Thanksgiving, Tropical Style

Even though Madame Pele chose to shake us up with a 5.0 earthquake Thursday morning, Thanksgiving went on as planned.   For some reason, the turkey took its sweet time and though it was nice, tender and juicy…I thought it would never finish cooking. It was a 16 pounder and I don’t stuff it, so instructions said to cook for 3-1/2 to 4 hours……….It was finally done almost 6 hours later!!!!

One of the things I am most thankful for is living in this glorious place!

Kolekole is a very nice beach park about a mile north of us. It is set by a stream where the stream empties into the Pacific Ocean. A couple of weeks ago we had reserved one of the smaller pavilions at the park. The pavilions all have a built-in grill, long picnic tables and benches on the sides, and electrical outlets. The setting is beautiful.  If you click on Life in Hawaii on your left, you will find the blog entry My Hawaii.  There are a couple of photos taken at the park.

On the first trip down we took everything except the food. Swept the floor, wiped the benches and table and set up our own small folding table which we used for beverages and appetizers. Anthony lit the file in the pavilion’s grill so we could have hot embers to keep the food hot once I brought it over.

We set the table with an oilcloth table cover in a very pretty subdued blue, brown and beige palm frond design. I used some of the colorful cloth napkins from my tropical napkin collection, our buffet glass dishes and flatware with bamboo handles. We strung tiny white Christmas lights up and down the center of the table and covered them with colorful croton leaves, small orange pumpkins, yellow passion fruit and Chinese dwarf bananas from our yard. In between I set two kerosene lanterns, an old fashioned table lantern with a fat candle and 2 green glass containers that also held candles.

Our friends started arriving and helping Anthony finish setting up as I made several trips home to check on the food.

I had to borrow a neighbor’s oven for the dressing, since our turkey was taking it’s time. We all had a wonderful time, of course, as usual we all ate too much and had to take walk over to the mouth of the stream to watch the surfers and boogie boarders.

 

Sonia's Roasted Turkey with Mango Glaze - Fresh cut rosemary from our garden and butter mix stuffed between the skin and breast and fresh rosemary in cavity.

Linda's Orange & Purple Sweet Potato Salad with Wing Bean and Begonia Edible Blooms

Sue's Ensalada de Noche Buena - lettuce, orange slices, daikon, radish, limes, finger bananas, pineapple, peanuts and pomegrante seeds.

Everyone brought something ono to share.....and everyone enjoyed the food and the company.  We had such a good time, we've decided we will do this every year!

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Comments

[Sonia]

Thanks, Barbara.....! It was a lot of fun and we are looking forward to doing something similar...yet different, I hope....this year!

[Barbara Briggs]

Sonia this was quite the Thanksgiving Feast. Very colorful
and all the foods were very tempting. Thank you for sharing
this with all of us here on Gather.
Just Me
Barbie

[Sonia]

Aloha, Jessie!
Thank you for finding me and reading. It was a fun event and we all had a great time! Yes, our Island is definitely spectacular! I hope you can join us next time our group plans something.
See you at the pool!

[Jessie Hillinger (hot pool buddy)]

I finally visited your site at midnight Jan 31, after sending in my "you say tomato" receipes. What a great job you did discribing the events and receipes and the photos are spectacular...well our Big Isand IS spectacular. I hope I can join you at one of your events....I'll bring the limu!

[Sonia]

Thank you, Kelli!

I'll ask Sue for the recipe and share it........

[africankelli]

Sonia, that salad with pomegranate looks so darned yummy! Beautiful display.

[Sonia]

Mahalo nui, Lori!
Madame Pele could very well have had her hand in the plans.......

As to the leaves in the table arrangement: they are all different varieties of croton. We didn't use any Shefflera (sp?). Some of the crotons in the yard were growing too tall and Anthony cut them, we used them in the arrangement and also bunched three masses of branches at the base of the three columns holding the front of the pavilion up - they can't be seen in the picture. After the party, we brought them back home and put them in a tub of water and they will be planted in other areas of the yard!

Our Thanksgiving table will always have room for one more!

[Lori]

Everything looks amazing and so delicious! Your table always looks sooo inspired and beautiful!Well Sonia, I cooked a 12 lb. unstuffed turkey that took only 3 hours so 6 hours does seem like a really long time, but it looks as though it came out perfect! Perhaps Madame Pele had her hand in that one too?
Just wondering about the last picture with the plant...the wide leaves with the yellow/orange veins...what plant is that? I have one here that's been growing very slowly for the past 10 years or so. It came in a dishgarden with other plants and was very tiny but now is about 3 feet tall. The leaves don't seem to grow very big though before they fall off. Someone once said it's a Hawaiian Shefflera that isn't supposed to grow here in upstate NY but in Hawaii grows to be a tree!
Anyway, thanks for sharing your holiday meal and "new Thanksgiving tradition". I'd love the recipes!
Please save me a place at next year's table!
me ke aloha...lori

[Sonia]

Actually, our turkey tasted good because of the rosemary and butter under the skin!!!! LOL, but as you say, the glazw makes it pretty!

The sweet potato salad was VERY good! We even brought some leftovers home and we literally 'scarfed it' the next day!

I love working with tropical flowers and making arrangements.....what's there not to like?

[Pomai]

Wow, that turkey looks golden, brown and ono (GBO?). lol We ordered a Turkey-To-Go package from the Waikiki Hawaii Prince Hotel, which included a Honey Macadamia Nut glazed Turkey. I can't say the glaze made a difference in the flavor of the turkey meat, but it looked pretty.

Honestly, that sweet potato salad doesn't sound or look appetizing, but I'm sure, knowing the company you keep that it was actually really ono also.

I notice you have a love for tropical flower arrangements. Cool.