since thanksgiving is widely known to be the best day of the year, a few of us decided that we should have a thanksgiving dinner of our own to celebrate the day.

growing up my family celebrated thanksgiving in our own unique way. there would be a little turkey and some cornbread, and there would also be pakoras and chicken biryani. we figured since it is a day for eating, we should eat all the foods we like, so that’s what we did. we would snack the entire day and have one big meal somewhere in the middle, and we’d spend most of our time on the couch watching football. it was magical.

sadly thanksgiving is not a holiday in india [a travesty, really], so i always end up having to work. in the past i would try to have a little something special for dinner, but often i was the only one who cared about the day.

but not this year. this year i had cindy, whose favourite day is also thanksgiving. i also had avni, who is always up for a holiday that celebrates eating. and i had madhav, who was sad about missing thanksgiving for the first time in 8 years.

originally cindy, avni, and i thought of going out for a nice dinner. there are lots of places that serve special “thanksgiving menus”, but i refuse to go to any of them because their menus are ridiculous and overpriced. instead, we thought we would just have a nice dinner and some good wine and toast to the day.

when i mentioned this to madhav, he was a little upset that we weren’t having dinner in someone’s house, so he offered to host us. cindy agreed to make some bruschetta and garlic mashed potatoes, and avni and i arranged for some tandoori chicken, mutton biryani, and a bottle of red wine to go with my bottle of jack daniel’s honey. it was an interesting combination of foods, but it was all delicious.

in addition to all the food, we had the macy’s thanksgiving day parade streaming in the background. it’s been years since i’ve watched the parade [it comes on early in the central time zone], so it was fun to watch all the balloons go by, to reminisce about fun days spent in new york city, and to make fun of the comments made by the announcers and their guests.

we ate, we drank, we laughed, and it was overall a great evening. i missed the football, but i was happy to be celebrating with new friends, old friends, and delicious food. that’s what the day is all about, after all.

and to wrap up the night, we watched the season 6 episode of friends [“the one where ross got high”] before heading home. it was a great way to end a great thanksgiving celebration.

so here’s to good friends, good food, and new holiday traditions.

xx