Summersgiving

There has been a turkey in our freezer since last fall.  I think Kevin bought it for a work party game but I'm not sure. Regardless, it has been there, biding its time.  It even escaped the "eat everything so we don't have to move it" phase we went through last December/January before closing on our house.  However, with the local fruit/veggies we are putting up for the winter, freezer space started to become hot real estate.  And the turkey still sat there, all 14 pounds of it, taking up practically a whole shelf.  Something had to be done. So I decided to throw a Summer Thanksgiving with friends.

One of the things I love about Thanksgiving is that it is truly a seasonal feast: pumpkin pie! cranberry sauce! brussel sprouts!  All things you generally only get in the fall. So I thought we'd do summer variations on the Thanksgiving foods.  We had the Thanksgiving staples of turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing as well as roasted summer squash, zucchini bread, tomato cobbler, peach pie, and half a blueberry pie.  Don't ask me why only half a blueberry pie, ask this one:

 (This photo was taken months before the blueberry pie eating incident, but she still looks guilty doesn't she?)

Probably true to any first-time Thanksgiving hoster, I had a bit of a meltdown.  I may or may not have cried in the Wal-Mart parking lot after spending an hour and a half looking for a turkey fryer.  Lesson learned: Even if a website tells you something is in stock, it may not actually be -- and the people working at Wal-Mart are less than helpful.  Luckily Kevin talked me down, assured me we still had time to roast the bird if I came home right away.  I was skeptical, and debated buying some rotisserie chickens as a back-up but Kevin was right - we roasted the bird in plenty of time.  Second lesson learned: It is impossible to buy a turkey fryer in August. 

Overall, it was a first-time summersgiving success.

 Fresh salsa, the beginnings of tomato cobbler, and some summer vegetables pre-roasting.

 The peach and blueberry pies (pre-Molley). 

 Pippa made a new friend (I tried to catch them playing, but was too late).

The table set.

Not pictured is the Thanksgiving requisite of falling asleep on the couch after dinner.  One thing happened that rarely happens at the traditional Thanksgiving though...

 A fire outside.  Definitely made up for the lack of football on TV.