Our First Party

Hello All,

Oh, and a special hello to Parnell, I miss my friend and am glad I heard from you. :-)

Happy Christmas as they say over here!

Last night John and I threw our first party. It was a Christmas/Thanksgiving/Housewarming party. I know that sounds odd, but all of our friends wanted a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and a housewarming. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving isn't a national holiday over here, nor were all of his friends available last weekend and I was already in the Christmas spirit so it ended up being a combination of a bunch of different ideas held on December 1st.

Luckily, I have been trained well by my mother, being her assistant for several Christmas' and Thanksgivings. I knew to buy my ingredients ahead of time, especially the turkey, since it takes forever to thaw out. Now this became a little complicated because all my recipes are in standard measurement, not metric. Fortunately, I have a measurement conversion website saved on my PC as a favourite place. So I sat here, with my recipes, typing in measurements, and then looking for the closest possible package available on Sainsbury's Online. I love that they deliver!

I decided to make the turkey, the stuffing, and the yams. Then I proceeded to delegate who had what. Once my invite e-mail came out I had a surprising couple of questions to answer. A: What are yams? B: What is a White Elephant gift exchange? I tried explaining the gift exchange to people as we saw them out, it didn't work. I tried to explain what yams were, it didn't work. I finally wrote an e-mail explaining as best I could about both, but finally just said bring a wrapped present, £5 limit.

Next I had to come up with games. John had a pub quiz game that we decided to try. I'll explain more about that later. I found the Guess the Christmas Carol picture game online, that is always fun. For example, one picture has a knight putting his finger to his lips and going, "Shhhh!" Anyone? Anyone? . . . . Silent Night! How fun is that?

At the same time, we still hadn't gotten all of the furniture that I wanted for the living room, will put pictures up soon, so John and I had to make a mad dash to Argos to get the last big piece of furniture for the lounge/living room. John then proceeded to put it together, not a good idea to be in the same room, he gets frustrated easily and swears like a sailor. I think next time I'LL go to the pub and read for a bit. ;-)

Finally the morning dawned and I was up early cleaning house. My mom always cleaned house before guests came and that has stuck with me for a long time. I tidied up, moved stuff where people wouldn't see it, and put up some last minute decorations. Then I started to cook.

I made the Everyday Italian Turkey with Citrus and Herbs de Provence and also her infamous Ciabatta, Pancetta, and Chestnut Stuffing. For the yams I looked in my Joy of Cooking cookbook. I hold on to this cookbook because it was given to my parents when they were married . . . years ago. Mom told me once she missed it and knew dad had it. I bought her a new one but somehow ended up with Dad's copy years later. Some of the recipes are pretty complicated but everytime I try one, I have to tell you, it is delicious. So I pulled out the candied yam recipe, seemed very similar to the recipe my mom and stepmom follow. The only thing different was to add some lemon juice and lemon zest. I did that and I have to tell you, it was REALLY good! But I am getting ahead of myself. Since I had ordered a 20 pound turkey I had to time everyting, along with what everyone else was bringing as well. John also had to help me lift the damn turkey in and out of the oven, but all the while I was thinking, turkey sandwiches, turkey sandwiches! Come on, you all know that left over turkey is the best!

Everything was set up and ready to go. Chris and Dee were the first to arrive. They are just wonderful people but live out in the country so I don't get to see them often. They have dated for a long time but got married this year; John was best man. John and Chris are both from Winscombe and have known each other since school. When John's mom showed me pictures of him as a child there was Chris, the two teenagers with smug looks on their faces. They brought the Broccoli Casserole and the rolls. Two items down, ready to go, now we were just waiting for the rest.

Next came Nicola and Gid with Gid's infamous mashed potatoes. He finished them up by hand, without an electric mixer and they were still smooth and beautiful. I have to say I was impressed. A lot of Americans need mixers to make SMOOTH potatoes.

After that came Natalie, who has been in India for about three weeks for a wedding and to hang with friends. I missed her, she was my first girl friend in London and has been so good to me.

Finally, Steve, Natalie's boyfriend, Helen, and Dan showed up. This completed my guest list. Steve and Helen are also old friends of John's. He has known them since secondary school. Dan was someone Steve met a while ago, as a roommate, but he is becoming a close knit member of the group too.

Dan was in charge of the cheese and crackers or biscuits as they say over here. He brought them in and I asked him to put them in the center of the room so people could eat them. One of the girls said, "Oh are we eating them now, we usually eat cheese and biscuits after the meal." I never thought of that before, but it is true, cheese and biscuits are served before the meal in the US and after in the UK. But oh the cheeses Dan brought. OH, how I love England and their cheeses! We had brie, stilton, feta, another type of brie, a cheddar with chives . . . loads of cheeses.

People started to settle down, have their drinks, watch football. A typical Thanksgiving if you ask me, even if the football was a different kind over here. All the while I was fixing things, getting everything set up, finalizing the food set up. A lot of the people commented on how calm I was. I just said I have had lots of practice with my mom, she has trained me well. Haven't you mom? ;-)

Finally it was time to eat. Everyone served themselves in buffet style and sat around in the lounge. The turkey was perfect, the gravy was thick, the stuffing fantastic, the broccoli casserole cheesy, the potatoes amazing, and my yams were a big hit. What can I say, everyone was excited about the yams.

I started to put away the food but was told by all to leave it out, they would be coming back in for round two/three soon.

Soon after that we had our gift exchange. I had everyone pick a number and we chose gifts in that order. It was a riot how quickly they picked up on the idea of stealing. Gid, who was number 10, was funny in that he picked his own gift, a lottery scratcher. Steve, who was next stole it from him. Gid, cussing and complaining with good humour, worked out with me that if he stole his girlfriend Nicola's bottle of cider she had unwrapped, she could steal back the ticket from Steve. So he took her bottle and said, "Nicola darling, you know what to do!" Everyone was laughing hysterically as she received Steve's scratcher and poor Steve had to get another gift.

Then we played the Guess the Christmas Carol game. John didn't think they would be into it, but his friends were. The winning couple were Chris and Dee, and they received a beautiful bottle of bubbly for it. I started to clean up while everyone socialized but Gid came over, kicked me out of my kitchen, and finished washing up the dishes for me. What a sweetheart!

After that we played the pub quiz. I broke the group into three teams of three and John was quiz master. We had a white board to write our answers on for the different rounds/categories. I was surprised, despite a lot of the questions being English based questions, how well I was able to help. But, it was really funny when I cleaned house on the British Monarchs category. I think I only missed one out of eight. I put George I was from Hapsburg, not Hanover. Either way, our team still won and at the end of the night, Nicola borrowed my book on the Queens and Kings of England.

Next we had dessert. Treacle Tart, Mince Pies, and a Pecan Tart with ice cream and whipped cream. Trading Places with Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy was on and we sat around and watched that for a little bit. Then everyone went home, full, tired, and happy, especially Gid who had three turkey sandwiches after the whole meal!

I am pretty positive my party was a success. There isn't much of that turkey left, I KNOW, 20 POUNDS, nor any other item on the menu. We didn't run out, but had just enough. Now comes the clean up . . . . sweeping the floors, putting out the rest of the rubbish, etc. But, it was still all worth it and loads of fun.