Thanks Be To Good Times

Thanksgiving was a tremendous success this year. The preparation and cooking lasted several days as usual, but for the first time we had so much fun the festivities lasted into the night, the next day, and the next night too, almost until midnight: a thirty hour Thanksgiving!

The menu included:
Perfect Turkey
Gravy made from Awesome Turkey Giblet Stock
Sausage Stuffing
Awesome Sausage, Apple and Cranberry Stuffing
Sweet Potato Casserole I
Stir Fried Broccoli
Cheese Garlic Biscuits II
Fetaki Mushroom Noodle Casserole*
Roasted Carrots with Whiskey Glaze
Cranberry Sauce
Chutney (Ed's delicious home made chutney)
Wild Mushroom Sauce
Zucchini-Chocolate Chip Muffins
Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Graham Cracker Crust

*One item that had to be scrapped was the Zucchini Alfredo. The zucchini was over ripe and did not tenderize while cooking. Thank God I tasted it before pouring it over the fantastic noodles that special lady brought me back from Italy. I redid the sauce as a fetaki mushroom sauce.

And the morning after I made beer bread with the left overs.

Aidas won the food eating competition as usual, but may have overeaten. He and Kristina had to leave more than 24 hours earlier than the others without much drinking to blame.

The first evening we hit the sauna, the man cave, and played a beirut tournament. After several rounds of play while Gintaras and I were still in the sauna we decided we needed some breweries to rehydrate. We beat my special lady and Linas, then we beat Ed and Donatas, and no challengers arose: Eglė and Giedrė either pussed or were too drunk. We won! Luckily the games were close enough that we got to quench our thirst anyway. And just in case we didn't, back to the man cave!

Next day we did the sauna again after being party to the shampoo effect. We had a terrific afternoon playing Alias and Cranium, but then made the mistake of playing Žodžių Bokštas (Up-Words). That took forever; towards the end it was high time to say labanaktis! I was really glad they stayed because it's nearly impossible to get a game of Cranium going, it's only the second time I've been able to play it in Lietuva since getting it for Christmas. You need four people with a decent knowledge of American pop culture, and it always seems more appropriate to play something like Beirut during the party proper. The stragglers left on the day after the party turned out to be perfect cranium players.

A good time was had by all!