Christmas feast

I only have a couple minutes to update before diving headlong into ILaw studying, but I felt I owed it to myself and my valiant cooking attempts to post about the Chambers Holiday Dinner.

The whole thing was Amy's brilliant idea, and it all went down this past Wednesday. There was a lot of stress on my part leading up to the big day, mostly based in obsessive desire to have turkey at the dinner and my obvious lack of cooking skills. That, coupled with several attempted Safeway trips defeated by too much work and/or the snowy wilderness (read: slushy state of DC), led Amy and I to buy a pre-cooked Turkey. So off we went to Safeway with, you guessed it, my GIANT suitcase to pick up all the groceries we needed. Including a nice 10-15 pound (they didn't label it, which proved difficult for cooking) pre-cooked turkey. Before you scoff at my cooking sell-out, remember that a pre-cooked Turkey still must be warmed in the oven for about an hour and a half, and carved. Which we did awesomely.

Amy also introduced me to the marshmallow school of sweet potato thought, since I was brought in a strictly pecan family. They were delish. Tim came over early to help with the cooking and was instrumental in my sautee-ing of onions to add to my instant stuffing. I also made brie with cranberry sauce on top that was delish, and served the remaining cranberry sauce as a side that went over quite well -- it was normal cranberry sauce mixed with cinnamon, nutmeg, and rum, so how could it not!? Anthony made delicious garlic mashed potatoes with chives which involved the debut of our electric mixer... very exciting.

And before your food jealousy is complete, we must not forget the copious amounts of wine everyone brought (including Tim's bottle of "Smoking Loon", which we all loved), and the amazing desserts provided by Jeff and Dominic and Jenny. Really, an awesome night.

And now, my current situation is not having *nearly* enough time to finish everything I have to. As part of my motivational inspiration, I'm revisiting old iTunes playlists. Right now we're about an eighth of the way through my Spanish music collection, which is impressive. But I'm sure you knew that.

Oh, and P.S. Safeway through the snow with a suitcase. Pilgrim that!