Carolyn & Joe's Adventure into Adulthood: Joe's back and Thanksgiving feast!

What an awesome couple of days! Joe got back safely and unfortunately late and missing his bag from his 2 week trip to the States. He missed his connecting flight in Newark, so he ended up flying via Paris to get home on Thursday, but he got home safe and sound and tired. Then, while Joe stopped into lab for a bit, Adrian and I went to Aligro to buy supplies for the Thanksgiving feast on Sunday. I then made dinner for Joe and we hung out until he got tired.

Friday night, we went to dinner at Cafe des Bouchers and ended up sitting next to the reigning Swiss National Sumo champion. Turns out he's actually of British decent and talked our ears off for our entire dinner. He was an interesting character.

On Saturday, Jacqui, Adrian and I made the brine solution for the turkey and then drove to Lutry to pick up the turkey I special ordered at the butcher shop. Isn't it beautiful!

We then stopped by the caveau to pick up some wine for dinner. Pascal helped us pick a nice wine to go with dinner. We then dropped off the bird at Jacqui's and picked up stuff at my apartment (crock pot, 3 bowls of stuffing, etc). I then washed the turkey and put it in the brine to soak overnight. Joe & I stayed home that night and Joe made me dinner and then we decorated our christmas tree.

Sunday morning I woke up at 5:30am to get my stuff together to catch the first metro at 5:59am to Jacqui's apartment. There I was looking like Aunt Jemima pulling a waterlogged 8 kilo (think 18 pound) freezing cold turkey out of the brine. Jacqui and I then patted the bird dry and started on the stuffing while the bird sat at room temperature for 2 hours. I then finished making the stuffing, stuffed the bird, trussed a bird for the first time ever and stuck it in the oven! We then cleaned up the apartment, set the table for dinner, got the veggies ready and showered while basting the turkey every half hour for the next 4 hours. We started the first Lord of the Rings movie (we watched all 3 yesterday!) around 12:30 and then lunch started around 1:30 and everything everybody brought was amazing! The turkey was super moist and delicious...so much better than last year's turkey. It was the best turkey I've ever had, and I'm not just saying that because I made it... it was an amazing bird and the brining made it taste absolutely magnificent. Click here for more pictures from our Thanksgiving feast day! We then all vegged out in front of the tv until 9pm watching all 3 Lord of the Rings. Sai was supposed to make us all turkey curry for dinner, but we were all too stuffed from lunch to even consider eating another full meal. We'll be postponing it until later in the week when all of our stomachs have recovered.

-the table set for dinner