Tremendous Turkey Day

I had a splendid Thanksgiving, on Thursday my mom and I cooked all morning while my dad did the dishes (it doesn't get any better than having your own personal dish-washer). Earlier in the week my dad sent out an invitation to international students at ISU to join us for the holiday, we had one taker and his wife, a young couple from China. The husband is working on his PhD in Astro Physics and the wife is applying to ISU masters programs to get her second masters. It was great to share this uniquely American holiday with the couple, bringing a new appreciation to the tradition.

Then on Friday, my friend John and I made the Salted Caramel and Chocolate Cake from Sweet Paul Fall edition e-magazine for our families. It turned out delectable... although not really like the picture (but their picture is much prettier than our version). The cake itself is super moist, the salted caramel sauce is delicious (but not thick and substantial like it's shown) and the frosting is more of a ganache (even better!)... we only made half of the frosting recipe and we could have gotten away with 1/3 recipe (that way you'd only need 1 cup total of heavy cream), but all-in-all it was a win! I'll definitely have to make it again sometime to impress the boys.

And the holiday weekend ended on a lovely note by flashing three (3!) pictures of me (and fellow ex-coworkers) in a Hallmark public service announcement after the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, November Christmas. Did you see my big debut?