Sunday, December 04, 2005
Thanksgiving Turduckin
Last weekend Carrie and I took a few cheeky days off work and flew over to California to spend the long weekend with Rob, Sarah and Henry in sunny San Diego. We left NY on the 07:00 flight (!) Thursday morning which meant with the time difference we got there just after 9 in the morning. It was so nice to meet little Henry, the first thing we did when we got to Rob's was set up the webcam to speak with Mum and Dad back in the UK.
Thanksgiving meal was cooked for us by Carolyn and CF, friends of Rob and Sarah's. Altogether they had about 20 people over for a meal, which introduced us Brits to culinary delicacies of deep fried turkey (cooked in 35 mins, from the fridge to the table!) and a turduckin, which to those in the know is a chicken in a duck (although I maintain it surely must be the other way around) all inside a turkey. And delicious it was too.
At some point of the evening Rob was presented with the Turkey of the year award, which is distributed to any individual who did something particularly stupid at the previous year's festivities to deserve such an accolade. It should be explained CF is a keen sailor, and owner of a boatyard, and every year takes his guests out sailing the day after thanksgiving. At last years meal Rob consumed approximately a vat of port, and naturally didn't feel tip-top the next morning, although Sarah managed to persuade him to set sail. The whole day was spent over the side of the boat! Hence, this year, Rob was the Thanksgiving turkey.
Henry found it all too much
The next day we were invited on CF's sailing boat. I was a bit disappointed when I found out there was no diving kit lying around...Unfortunately Rob didn't make it. Fearing a repeat of last years debarcle - and not wishing to retain the turkey title for a second consequtive year - stayed at home and watched DVDs. We had a really nice day, sailing around San Diego harbour, eating the cheese we forgot about the previous night.
The following day (Saturday) we drove North for about an hour to the 'wine country' near Temecula, where a crop of about twenty vineyards makes for popular wine tasting day outs.
We visited four altogether, and ended up with a crateful of really nice wine. The picture on the left is outside the first one, the middle is in the third vineyard, and the right picture is in the final stop off, Henry found us very amusing the looks of it!
That night we went to an Italian restaurant which served French salad dressing. Bonkers.
The last two days we spent mostly mooching around San Diego, and we left on the red-eye flight on Monday night, getting back to New York around 5 am. We had such a nice weekend, and we're really pleased we got to spend some time with Henry before he grew up any more. What a lovely baby, he's always laughing! Here are some of the nice pics we took of us when we were there.
¶ 12:02 AM 
Thanksgiving meal was cooked for us by Carolyn and CF, friends of Rob and Sarah's. Altogether they had about 20 people over for a meal, which introduced us Brits to culinary delicacies of deep fried turkey (cooked in 35 mins, from the fridge to the table!) and a turduckin, which to those in the know is a chicken in a duck (although I maintain it surely must be the other way around) all inside a turkey. And delicious it was too.
At some point of the evening Rob was presented with the Turkey of the year award, which is distributed to any individual who did something particularly stupid at the previous year's festivities to deserve such an accolade. It should be explained CF is a keen sailor, and owner of a boatyard, and every year takes his guests out sailing the day after thanksgiving. At last years meal Rob consumed approximately a vat of port, and naturally didn't feel tip-top the next morning, although Sarah managed to persuade him to set sail. The whole day was spent over the side of the boat! Hence, this year, Rob was the Thanksgiving turkey.
Henry found it all too muchThe next day we were invited on CF's sailing boat. I was a bit disappointed when I found out there was no diving kit lying around...Unfortunately Rob didn't make it. Fearing a repeat of last years debarcle - and not wishing to retain the turkey title for a second consequtive year - stayed at home and watched DVDs. We had a really nice day, sailing around San Diego harbour, eating the cheese we forgot about the previous night.
The following day (Saturday) we drove North for about an hour to the 'wine country' near Temecula, where a crop of about twenty vineyards makes for popular wine tasting day outs.
We visited four altogether, and ended up with a crateful of really nice wine. The picture on the left is outside the first one, the middle is in the third vineyard, and the right picture is in the final stop off, Henry found us very amusing the looks of it!
That night we went to an Italian restaurant which served French salad dressing. Bonkers.
The last two days we spent mostly mooching around San Diego, and we left on the red-eye flight on Monday night, getting back to New York around 5 am. We had such a nice weekend, and we're really pleased we got to spend some time with Henry before he grew up any more. What a lovely baby, he's always laughing! Here are some of the nice pics we took of us when we were there.
¶ 12:02 AM
