Decisions! Decisions!

Last night I had dinner with two wonderful friends, both teachers from Tewksbury and both very special in their own rights.  Carol and Becky, that was a delicious bottle of wine, wasn't it?  :)  Here's to many more!

I've been looking through all of my cookbooks and my back issues of the Thanksgiving themed Bon Appetit,  Martha Stewart Living and Gourmet magazines to find appetizers for our holiday parties.  My most favorite issue is a 1979 copy of Bon Appetit - the subscription was a gift from my mom and the recipes were used for the very first Thanksgiving dinner that FHFB and I hosted in our first home in Rockway Township, lovingly called "Little House on the Highway".  We still make the cornbread stuffing and Italian Roasted Turkey recipes from this issue!

You can see that it's definitely been used!  The cover is detached and the edges are frayed.

More magazines saved from prior Thanksgivings...

My collection of Thanksgiving recipes and decorating ideas also includes several little pamphlets from Whole Foods and Williams-Sonoma. 

So far I've come up with my first draft of appetizer recipes for Thanksgiving.  I know, why am I serving so many appetizers in addition to the traditional turkey dinner?  Well, my family has a tradition, at every gathering, to sit and chat for a 2-3 hours before the meal while eating delicious appetizers and drinking whatever special cocktail we have prepared for the day.  For Thanksgiving we're thinking of serving a light but delicious white sangria, with slices of apples and pears.

Can I call this list of appetizers a transformation of sorts, from an empty piece of paper to a list of 9 appetizers, most of them making it to the final cut?

Here's what we have so far:

Alton's Salty Sweet Pecans
Cheese Straws
Parmesan and Thyme Crackers
Cheese Tray with Many Varieties of Olives
Veggie Tray

Crostini with Sun Dried Tomato Jam
Olive-Garlic Soft Cheese Spread served with Whole Grain Baguette
Prosciutto Cups With White Beans
Stilton Toast and Cranberry Chutney

I haven't linked to each of the recipes because many of them are from a fantastic link I found on Epicurious.com called Cocktail Party Menus - it's just full of delicious cocktail party menus with all of the recipes linked in as well - a very easy site to work your way through.
I'm linked in to Transformation Thursday with Gina at Shabby Chic Cottage- stop by to see all of the ideas and links!

(from Google Images)


Ciao, bella!