gobble gobble!

A few weeks ago, I made the decision to pretend to be American for a day. After all, who doesn’t like turkey? Plus, 14.29% of the dinner party was American, so it was a justified excuse for roasting a turkey. Not that dinner parties or turkey-consumption need justification.

Juggling busy grad-student lives, we postponed Thanksgiving dinner to Friday. Served, of course, with a traditional side of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Mid-bite with friends, I also realised that this was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a “traditional” thanksgiving, and that the boy and I will likely be hosting other large feasts to come. Although my family does the turkey thing twice a year (for (Canadian) T-giving and Christmas), it’s never with all of the fixings. I was rather pleased with our menu:

too much food and nobody to feed.

Holiday huzzah! The boy and I had planned on hosting a dinner party last Sunday before the mass exodus from London (ours included). With our love of wining and dining guests/friends, we naturally started the cooking craze mid afternoon and guestimated (teehee) for 5. Honey-wasabi roast chicken! Roasted potatoes with onions and green peppers! Green salad! Apple pie!

Sadly, our friends failed to show (they had valid explainations, and we’re no longer too upset at them). Pick-me-ups that evening included homebrewed porter and wheat beers, a few episodes of House and Family Guy, and a bath.

Not all was lost – leftovers made fantastic lunches.
And I managed a mostly decent looking pie for my first ever lattice top.

shepherd’s pie is made with: ____?

Lamb!

I must sheepishly (teehee) confess that this little fact was unbeknownst to me until four days ago. When I did find out, however, I did one of those hand-slap-to-forehead gestures: of course it’s made with lamb! It’s not not called cattle rancher’s pie for a reason.

My first encounter with shepherd’s pie was in elementary school, and I remember feeling indifferent about it. Looking back, I suspect it was because 1) the mashed potatoes were rehydrated from powder, 2) the ground meat was rather boring, and 3) the corn was never inside of the pie, but served instead on the side. Naturally, I’ve always had a palate for Asian food, and they weren’t serving any of mum’s cooking in school. Instead, I was exposed to mediocre cafeteria versions of white-people food: they certainly didn’t make mac and cheese, or chicken à la king in a memorable manner. My introduction to the actual world of caucasian cuisine was only a recent phenomenon. As I’ve been asian-ifying the boy with noodley concoctions, turnip cake, and shitake mushrooms, he’s directed my affection towards his renditions of mac and cheese (which I will have to blog about soon) and shepherd’s pie.

Woah. WOAH!
Can a true Asian claim that meat-and-potatoes = beauty?
I think so.

Since those early years, the consumption-count of ‘real’ shepherd’s pie is at a pitifully low ‘3’ (sure to change, of course). They were all courtesy of the boy, and uber tasty – though made with ground beef, times 1 and 2 should be aptly named cottage pies. The latest version was a ‘proper’ one, made with ground spring lamb. You may already have guessed that our dinner last Wednesday was mighty, mighty fine.