Makeshift Thanksgiving

Yesterday's Thanksgiving feast turned out to be a smashing success, even without a turkey. In the end, Jessica and I decided not to substitute anything for the missing bird, which meant that we had a vegetarian Thanksgiving. The menu included mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, acorn squash, creamed onions, sweet potato casserole (all prepared by yours truly), a spinach and cheese torte and crescent rolls (made by Jessica):














And of course, le piece de resistance, apple pie:














Tracking down the ingredients for some of these dishes was difficult. Korean cuisine does not feature many baked goods, and thus I had to make a pie crust without shortening and bake the pie in a pie plate crafted out of some small aluminum dishes (surprisingly, I was able to find pecans for the topping to the sweet potato casserole). We began cooking everything Friday night after work, finally stopping around 2:00 in the morning to sleep, and then it was back to work at 7:30 in the morning. Finally, all of the dishes were ready around 2:30, just in time for the first guests to arrive. I was unsure of how many people would be coming as the guest list was up in the air right up until the meal itself, so I was a little worried that we wouldn't have enough food. But in the end, eight people showed up in addition to Jessica and myself:














From left to right they are: Richard, a business management professor at Ulsan University (whom I'd never met before, but we brought homemade chocolate chip cookies so he's alright), Su-ok, Melissa, Kang, Brandon, In-seok, Yu-ran, and Yeong-in. A good time was had by all, and in true Thanksgiving fashion we had plenty of leftovers.

Thanks go to Mom, Grandma, and Brandon's grandmother for their recipes.