Cooking Lessons from a Convict

This past Saturday we finally had our belated Thanksgiving dinner (or, for the American readers, rather early). Growing up in a Filipino household, we did not observe this holiday as such - for my siblings and me it was like any other P.A. day. We either took our time doing our homework or spent all day playing with our Atari, Nintendo or Super Nintendo (God I am so OLD!).

When I met my husband, I was introduced to the wonderful smells of Thanksgiving. Turkey and potatoes and other "white people food" (I was a naïve child who grew up in a passively, mildly racist home) were such a wonderful change from the usual rice with ulam, and we have stayed faithful to the holiday ever since.

Having discovered the inner-housewife in me, I love to feed people until they need to roll all the way home. So, naturally, I invited our friends who knew what Thanksgiving was along with hubby's family. So far, so good. Then the pressure started - hubby's family and our German friends despised pumpkin. A couple other friends are vegetarian. Our American friend expressed that he was very excited to experience his first true Thanksgiving dinner in a long time. Yikes.

Hubby already knew how to make an awesome turkey with stuffing and gravy. The potatoes, corn, broccoli, etc. were simple enough. I turned to my trusty collection of Donna Hay cookbooks, where I found wonderful recipes for pumpkin and apple pie; easy to follow for a pie-novice such as myself. We adapted certain dishes to create a second that was vegetarian-friendly. All that was missing was an appropriate starter. I searched one of my favourite websites - recipezaar.com - and thus began my "cooking lessons from a convict", as an honourary uncle so graciously described it.

End result? Everyone loved everything! Hubby's turkey was amazing (as always), the pies were delicious (you can never go wrong with Donna Hay), and the convict delivered. Our American friend said it tasted as a true Thanksgiving dinner should. My biggest triumph, however, was that hubby's family and our German friends loved the pumpkin dishes, including hubby's carnivore step-dad who is allergic to most fruits and vegetables (too many vitamins!) and hubby's aunt who hates parsley. (I know hate is a strong word, but that is how she truly feels.)

I have been receiving lovely remarks on the pumpkin soup from friends. Here is the recipe (if you still are clueless as to who the convict is, you will find out now). I replaced the chicken stock with vegetable stock and used five cloves of garlic, and it still tasted heavenly.