Thanksgiving and Peanut Butter (cake and jelly)

Whoa. What the hell kind of title is that? Just wait for it- it will all make sense soon. I promise.

My cousin Taylor is an international traveller. She did an exchange program in Scotland during high school and an exchange program in Hungary during college. She recently moved to Scotland to attend graduate school at the University of Edinburgh. Taylor loves Thanksgiving, but has missed quite a few of them in the last couple of years because of her international schooling. She asked my Aunt Jan and Uncle John (the Thanksgiving gurus/hosts in our family) to hold an early Thanksgiving before she shipped off to the land of haggis.

There's Taylor with her dad and my dad.

We held this wacky, only-in-my-family-could-this-happen-event at the end of August. We had far fewer family members than the normal Thanksgiving, but darn it if it didn't feel like a real Thanksgiving day. We decided that it was a pretty good dress rehearsal for the real thing and took notes on what could make the November Thanksgiving smoother and more delicious.

How could it not feel like Thanksgiving with these golden beauties?I even got the typical "my dad carving the turkey" shot.Nick and Taylor are the most international of all my family members. They are both, in fact, out of the country while I write this. Taylor is in her flat in Edinburgh (recovering from a ferret bite to her face) and Nick is on his ship in route to the Dominican Republic. I am in route to work tomorrow and not living in a flat, which makes me the most boring cousin in this picture. My Aunt Jan even set the table like Thanksgiving.OK. On to the peanut butter part of this post. My contribution to the dress rehearsal Thanksgiving was dessert. I was originally going to make a pumpkin cheesecake, but we're living through the great pumpkin shortage of 2010 (google it- I'm serious. It's a real thing) so I had to rethink my plans.

I brought a platter of chocolate dipped delights, a caramel apple cheesecake, and a chocolate peanut butter cake.
Look at this bad boy. Although Spencer has never developed any food allergies, he does have other allergies, eczema and asthma, so we've been pretty serious about the recommended schedule and age for introducing highly allergenic foods. This was one week before his 3rd birthday, so we thought it was close enough for his 1st intro to peanut butter.

He devoured that cake.Then we kind of forgot to give him his second dose of peanut butter. (When food allergies develop they happen on subsequent exposures to a food. The second time you eat something you have an allergy to, you will react. The third time will be even worse, etc, etc.). So, last week I gave Spencer a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. He kind of loved it.And no hives. No itching. No runny nose. No watery eyes. He's had more peanut butter since then with no reaction. I think we're safe. Phew! One less thing to worry about. Now I just have to sneak some shrimp/lobster/crab into something he's eating to make sure he's not allergic to shellfish. We'll deal with clams, oysters and mussels later- like in the oyster stuffing that will be at the REAL, non dress rehearsal Thanksgiving.

Are you so impressed that I pulled both topics back together again in the end?