Setting the Thanksgiving Table

I can’t believe it’s that time of year already and the holidays are here. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. It celebrates a few of my favorite things: eating, shopping, and of course, being grateful (especially that I get to do both of the above). Plus, we get an extra day off.

I grew up eating our Thanksgiving meal on paper plates sitting on the couch in front of the TV. Now that I’ve been hosting Thanksgiving the last few years, I get a chance to use all the dinnerware that I’ve been accumulating since our wedding registry. This year, there will be 19 adults and 5 kids at the Thanksgiving table. Make that 3 tables: Our main dining table for the adults, the breakfast table for parents of small children, and next to it, the kiddie table. Our home decor is a mix of vintage and modern, so my tableware reflects that, even on a traditional holiday like Thanksgiving. This is our Thanksgiving table set up this year.

A couple of quick & easy inexpensive ways to dress the table:

Paper napkin rings: Using scalloped edge scissors, I cut strips of black construction paper, wrote the guests name using a white gel pen and wrapped around a napkin, fastening it with scotch tape. There’s something special about having a napkin ring and a name written for each placesetting, even if it’s just made out of paper.

Tin can flower vases: Since we have a long table, I think it’s better to have a few small flower arrangements in a row, rather than a big centerpiece. I like recycling my jam jars and cans to use as small flower vases. They’re free and versatile to dress up for any occasion. I wrapped the cans in brown paper and wrote messages of thanks. It lends a rustic and handmade feel to the modern setting.

Check out more Thanksgiving ideas on our Pinterest page.

-Catherine Lo

A Twist on Thanksgiving Pumpkin

Back in college, on special occasions we’d head over to Helmand in SF, a nondescript Afghan restaurant sandwiched between strip clubs on Broadway & Columbus. I’ve always remembered their pumpkin dish, Kaddo. Years later, when I returned to the Bay Area, I went back to Helmand (which has since moved to a new location off the strip) to see if it was as good as I remembered. It did not disappoint. The pumpkin dish was still amazing. I came home and scoured the internet to find a recipe for Helmand’s pumpkin dish and found this recipe on Chowhound.

I’ve made this dish for the past few Thanksgivings. It fits the bill for a pumpkin dish to serve at the holiday table, and is sweet enough to substitute for the yams. People always love it. I generally follow the Chowhound recipe, but I never follow a recipe exactly, so here’s how I do it:

Yogurt sauce: For the yogurt sauce, I like using Strauss Organic plain yogurt because it has runny consistency and makes for better sauce. Greek yogurt tends to be too tart and thick for this dish, in my opinion. I don’t crush the garlic, which tends to make the garlic flavor too strong. Instead, I finely mince 1-3 cloves of garlic and taste as I add each clove to the yogurt. I add salt & pepper until it tastes garlicky and good. I make this a couple hours ahead of time and put it in the fridge to let the flavors come together.

Pumpkin: Sometimes when I can’t find pumpkin in season, I substitute butternut squash and it works just as well. It’s also handy that you can find cubed butternut squash at the grocery store these days. I coat the pumpkin with olive oil and add a pinch of salt, because a little salt awakens the flavors in everything. Then I sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture all over the pumpkin. I don’t use all of the sugar mixture even though the recipe says to, but I use quite a lot. The sugar helps with the caramelizing process during roasting. I like to roast at higher temperature, between 400-425 and I don’t cover with foil. I feel like the higher temperature seals in the moisture, cooks faster and creates a nice browning on the edges.

Tomato Sauce: To make the meat sauce, I like using good organic ground beef or ground bison, even meatless ground (I prefer Gardein brand but can’t find it in my grocery store anymore). I like to sneak in more veggies, so I add cubed carrots, mainly to give the sauce more texture.  I use jarred marinara sauce instead of canned tomatoes which tends to be too tart without enough depth of flavor, in my opinion. My favorite is Trader Joes Marinara. Nothing fancy. But it tends to have the right amount of sweetness, without tasting too Italian.

This dish has become a staple in my house and not just at Thanksgiving. It’s a delicious way to dress up a vegetable side dish for meat lovers since it’s smothered in meat sauce. It’s also hearty enough to be a meal all on its own. Just serve it with a starch like couscous, rice, pasta or spaghetti squash, for the carb-conscious.

If you want to try something new for Thanksgiving, add this Afghani pumpkin dish to the menu. I’m already craving it for this Thursday’s feast.

-Catherine Lo

At Long Last, an iPhone for this Mommy

I’m probably the last person in the Bay Area to have a smartphone. I’ve been using a flip phone for years, mostly because my husband was adamantly opposed to it. While I was working at a Fortune 500 company, I had a Blackberry and a cell phone, and the iPhone was just coming out. I felt overwhelmed with so many gadgets and then had to always be available — it was like having a leash around you. Now we have iPhones, which is even more distracting. All the stuff you can do!  Or maybe, all the stuff we missed out on doing things the old fashioned way. We finally decided to get iPhones for many reasons: I was printing out maps from Mapquest  and still getting lost. If we couldn’t remember the name of a restaurant, we would call people up and ask them to look it up online for us. The texting took forever. I work in social media so needed one for work (I hope none of my clients are reading this and if they are, I have an ipad that I’ve been using for mobile strategy). It was also plain embarrassing to be seen with a flip phone because it is, in many ways, a fashion accessory. I know (and you know who you are) some of my friends were horrified about my lack of smartphone fashion sense, but at least I was accessible while mobile and could receive and send texts. So now I have an iPhone and I’m not sure if it is better. The good thing is that now I have recent photos and videos of my kids (I rarely took photos of them because I had to pull out the point-and-shoot) and I’m texting lots of people the most mundane of texts because I like the conversation bubbles that appear on the screen. But the thing I’m paranoid about is getting my phone stolen. The biggest crime in our neighborhood  is smartphone thefts. Because the iPhone costs about as much as small diamond studs, my husband  and I are treating our phones like delicate flowers.  We haven’t had time to buy cases or skins so currently gingerly place the phones whenever we put them down. We keep them out of reach from our kids and have decided they will never be allowed to hold them or use them. We also won’t talk on them in public for fear of being robbed.  So what’s the point of having a phone if you don’t want to talk in public? And because I don’t have a case for my phone yet, I’ve been keeping it in an old cosmetic bag that looks like a watermelon slice that belonged to my sister. This watermelon cosmetic bag defeats the point of trendiness and fashion forwardness, but maybe this will deter it from getting stolen. –Eunice Park

Memories of Good Night Gorilla from the Womb

While I was pregnant with my son, I read a lot of books to my daughter. Like any child, she had favorite books that she would want read over and over again.  During my pregnancy, she became fixated with one book: Good Night Gorilla.

The book is captivating and inviting as a little gorilla helps all the animals in the zoo quietly escape from their cages and they all follow the zookeeper home. One part of the book that she loved was when the zookeeper’s wife realizes all the animals are in the room – she wakes up with eyes wide open.

I’ve always wondered if babies are aware of what’s going on in the outside world while they are in utero. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was so excited about having a baby. I read books to my stomach, played music and pointed out paintings at the Louvre while I was pregnant. We bought a music box that played Champs-Élysées

But when I was pregnant with my son, I was too tired, busy and overwhelmed to pay attention to him. I basically ignored him as a person, and focused on just getting through the day.

I’m convinced that babies are aware of what’s going and are influenced by what they hear in the womb.

My son, who is 11 months old, started walking last month. Like most infants, he loves to explore everything, gets excited and has become very expressive. I recently pulled out the book Good Night Gorilla to read to him and something clicked. I’ve never seen him so excited before. He pointed to the gorilla, shouted when he saw the giraffe and wanted the book read over and over. I picked out several other books and put the Good Night Gorilla book underneath the other books – he threw the other books aside and picked up Good Night Gorilla. Now, if I want his attention, I show him the book and he emerges from a corner of toys. It’s fascinating to see him so excite by a book. I wondered what would have happened if I had been reading War and Peace every night?

— Eunice Park