Happy Thanksgiving Nov 23 2006

Thanksgiving in the U.S is a huge thing. Maybe even bigger than Xmas here, as families gather to stuff themselves silly usually with turkey. Now turkey is not a meat that aussies are used to. So in an attempt to host a thanksgiving dinner, Tab & I had to embark on an extensive research on how to cook this darn bird. How hard can that be? It's just like a giant chook. As we subsequently discovered it's a little more complicated than that. Luckily, we were prepared, after watching Food Network & referring to Food & Wine mags, we mastered the art of cooking turkey & it turned out fabulous. Ok... Tab did most of the cooking while Esther & i had a hair appointment... what??? a girl has to look her best at thanksgiving. But you know what's the best thing about thanksgiving... leftovers... almost a week later, we are still enjoying the turkey leftovers.... ahh.... turkey.... the bird that keeps on giving.

Tabbert's birthday celebration

It was Tab's birthday on the 7th of Nov. I won't talk about how old he is as that may be a sensitive topic. The old man... erhh.. i mean my beloved hubby got a personalised turkish robe from me with his name monogrammed on it (just incase i forget his name) and over the weekend i surprised him with a lovely dinner at "The Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton". We had the chef's degustation menu and it was fabulous. (as one would expect from the Ritz). There were so many great things about the night. Because we chose the chef's tasting menu, each dish was a surprise as they brought it out (so it wasn't just a treat for the birthday boy but for me too). Not only was the service impressive (the waiters co-ordinated it so that each dish was put on the table at the same time for everyone), we also had so many amuse bouce given to us even before the start of the meal that you really felt you were getting great value (last count was 6). However i can't take credit for choosing this place. It came as a recommendation from some self-proclaimed foodies i had at work. Apparently the chef, Ron Siegel, was the only american chef that beat a Japanese Iron Chef (and yes, that's the Japanese 'Iron Chef', not the american ones which i don't really consider worthy). He also used to be the sous chef at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley. So this guy had great credentials. At the end of the night, not only did we have a great meal, we had a great time, thanks to the waiters we had there. Happy Birthday old boy!!