Untraditional Thanksgiving fare

I really don’t care for turkey. I’ve always tried to convince my family to eat pizza on Thanksgiving but I’ve never been taken seriously. One year, my father-in-law had a shrimp boil instead of turkey (I thought that was cool). It doesn’t really matter where you go, however, it seems like the food served on Thanksgiving is always the same (I don’t even need to mention it here, since you are well aware of what I’m talking about). Our family celebrated with somewhat untraditional food this year. Our whole family attended, including both sets of parents, both of my brothers and their families, my wife’s brother and his family, and a couple of friends. All in all there were 29 people at my house.

Listed here is the menu, and I’ll be providing recipes for a few of the items:

Cocktail:

• Caipirinha (considered Brazil’s national cocktail)
• Fall Martini (for those who could actually finish the Caipirinha without falling down)
• Chocolate Martini (for the heavy-weights; okay, I only made one of these)

Appetizers:

• Mexican panela cheese (crumbly, moist, fresh cheese)
• Spanish chorizo (loaded with pimentón, a Spanish paprika)
• Olives stuffed with anchovies (canned by Goya, you have to try these)

Main course:

• Fried turkey (juicy inside, crispy outside)
• Pernil (roasted pork shoulder popular with Latin-Americans)
• Coleslaw with a charred pineapple and bourbon sauce
• Potato and egg casserole with Spanish chorizo
• Brocolli-rice casserole
• Sweet plantains
• Bread

Dessert:

• Bread pudding (not the way you think its made)
• Flan (I won’t be apologetic here and say that my flan recipe is probably the best around)
• Coffee (Mexican Altura)

Favorite moments:

• Spending time with family
• Discovering that my sister-in-law is a “food separator”

I like eating early (1:00). For dinner (about 7:00) we took the pork leftovers and made street tacos (yummy! You missed out if you left my house early). More on these items later.