Thanksgiving at Tita Novelle's House

I first Thanksgiving, ever, here was spent at Tita Novelle's house. Tita Novelle works with Leila, my housemate at John Muir and she teaches ELD at Muir. She is also a Filipina. What the occasion didn't lack was Filipino food even though its an American tradition. There was fried camote, empanada, bico, Magnolia ice cream (Jackfruit) and what we were waiting for, paksiw na bangus and dinuguan. Hehehe.

Of course, there was the star of the show, the turkey, gobble, gobble, gobble and there was ham as well. Who couldn't forget the cranberry sauce that went with everything as well as the gravy for the turkey, different kinds of stuffing, bread, pumpkin pie, and all kinds of pies. Food was everywhere. Yum yum. My only real contribution was helping to set up the hors d'oeuvre (I had to google to spell that). Putting the pitted olives, red, yellow and orange peppers, baby tomatoes, baby carrots on the lazy susan, putting candies on the serving trays as well as slicing the rolls and arranging them on a plate and yes, of course, the most tasking task of all, washing the green and purple grapes and cutting them into little clusters as Betty, Tita Novelle's sister-in-law said.

It was an interesting evening to say the least and I enjoyed listening to their stories. The main meal though, when Ivy was around and her family was the Filipino food that we feasted on, dinuguan and paksiw na bangus. Normally, I wouldn't eat paksiw, but this time, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to eat Filipino food. Yum yum.

When you're far away from home, eating a home-cooked Filipino meal is the next best thing to being at home.

Thank you Tita Novelle for inviting me to my very first ever Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to Christmas. Too bad I can't be there though, the tuyo sounds really good...drool...