Thanksgiving nosh

It's 11.30am and I just got home. After dropping Jude off at school almost two hours ago. And why, you may ask, did it take me 120 minutes to get home? Is it because someone once again decided to do Thanksgiving grocery shopping the day before Thanksgiving? Or could it be because someone naively believed that a store up on North Campus and the Asian supermarket would somehow be less crowded than anywhere else? Perhaps, it might be because someone decided to throw in a couple of errands to run at the same time? Yes. To all three. Me. Why? Why do I do this to myself every year? Whatever the case is, I'm survived the insanity, am home, warm and toasty, and ready to do some Thanksgiving dinner prep.

For the first time in 5 years, we won't be having our traditional deep-fried turkey at Thanksgiving. Rick and Emilee will be at Emilee's parents' in Wisconsin for the holiday and while they wonderfully invited us to join them, we don't think Sophie's going to do very well on a 7-hour car ride there and back. And so we'll be here in Ann Arbor celebrating with our friends, Nathan and Anna. It's potluck and our contribution this year is sweet potato casserole (Emilee's grandma's recipe and too awesome for words) and for something different, Chinese sausage, sticky rice, and roasted chestnut stuffing. It's something we're really familiar with back home (it's usually wrapped in lotus leaf for dim-sum) and we thought it'll be fun to bring something non-conventional together with the traditional sweet potato dish. Besides, it's probably going to be quite an international crowd and we're expecting the stuffing to be well-received.

Then on Friday, we have another dinner planned and this time, I'm going to try something I've been meaning to tackle for the longest time- Momofuku's famed pork-belly buns. I made their renowned Crack Pie a couple of months back to some success and decided it was time to foray into an entree. We've never had the original pork buns but have been loving the ones at Tomukun Noodle Bar here in Ann Arbor that are fashioned after them. If the recipes online can be trusted (and they all say they're based on Momofuku owner, David Chang's cookbook), I will be rewarded for my efforts with delectable, golden brown, pillowy-soft, melt-in-my-mouth-amazing pork belly. Just thinking about it makes my knees weak...

Watch this space- you know I'll post an update :)