Thanksgiving countdown!

This is hilarious... Page put up flyers all over school with MY FACE ON THEM, advertising for Renaissance, our lit magazine. I'm not even on the board... although I did submit some food things from this blog, edited to seem slightly literary. This flyer was on the door of my first period class... she wanted to make sure I saw it.

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday... it's secular and there's a lot of food, and it happens to be during the fall, which is the time for the foods of paradise: pumpkins, apples, carrots, and the like.
I FOUND MY CAMERA, and all I can say is that I'm lucky nobody took it. It was in my French room (no breakfast or lunch pictures because I didn't have my camera then).
For breakfast, I had exactly the same thing as yesterday (my sweet tooth has been running wild!). Maybe it's not the healthiest thing ever... God knows how much sugar is in it, but it holds me over better than oatmeal, if that's even possible: 2 pieces of banana bread with peanut butter, berries, and hot chocolate.
Today the hot chocolate was true Parisian style: I used my special occasion Vosges hot chocolate, which has chiles and cornmeal. I also used 2%, because I feel that this is an instance where it really counts, and boy, could I tell! It was so chocolaty and intense that I couldn't believe this was hot chocolate from home.
Lunch: Leftover vegetables and tofu with brown rice, Kashi crackers, an apple, and a Clif Nectar bar (I ate the Kashis in French).
I so felt like going for a run after school, and we took a nice, long run to the 43rd street playground. Once again, I'd say 5-6 miles, which is long for me, definitely. I'm actually pretty proud of myself that I'm able to run with the cross country people... I'm not the same pace as the fastest, but these workouts don't actually tire me. Compared to swimming, pas de probleme. Speaking of which, guys swimming has started! There are some pretty hot guys on the team... you can better believe that I'll be helping them time at some of their meets.
When I got home from my run I realized I was pretty hungry, and I had almost the same snack as yesterday (all about repeats today...), cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, grapenuts, and a chopped up pear.
My dad and I have been cooking a lot this week, as you can see, so we went our own directions for dinner. After he got back from swimming in the pool downstairs, which I would use more often if it weren't only 15 or so yards long, we made dinner: he just had a Trader Joe's frozen pizza, I made a salad for him, and the best burrito ever for myself! This was my first experience actually folding the burrito so that it didn't fall apart! Whoohoo!
We're trying to get rid of this massive bag of mushrooms, so I grilled up some of the smaller portobellos and actually made portobello burritos.
Inside the whole wheat tortilla, which I toasted: a sliced, grilled portobello that I brushed with sherry vinegar and olive oil (we're out of balsamic!!), homemade guacamole, brown rice, black beans, and a dollop of Greek yogurt. This was so much fun to eat... messy in a good way!
On the side I had my salad and some mango, which went perfectly with the whole Tex-Mex thing.
However, later on I was really in the mood for some dessert (I usually am on exercise days) and had my usual combination of vanilla frozen yogurt and the Purely Decadent Snickerdoodle. I have got to stop going back for seconds! It's almost Thanksgiving and I'm going to stuff my face anyway! Bad idea!
Speaking of Thanksgiving, I spent tonight fabricating my menu.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, grad students are having a potluck, and we're bringing cranberry sauce (my dad just made it-- it smells great, with lots of orange zest and even some blueberries in it!) and I'm making Mark Bittman's Autumn Millet bake.
Thursday, we're inviting back some more grad students and this is what I have in mind:
Salad-- greens with pear, feta, candied pecans, pomegranate seeds, and pomegranate molasses dressing (my creation... the dressing just has lemon, pomegranate molasses, salt, pepper, and olive oil)
Main course from the Flexitarian Kitchen-- Cornish game hens/ pumpkins with a quinoa and dried fruit stuffing
My dad's stir-fried string beans
Cranberry sauce
Cornbread

Dessert: I really wanted to try Gourmet's pumpkin souffles with bourbon molasses sauce, but 1) it only serves 8 and we have 9 people in total and 2) I don't want to screw up a souffle on the first try. My mom is known for making the best apple pie ever, but I guess that's not happening this year :(
I think we'll settle for apple and quince crisp with rum raisins (this was from Epicurious)

How does it sound? Good? I actually have a lot to do over this break-- in addition to finishing Moby-Dick, math, and a French reading, I have 2 ART HISTORY PAPERS to write, although I suppose it's my own fault for procrastinating...