Well, the American girls did it again!!! This time, we (3 of us) cooked dinner for 27 people, which is the final count I think (yes, Lisa, I believe you were right on that number). All I can say is wow. I'm so proud of ourselves! I love that we get to share our United States tradition with my Costa Rican family and they love every bit of it. They love the food (I mean, who doesn't) and they love the going around the table saying what everyone is thankful for. The Costa Ricans really do it right. They talk about everything they're thankful for since the last Thanksgiving a year ago. It's much more than a quick "thankful for a few key things", it's pretty much a little speech. That's why we say the blessing, serve the food and start eating as we go around the table. By the time we got to me, which I was one of the last 5-8 people, it was just about time to go start serving the desert. That's how long it took for us to get around the table. However, we forgot to start it at the beginning once we all sat down (too into the food, I suppose) and then there were some new people in the bunch who had not heard what the reason for celebrating Thanksgiving was in the first place. I briefly explained about the Pilgrims and the Indians and then we got right to the "thanking" part. There were laughs, tears and a few who don't like speaking in public and it was just great. We had two turkeys (almost 30 pounds of it) and gravy, lots of dressing, greenbean casserole, creamed corn, LOADED mashed potatoes, salad, lime pie and apple pie. After our third year of doing this down here, we pretty much think this may have been one of our best menus :)
I have to commend my 4 year old on all his help this year. We had bought new, durable, reuseable plastic plates this year and somehow I managed to get him to wash all thirty of them before the first use. I set him up in the back laundry sink and he went to town. It's so easy when he follows me around with his little step stool saying, "mama! I wanna help!". He wouldn't stop till he finished all thirty of them. The day before that, I had two pounds of green beans to break the ends off and break them into smaller pieces and he INSTISTED on helping me. It was hard for him to pinch the ends off so I had two containers, one for the ends, one for the pieces, a cutting board and just a regular tableknife and he worked on those green beans in the living room watching the Disney channel like it was his full time job. What a great helper! That same day, he helped me put all the graham crackers in the Cuisinart, blend those with butter and sugar and then press the pie crusts into the pans to later help me make the keylime pies. My little chef is going to make some girl really happy one day.....At the dinner, he was filling the cups with ice with tongs and he was obsessed with it. He wouldn't stop even when we wanted a family picture but we made him anyway. He is NOT happy in the picture so we probably shouldn't have bothered at all. He was really involved in A LOT of the preparation and cooking and I'm so proud of him for that.
I will post a few new Thanksgiving pictures and a video of Matthew washing plates as soon as I get them from another person's camera.
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