Mariah Carey Connection

I CAN’T believe that in all the years I’ve been travelling to the United States, I have never witnessed Thanksgiving out there. So when Mr and Mrs Carey-Cannon recently requested the pleasure of my company out there, I knew it was extravagant but I couldn’t resist the chance to go and visit their new pad out in LA – as well as eat myself into oblivion.

I weighed up the pros and cons and my belly won the argument. So there I was in the California Hills for two days. On my arrival, Mrs C showed me around their new home. We spent the first day in aprons preparing a lot of food that was going to be devoured the following day. Mrs C even showed how to ‘rock the apron so that it looks cute’!

Then, her bro Shawn sneakily videoed my ‘how to rock an apron’ lesson and posted it on my Facebook wall!

Mrs C showed me how to make a real Thanksgiving dinner. I felt like I was on a Jamie Oliver/Gordon Ramsey TV show. She had me peeling armfuls of yam for the candied yam and chopping potatoes for the potato salad, which had many secret ingredients. (My eyes were certainly opened.) I mashed those potatoes until my arms went dead!

Stuffing was prepared, macaroni cheese sampled, turkey marinade concocted, long island iced tea was boiling away in a giant pot, the delicacies of real cranberry sauce was discussed – it was deep. Mrs C taught me how to braise short rib before partnering it with the roast veg and then roasting it in the oven until it’s so tender the meat falls off the bone like butter. Get this: when you add red wine to the fat stock on the stove, it breaks down the fat and acid and tenderises the meat. (Or something like that.) I was trying to pay attention but it was all very technical! Maybe she should host her own cooking show in the future.

On Thanksgiving day, we spent all day cooking up a feast fit for a kingdom, which was a good thing as there were about 35 people in attendance for dinner. Mr C had us all say grace before we ate and we all went around the table mentioning a couple of things in each of our lives that we were thankful for. It felt special and for once, I thought that being American may be more fun than being British.

The next day we took the family puppies for a walk to burn of all the food and listened to Mariah’s remix album, which features a host of legends dueting with her. I cant wait for you to hear it – it’s fire!

Source: The Voice Newspaper | Thanks to Roy