Thanksgiving Festivities

Holiday Tradition.....Except Not


November is a time for cold weather, football, and of course Thanksgiving. It's kind of a love/hate relationship with me and turkey day though. On the one hand, you have a bunch of really great food: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy all in the same bite = awesomeness and that processed cranberry sauce is for sure the greatest thing to ever come out of a can. Then on the other hand, along with Thanksgiving comes long car rides to far away relatives' houses coupled with forced interactions with these aforementioned relatives. To sum up, the holiday usually turns out to be a long awkward day with people I see a couple times a year, interrupted by a massive feast, and immediately followed by a fat food coma. This year however, it turned out slighty different from the tradition I've come to know.


First off, these are my parents



This Thanksgiving, my parents decided to come to Irvine to visit me instead of the traditional visit to a relatives' house. As my apartment isn't very well suited to host a proper Thanksgiving meal, the only option was to go out for dinner. At first I wasn't excited because I knew I wasn't going to be getting the traditional feast I was accustomed to. But once we saw the menu and all the different options we had to choose from, I realized the meal would be just as good. There were:

Three different types of Bruschetta
Chopped Salad & Ceasar Salad
Baked Ziti with Sausage and Provolone Cheese
Rigatoni with Chicken, Mushrooms, and Onions
Turkey with Stuffing and Cranberry Sauce
Ham with Sweet Potatoes
Mashed Garlic Potatoes with Gravy
Pumpkin Cheescake
Tiramisu


The restaurant was called Maggiano's. (It is regularly an Italian restaurant but had a special menu for Thanksgiving)



Since this was a new restaurant that I had never been to before, I accomplished part of goal

#81. Eat at 25 new restaurants (1/25)


As you can see, it was quite a feast (I think we had 7 boxes of leftovers in all)



Also, if you noticed the last thing I put from the menu was Tiramisu



This, surprisingly, is something that I've never tried before. I wanted to go for the Chocolate Cake but I figured I'd go out of my comfort zone for once and try this weird cake-like, coffee-tasting, custardish dessert. Overall, it turned out pretty decent. I'm not gonna be switching away from my beloved Chocolate Cake anytime soon but I'm glad I tried it. My semi-adventurous dessert choice counts toward goal

#82. Try 5 things I’ve never eaten before (1/5)


So despite the lack of a traditional Thanksgiving this year, I'd still count it as a good one. I had a good meal with my parents and the food was really good, even a few days later haha. Plus, I accomplished two goals with one dinner!! Yay for making progress!