In response to comments from previous post:

1. Sorry, Angela. I'm really bad at taking pictures. I don't know why I bought a camera. I should have taken pictures of the Asian people, the non-Asian people, and the mixed-breed dog, rather than just the table.

2. As Requested:

Sweet Potato Pie. Like Mom Used to Make. (Well, Still Does, Actually.)

1 unbaked pie crust (10 inch)

3 eggs, room temperature

1 1/3 cups of sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) of melted butter

1 1/2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes

1 5-oz can evaporated milk

1 teapsoon vanilla

1 teapsoon cinammon

1 teapsoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspsoon allspice

Directions: Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Beat eggs till fluffy. Add sugar, melted butter,and sweet potatoes. Mix thoroughly. Beat milk til foamy and fold into mixture aling with vanilla and spices. Pour into pie shell and bake for 50 to 60 minutes.

I successfully hosted Thanksgiving this year for friends (fellow students who stayed in town) and family (my sister and her dog)! Here is the layout, in which you see: turkey (for the meat-eaters and Pickle the dog), dressing , brussel sprouts, Japanese dumplings, Korean savory pancakes, mashed potatoes (me!), Waldorf salad, broccoli rice and cheese casserole (me!), mixed steamed vegetables, and ginger tofu.

This photo is so weirdly fuzzy. God, how I need to learn how to use my camera. I've had it for two years and still don't know what most of the buttons do.

The above photo doesn't include the dessert: sweet potato pie (me!!!), apple pie, pecan pie (both from Yale bakery), and vanilla ice cream (Friendly's via supermarket). Man, dinner was awesome. And it was just as awesome today, when I had full Thanksgiving dinner + dessert #2. I LOVE FOOD.

And finally, some things I am thankful for:
- friends and family to share the holiday with,
- my Mom, for walking me through how to make mashed potatoes and everything else ("Mom, when I can stick a fork through the potatoes and they break apart, are they done? Yes? Are you sure? Should they be more done than that? No? So I should just go ahead and mash them, then?"),
- my independent study at the Paley Center when I can watch past telecasts of the Kennedy Center Honors,
- the life that the US of A makes possible,
- that I am not the Secret Service agent responsible for letting the Salihis into the White House, because I would be SO SORE from getting my ass kicked into humiliated unemployment.

I had a couple of people over for dinner yesterday (ended up cooking for 6), which I volunteered to do for reasons I couldn't enumerate even under threat of bodily harm. My cooking skills are in development, to be kind about it, and I get very nervous about other people's judgements. But I did, so I did -- and nobody vomited or anything!

I made baked spaghetti, garlic bread, green beans, and brownie cupcakes for dessert. I was raised by a woman who makes her own spaghetti sauce, so I felt really terrible pouring from the Newman's Own jar into the baking pan. But most of the rest was fresh or from scratch! No boxes! No cans!

It occurs to me that "from scratch" is an indefinite concept. I didn't mix eggs and flour and what-not to make the spaghetti. I didn't churn my own butter to put on the garlic bread. I didn't create my own chocolate, whatever it takes to do that. (Didn't I make my own chocolate as part of a museum field trip one time? No, I think we just melted chocolate. But at some point a mortar and pestle was involved, and I love a mortar and pestle. Not kidding. Love.)

I'm trying to imagine doing this crap every day, like so many women have to do -- cooking 3 meals a day for many people. At least, in this most of this country, we have have appliances and conveniences that cut down the amount of necessary labor. But some people still have to gather wood to make fire, and everybody had to do that at one point. But I guess there's some kind of dialectical (?) relationship here. Like, if I had to do all that work to make a varied dinner, then my family would be eating boiled potatoes every night. But once you can turn on your gas stove instead of firewood-gathering, the world opens up to you. You've got more time to think about getting some vegetables or something and boiling them, too. Or frying them. Or sauteeing them. Or baking them. The world opens up, I say.