, her dishes reflected her heritage. So not only did we have turkey, stuffing and cranberry dressing, we had multi-greens salad with fresh mint and pomegranate seeds among the mix, leg of lamb with pomegranate molasses in the gravy, hearts of palm, lentels and rice, rice with onions, almond & pine nuts and I'm sure other dishes temporarily eluding my memory. During the meal I asked what one especially tasty tidbit was, and it was baba ghanoush!  I was tickled, because the only baba ganoush I'd ever tried was store bought and perfectly ghastly. How fun to discover I do like the Middle-eastern eggplant dish when it is properly prepared by a genuine Middle-easterner with culinary skills. Oh yum... 

And the feasting commenced in earnst

So, I ought to add the food, though exemplary, wasn't the best thing about the meal. As I'm near always lucky enough to say, the company was the best thing about our holiday feast. I kept finding myself laughing out loud, probably setting everyone else's ear drums to near shattering. Oh well. What you can you do when you're having that much fun, eh? Hope everyone I know out there had as lovely and fun a Thanksgiving as I had.