Thanksgiving Dinner for 100+ on St. Nicholas Day

So what goes into the process of making dessert for over 100 people? Two crates of apples, a mini-tank of cinnamon, three boxes of cream, one very large white pumpkin, many bags of sugar and flour, three aprons, six knives, two pastry hooks, nine people, and three hours. But we did it! Our homemade banana cream and pumpkin pies and four platters of apple crisp made a big hit to top off the annual ACS Thanksgiving dinner, prepared by the internationals for the Bulgarian faculty and their families. The evening began with wine and soda, stayed strong through turkeys stuffed with sage, rosemary, cinnamon sticks and apples, garlic-cheddar mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry-apple stuffing, and green beans with almonds, and wrapped up with the fruits of team dessert's labors. Go team! My only regret was being too busy slicing and dicing with the team to see much of the dinner or talk to the guests. We did eat the food though, and it was fantastic!

Betsy and Brett, apron-wearing members of "Team Dessert"

Roxanne juggles our pie crusts

Grace and Celia Cangiano with turkey remains

John Stephens and his sons cavorting about the kitchen

Deana, Matt, Jeff, and Larry carve 2 of about 20 turkeys. See that apron? That signifies a member of team dessert!

George, Tom, Sarah, Brett, and Jess peel and slice apples for Crisp

The final stages on one of the Banana Cream Pies

Peeking into the vat of Garlic-Cheddar Mashed Potatoes (this pan is about 2.5 feet high)

Mid-Crisp Preparation

Soon to be pumpkin pie (no puree available in Bulgaria, just very large and hard pumpkins to be hacked apart, boiled, and then mashed...)

Canadian Thanksgiving

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving Sunday with about twenty other ACS faculty. Cat, our next door neighbor, baked two turkeys - one in her apartment and one in the oven below her - and actually cooked pumpkin, actual pumpkin, down into bars with hand whipped vanilla cream. The rest of us contributed a motley assortment of food: squash cooked with onions and apples and brie cheese, bean dip with the one kind of corn chips available in Bulgaria (think about that next time you pass the eight thousand competing bags in your grocery store), wine of every color and flavor, zucchini bread, carrot casserole (I didn't dare, but I hear it was really good), cheesy potatoes, terrible Greek chocolate bread (ah well, at least we had fun picking it out), and so much more. We ate turkey and gravy and stuffing, casseroles and breads, and dessert. Then we talked until we were ready for a few more bites of turkey and some more dessert; it was a food and friendship festival of the best kind. Hurrah for Canada!