It’s that time of year again! It’s crazy to think we are already at Thanksgiving. It feels like it was just August! Last year was my first full year with the blog, and I remember writing my Thanksgiving fashion article very clearly (linked here). It was about that time I was really falling in love with blogging and felt that I should probably start investing in it more. Soon after, I booked my first official photoshoot with a real photographer. It really is amazing how much can change in a year. Blogging aside, while I generally look forward to my family’s Thanksgiving festivities, what made this year’s Thanksgiving particularly special was actually the Friendsgiving I went to. I try not to think about it too much, but this is the last year that my friends and I will all be so close together. Some of us are even graduating early, which means we don’t even get the entirety of our senior year together. However in an attempt to enjoy as much time together as we can before we’re all living in different cities, we decided to put together a Friendsgiving. Every person brought something to the party, and we had a great night of food, drinks, games, and chit chat.
While my friend that hosted went above and beyond, making not only a turkey, but also gravy, biscuits, cranberries, and pecan pie all from scratch, I also exceeded some personal cooking expectations and made two daunting family recipes: cream cheese mashed potatoes and oyster stuffing. In retrospect, only the stuffing should have been daunting. I think I was only intimidated by making the mashed potatoes in the respect that that I know how good they are supposed to taste! However, the oyster stuffing was definitely a recipe to be nervous about making. My great-grandma has been making that stuffing for years. It is a family favorite, and no one really knows the recipe. With my great-grandma getting older, my aunt was sure to carefully watch her make it last year and take a picture of the original recipe card she copied out of a magazine decades ago. Much to my surprise, it was a total success! It tasted exactly as if great-grandma had made it herself. I could not have been more pleased, and I was definitely looking forward to telling her about it at the family Thanksgiving party.
Three days after an amazing Friendsgiving, my parents arrived in LA! I grew up near Laguna Beach, but my parents moved just outside Dallas within the past year. I was very excited to see them and spend some time together in my favorite place. The night they arrived, Dad went to his friend’s house to catch up with his friends. His group of friends has been getting together every Tuesday night after work for poker (and now video games) since they were in college! However while Dad was in Seal Beach, Mom and I tried a restaurant I’ve been dying to go to. Ysabel is the most beautiful restaurant on Fairfax between Melrose and Santa Monica Boulevard. The ambiance is unmatched, and I have been to quite a few amazing restaurants in LA. I was definitely enamored by the lights strung around the trees, the mouth watering scallops I ordered, and the refreshing glasses of Sauvignon Blanc I drank with Mom. It easily jumped to one of my top five favorite meals ever, and I cannot recommend that place enough to anyone visiting LA. However, I think this probably tied for the best meal of my parents’ visit with El Coyote. El Coyote is one of LA’s icon Mexican restaurants. It was most recently in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. While I have been aware of this restaurant for years, I never quite made it over there. When my parents come to town, I use it as the perfect excuse to eat out at all the restaurants I have been wanting to try, so I figured we should end this visit on a high note with some amazing Mexican food. Everything we ordered was absolutely amazing! I even took my shrimp fajitas home for lunch the next day.
While I was sad to see my parents go, I had an absolutely amazing time with them, and I will see them for Christmas. I will be going to Texas for the holidays, and I will be sure to do a whole blog post about Dallas and what to do while you’re there! I also promise to give you a few fashion posts soon. This Thanksgiving was definitely one for the books, and I am so happy that I am ending this year on such a high note.
xx
Emily
