Our first party

Thanksgiving was a little early at our house this year. I'm working this Thanksgiving, then I work the weekend. Kind of screws the pooch for any sort of holiday, so we got proactive at our house. It started innocently. Mom decided to come up a weekend early to celebrate. Then we invited the in-laws, Kevin's folks and his sister's family. Soon a couple of friends joined the list. All the sudden we were figuring out where 14 people would sit.

Mom came up the night before. Shopping was finished, the house was clean (enough), and we had a plan. Love a plan. Dinner would be buffet-stylie. Dogs would be upstairs. We had 7 bottles of wine. Then two more bottles of wine showed up uninvited. How can you go wrong with wine crashers?

I woke up at 6:30 am to get started the next day. Most of the cooking was done in pajamas. The morning was surprisingly relaxed. We prepped ingredients and ironed the table cloths. "Do we have enough silverware?" Kevin asked. Huh. Thanks to Grandma's silver, we did! Perhaps it was just a touch tarnished...but with food on it, you wouldn't notice. Shower at 11:30 am (like the plan said). Steve Cook arrived early and started popping champagne corks. Then Kevin's parents arrived and listened to Mom's remodeling saga. Dana and Tim came with Grace after her nap, Bruce and Marie-Claire popped in after rehearsal. We ate lots, drank lots, talked lots. Steve hung out with us until 11:30 pm. Then we blew out the candels and went to bed.

Menu:
antipasti plate, deviled eggs (2 types), homemade spiced cashews with sparkling wine
Honeybaked ham, roasted cauliflower, brussels sprouts with prosciutto, cornbread and chorizo stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, zinfandel, Shiraz, Reisling
pumpkin creme brule (Thanks to Dana and Tim) with orange Muscat and black currant dessert wine

We had a blast, and spend all Sunday talking about how much fun we had at our own party. We only hope our friends had as much fun. And Kevin and I couldn't have done it without my mom, Nancy. Not only was she the inspiration for the party, but she came up with the menu, brought up tons of food and wine, and did lots of work in the kitchen. Then she washed all our dishes, even when I said, "Sit down, I'll do them later." But she refused and I've long given up arguing with my mother. I might have, technically, kicked her out of the kitchen, once. She was starting to cut up a butternut squash. She stabbed it with a knife and grabbed the handle. I had images of a trip to the ER. Lacking the time to take Nancy in for stitches, I kindly suggested this would be a brilliant moment to take the dogs into the backyard.
"You're kicking me out of the kitchen?"
"Just put the knife down."

Thanks, Mom. And your cooking was GREAT. Don't do it too often, or we won't be fooled by the "I can't cook so I'll just stay out of the kitchen and bring flowers to dinner" act for much longer.