Fully Thanking, Fully Giving Party 2006… and More!

this month went as fast, if not faster, as i predicted at the start of November. in a mere two blinks, i had let 21 days go by without making a blog entry. so i’m going to quickly compress everything in two entries because i know December will be definitely coming fully loaded with happenings one right after the other.

last month’s Un-Halloween Party was so fun, that on 19 November we decided to do another party with a twist to Thanksgiving. well… not necessarily a twist but went with the importance of thankful attitude and the privileges and opportunities that arises in the Christian experience as opposed to the Pilgrim/American Indian theme.

i wish i had some food preparation photos to show you. i had to run errands most of the day with only about an hour to spare to get a haircut and make two dishes. so most of the other food was basically set to go by the time i arrived at Heidi’s house (which really the Gapasin’s house that Heidi is staying in). we moved it to this location since we were expecting more people this time around and my place isn’t that big for that capacity.

there’s a lot of things happening on my plate: rice, salad and a cranberry, apple, jicama salad on the left that i made for the first time. normally i try out my first attempts with my immediate family before releasing it to a larger group so i was a little nervous… and i guess a little brave… to share my discovery. thankfully (hehe), it turned out well as evidenced in a later photo.

with a couple of turns we see the delicious bread that Aiko brought and the stuffed shell pasta that Heidi’s mom made.

this time Heidi led out in the Bible study. i really like this party format where everyone gets together to eat a great meal and then having a different person lead out in facilitating.

Left to right: Thea, Nikki, Aiko, Moises.

as we were cleaning up the kitchen after the Bible study, Andrea thought the dressing of the salad i brought was too good to waste. so here she is sipping the remains out of the bowl as Aiko and i take her picture with Michelle and Danette looking on.

then on 21 November, i had Thanksgiving Dinner at Banana Leaf with some friends whom i’ve known since high school… that’s like 17 years and counting! in the past we’ve patronized Maggiano’s but having Malaysian food was a nice alternative. its always nice to mix things up.

roti prata

tofu salad

veggie pineapple fried rice

banana granite

my family likes coming to Banana Leaf because for one thing, its cheaper than flying back to Malaysia for Malaysian food. for the most part their food is closer than other restaurants claiming to be Malaysian cuisine. they have a substantial selection for vegetarians which is most often not the case for a Malaysian restaurant. the owners are Christians and play Christian instrumental music. though this is not apparent to most patrons, its a delightful surprise to those that know the tunes. and of course by being regular customers, we’ve established a rapport with the owners and manager. like Cheers, “sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name / and they’re always glad you came / you wanna be where you can see / our troubles are all the same / you wanna be where everybody knows / your name”.