Thanksgiving Feast

Whew! I just did all my Christmas shopping yesterday at Waikele. As always, I kept finding things for myself. However, I did manage to maintain focus and bought gifts for my family ... except in Sports Authority where I bought only one thing for me-self, hee :) Oh shush! I only bought a swimsuit. I decided to try the Speedo ENDURANCE line that my mom had told me about two weeks ago. She found them in Hong Kong and had wanted to buy me some. Good thing I asked her not to because when I tried them on, they were a size too big. The ENDURANCE line is 100% chlorine resistant with the 4-way stretch fabric. The material feels thicker, stronger and warmer too. Even though it was quite pricey, I decided to give it a try, hoping that their slogan "lasts 20x longer" would be at least 25% true. So, I wear out a swimsuit every 9 months. Based on my assumption, the ENDURANCE suit will have to last 15 months for me to save. Let's hope it does!

Thankgiving dinner, it was onolicious! Mahalo HappyOblivion for cooking such a delicious meal. Yes, he cooked everything himself. I only contributed the roots - yam, mashed potatoes (the real kine), and caramelized carrots. He prepared the stuffing, cranberry-orange sauce, and most important, the turkey. This year's turkey was better than last year's. Even the white meat was juicy! I dunno how Happyoblivion did it but maybe the great chef can give us hungry readers some advice for next year??

I prepared the table spread with my new "Homemade in Portugal" dishes.

Dun dun dun, the famous turkey by happyOblivion. It was a 17-pounder. The seasoning was perfect!

We invited some friends over who brought yummy pumpkin crunch cake. We were all in food coma an hour later.

My wii pig turned orange!

So much has happened since I last blogged. I feel like I haven't been on the internet for a month, but it's only been a week and a half. Let's back track a little. For the past three days, I was on Maui doing field work. I am so glad we returned to Oahu before the storm hit. Outside the window, I see trees doing the mambo jambo and cars creeping on the shiny wet road. Hmm ... hot soup is perfect for stormy weather. The week before, I began making christmas presents for my family and friends. More on this inspirational project in my Artsy Blog.

When I am behind on blogging, I usually look through my photos to determine where I should begin. During Thanksgiving week, HappyOblivion went back home for his friend's wedding. That Saturday, I busted out the Wii Fit and exercised for an hour. When I finished, the piggy bank (time keeper) jumped up and down, then it changed from silver color to gold! I was so surprised. I got a gold piggy bank for breaking 10 hours on the Wii Fit.


Next day, HappyOblivion came back from LA. To celebrate, I served Cheese Ravioli (from Costco) on the fancy green "Handmade in Portugal" plates I bought from Ross. The food look more delicious and appealing on these nice plates, don't you think? 


More on food...  A while ago, I bought baby bak choi from a shop in Chinatown. They come in a puffed up clear plastic bag, very fresh. They taste ono simply fried in garlic and salt. Since then, I haven't been able to find them because ... well, to be honest, I don't know my way around Chinatown. Yes yes, I am Chinese and I do work only a few blocks from Chinatown. So embarrassing. Anywho, my friend from work recently took me to a shop that sells these baby bak choi. I was very happy because Happyoblivion had been wanting them for quite sometime. I fried these baby up with chicken and oh, so ono!

A Kincaid's Thanksgiving

Kincaid's is my favorite restaurant for dinner in Hawaii. As for lunch, I love Alan Wong's Pineapple Room. We recently received a $20 gift card in the mail. Yeah, we randomly get these gift cards in the mail addressed to "Current Resident". Is that great or what? Since it's Thanksgiving, we thought we should treat ourselves to a nice romantic dinner.

One of the reasons I love Kincaid's is their garlic bread. They come out warm, soft, garlicy, and buttery. I wish I could just eat these and drink a wine without ordering anything from the menu. That would be kinda' rude...

Instead of ordering crab cakes appetizer like all the other times, we decided to try something different. We ordered the scallop lollipops. They are grilled scallops wrapped in salmon. Very juicy and tasty.

For main dish, I ordered the seared ahi. The fish was cooked to perfection. The meat came out by slices. The fresh and lightly cooked vegetables compliment the salty taste of the fish.

HappyOblivion ordered the crusted opah. I never had opah before so I didn't know what fish it was. The dish was a surprise to me because it tasted very different from what I had imagined. The fish was delicious and crunchy. Not oily at all.

We had a nice time eating and not talking during dinner. Who needs to talk and converse about relationship when you have such good food sitting in front of you. Just eat and be merry :) Talking is overrated.

Nemo

You probably know what I am going to write first but I am still gonna write it. I AM SO BEHIND ON MY BLOGGING! Whew, that was a relief. I had what my friend called it, Bloggers Block, or something to that effect. BTW, Happy Turkey Day my dear readers. HappyOblivion went to LA for a wedding so I was left alone in my lonely apartment doing some lonely stuff :( No, I wasn't lonely. I spend all day cleaning the apartment. See, I bought some new dishes (post to come) and I needed to fit these plates into my kitchen cabinents, which were all full. First, I was gonna to rearrange the two cabinents that had dishes in them. One thing led to another, and I ended up rearranging stuff in all the cabinents. Afterwards, I felt sad for the orchid that I had planned to repot a couple months ago but never had time. She was growing out of her pot and the roots were no longer growing in the media. So, I spend a good hour repotting the orchid and another half hour cleaning up the mess I made.

Here's something to brighten up your day if you are feeling the Black Friday Blues because you are stuck at work while everyone is out shopping. I present to you, Nemo from the Waikiki Aquarium. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Celebration

I believe we broke our record this year by eating 3 turkeys! The first gobble-time was the day before Thanksgiving. After trying the thanksgiving turkey dinner from Foodland and Starmarket, we still thought the one from Safeway was the best. The turkey was more juicy and tender, and the gravy was a bit saltier. The turkey was 8-10 pounds and we finished it in 3 days. However, after becoming spoiled by Bryan's delicious bacon-filled stuffing, I refused to eat the stuffing that came with the turkey dinner. Bacon makes everything taste good!

On Thanksgiving day, we were invited to a friend's house for a gobble potluck. She roasted two turkeys but we only got to taste one of them because we had to save room for a Thanksgiving Chinese buffet that same night. I wish I had 4 stomachs.

Two weeks later, we invited some friends over for a late thanksgiving celebration in addition to watching the UH football game (against Washington Huskies). This time, Bryan roasted the turkey all by himself in addition to preparing all the side dishes (i.e., stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and yam). He did a wonderful job on the turkey, even better than the Safeway turkey. No doubt the stuffing was delicious. I actually prepared the mashed potatoes because it was the easiest task. The yam was a great dessert. After this meal, I don't think I will buy the Safeway turkey dinner next year. Instead, I will help Bryan prepare our own special gobble dinner buffet :)