Thanksgiving, Cloud style

Even though my exams are now only 9 days away (single digit!), I have been trying to maintain a semblance of a normal life. This recently included sitting down with Nick and planning our Thanksgiving menu. Nick and I both love to cook and eat. This semester, Nick has been doing most of the cooking and we've relied on frozen prepared meals a bit more than I'd like, but it's a temporary situation. Even though we aren't going back to Missouri for Thanksgiving with our family, we still want to make a Thanksgiving feast.

We've done this ourselves before. Last year, we had Sarah and Kevin over for dinner. It was really delicious, and sort of an acrobatic effort cooking something like 8 or 9 dishes in our tiny apartment kitchen. The turkey stayed on top of the fridge while it rested after cooking. This year we have a much larger kitchen with plenty of room for everything. The only problem is that I think this Thanksgiving dinner will just be for the two of us.

We don't have a lot of friends in the area. Those whom we are friends with either have family in the area or will be leaving to be with family for the holiday. We've hemmed and hawed about whether or not we should make a turkey and 6 side dishes for just the two of us or if that is a ridiculous waste of time and effort.

I think we've finally settled on going forward with our Thanksgiving menu. It might be really nice. I will have finished two thirds of my exam, we'll get a chance to spend a lot of time together in the kitchen and we'll have leftovers upon leftovers that will last us for a good long while. We'll have to clear out the freezer between now and then! But ultimately it will be a really nice thing for us. I will be less stressed than I am now, and the preparing of this meal will be a way to do something we love: cook and EAT!

We make our own traditions living so far away from the people we'd love to spend the holiday with. We make it work. So, if anyone's planning on being in the Philadelphia area and is hungry on Thanksgiving, we'd love to add people to our table to share with us.