This Year's New Rainbow Bridge Angels Make Thanksgiving Dinner For Foley, DS and Blogville

Every Thanksgiving us dogs at the Doggyspace section of Rainbow Bridge gather for a feast cooked by the angels who arrived here after last year’s Thanksgiving.  Each year our table gets bigger as we are joined by more angels, but our laughs, love, and stories grow too.

Jasper and Sophie walked out of the kitchen and announced that dinner was served.  They said they were both acting as hosts this evening and the would take care of all our needs.

Abbie, her face, once covered with white fur, now all spectacularly black, presented us with vegan stuffed mushrooms. Before we began the scrumptious appetizer, she informed us that she had picked all the mushrooms and vegan food from the garden behind her house.  Perfect!

Lily, from the Doxie Life blog, served us her fresh autumn salad.  She had been inspired by her friends’ beautiful Friday flower blog.  When she learned about the dinner, she made room in her garden for squash, sweet potato, and quail.

Once we had finished, our salad MacDougal appeared with some Balvenie Scottish whiskey to help clean our pallets.  MacDougal gave us two shots and took one for himself. I don’t know if he filled all the glasses before he passed out under a tree.

Then the meal came to a halt. Hattie Mae stood on the table wearing a sparkly short sleeve skater dress.  She wore it like magic. She stopped midway down the table, snapped her claws, and suddenly was wearing a lace cap sleeve bodycon dress.  Before she got to the end of the table, she changed into a spotted dobby long sleeve dress. We gave her a standing ovation when she reached the end of her catwalk.

Ginger Lynn, who arrived at Rainbow Bridge earlier last year, but did not join Doggyspace until this year, made delicious corn fritters that, after the drink and fashion show, were delicious.

Abigail, another precious Yorkie, brought us a ricotta and strawberry toast.  I was reluctant to try it at first. It seemed like an odd combination. But it was scrumptious.  We Yorkies are so smart.

Holly, a member of another popular blog, the DeWeenies of Florida, passed over in early February.  She knew that, on Thanksgiving, she would have to make a dish, and she presented a perfect creamy feta stuffed pepper.  It was so good we all licked our plates.

Then Jasper brought us a package from Catville.  It was from our sweet friends Meow Meow and Kit. It was a lovely collard and Brussels sprout salad.  It was so good. I ignored the cat hair because they were sweet.

My good friend Shiloh the Stargazer did not bring food.  Instead, she turned the sky from day to night, and she had the stars dance for us.  It was a lovely display as the stars zipped across the sky. We gave Shiloh and the sky a standing ovation.

Sarge surprised us with a peppered goat cheese with citrus-carrot marmalade.  I had to give credit to this new group of angels. They had been preparing this meal for a long time and giving us delights we have never tasted before.  Thanks to Sarge our pallets were being challenged.

Guinevere, one of the Goldens, surprised us with Kenyon Johnnycakes.  They were so light and fluffy. Who would have thought a golden retriever could make a Kenyon Johnnycakes?  We have such talented dogs.

Prince then topped them all by serving fresh buttermilk cheese with spice figs, pickled fennel, and pistachio crust.  That was so good it overwhelmed us, and we had to take a nap break.

We were awoken by our friend Jessie who gave us each a sweet kiss.  It was a lovely way to come out of a nap. We found resting our bellies gave us an appetite for a lot more food.

Before we began our next round of food Molly the Wally came out and performed an awesome puppet show that had us rolling on the ground in laughter.

Then Cammy surprised us all.  We thought the next course was going to be turkey, but he brought out a herbed chicken with beets and brussels sprouts.  It was so tender the meat fell off the bone. I had to hand it to Cammy. Chicken was the way to go.
Silly Hannah Banana came in with a chef’s hat on.  She gave us some slow cooked mashed potatoes the complemented Cammy’s chicken perfectly.

Daisy was up next with more fresh vegetables then I have ever seen.  A farm dog in the mortal world she now has one of Rainbow Bridge’s most prosperous farms.  Her corn was sweet, the peppers wonderfully crisp, the tomatoes bursting with flavor. I know Daisy would be eating with us next year, but I might ask her to cook again
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While we ate Hobo Hudson began his presentation on helping our parents with their finances. When we were mortal, we did not care about money, but now that we can get into our parents’ dreams and whisper advice Hobo says we can help them with stock tips.  I think 2019 is going to be a good year for our pet parents
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We resumed the food with a vegetarian dish.  Casey wanted to show us that not all food had to be meat.  His whole roasted cauliflower was excellent. I am not about to give up meat, but it was food for thought.

Little Scooter brought out a red chili orange glazed turkey.   For the first time, our eating area smelled like Thanksgiving. The other food was great, but Scooter’s turkey really hit the spot.  

Stella Rose, who is still staying on the top step of the Bridge so she can be nearer to her mom, did come by for the celebration.  She did not have a lot of time to make something, but she served a lovely grape salad which went perfectly with the Scooter’s turkey.

Presley brought us our second turkey dish of the day; turkey roulade cooked three ways. Even our immortal bellies were getting stretched past our limit.  But the food kept coming.

Lil’ Girl presented us with a rosemary monkey bread stuffing to go with Presley’s turkey. At first, I was reluctant because I didn’t want to eat any monkey but I didn’t want to appear rude, so I tried.  It was terrific. If you ever get a chance to eat monkey’s bread you should.

Felix served us tiny biscuits.  It wasn’t a full course, but it tasted very good.  Suddenly our appetites were back. Felix had created a never-ending appetite biscuit.  He was working on new food for every dog’s’ needs. The never-ending appetite biscuit will change our lives, although some humans will say that describes every dog before the biscuit.

Kaizer, a proud and loyal German Shepherd, had spent weeks working on his turkey, wanting it to be perfect.   He stood at attention while we ate. We told him it was perfect and he grinned widely and let out a self-satisfied yip of joy.

Jewel made crispy garlic smashed potatoes to go with Kaizer’s turkey, and they were a rousing success.  I like my food a little spicy and Jewel’s dish was the first taste of heat I got all day.

Lucy knew we could use something sweet and she brought dozens of pumpkin pies. We dug into them getting our first tastes of desert for the day.  It was perfect.

We had a pause in the festivities as Wishbone ran out with his namesake in his mouth.   He selected two angels to split the wishbone. It took a lot of pulling by the two dogs, but finally, it snapped.  Wishbone told the winner that their parents would get good luck over the holidays. I don’t want to say which parent it was, but if something good happens to you over the holidays, you will know it was Wishbone’s wishbone
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After the wishbone splitting Summer asked us to go down to the river.  She said the best thing for us after eating so much food was exercise. We all jumped in the river behind Summer and swam for however much we wanted which for me was not much. Then we laid in the sun until we were dry.

When we were dry, we went back to the table.  Before we could see if we could smell the turkey.  Moose had made a herb and citrus butter roasted turkey.  When Moose served it, we found out that it tasted better than it smelled.

Sully wanted to show off his New England heritage and give me a taste of our old Thanksgivings in Massachusetts by making rosemary-port cranberry sauce.  He nailed it. His mom would be so proud of him. I had two helpings.

Bailey also wanted to show off his heritage.  He is a Portuguese dog and made us a fine kale soup, or what, in Mommy’s family childhood home was called Portuguese soup.  It kind of looks like garbage but what do we dogs care? It was perfect.

We heard barking and saw Jake holding a turkey over some strange, hot, smoking contraption.  He dropped it in, and a few minutes later he brought it back out. It was a fried turkey! He served it to us, and it was really good.  Jake’s tail wagged back and forth in excitement watching us eat

To go along with the fried turkey, Mia made a pickled peach and cranberry salsa.   This was another meal I was not sure about, but it tasted awesome with the fried turkey.

Fallon brought in his desert, but first, he ran around the table getting out some of his greyhound zooms.  He then presented to us a maple granola pecan pie. It was another excellent dish. I tipped my tail to all three of them.

Muffin knew she had a tough act to follow with the fried turkey, so she decided to make a more elegant bird.  She presented us with a pear-thyme glazed turkey, and it was so good.

Our good friend Madi, the cat, visited us and she told me to lie down.  She then walked on my back. It didn’t make my belly pain go away, but it did make my back feel good.  I hopped back on my seat for the next course.

Then Axel served a lemon coconut tart.  It was light, sweet, and very good. I was surprised such a rugged dog could make a delicate dish.

I looked to my left, and I saw Harlee the cat licking the table.  We would have chased her off but we were too tired from eating, and we decided to let her stay and enjoy our last few courses.

Chase and Gucci came running in together, as they always have, because the two are inseparable.  They made a salt and pepper turkey with rosemary and bourbon gravy. I don’t know if the turkey was food or that there was more bourbon than rosemary in the gravy, but the two littles poms made me devour their course and want more.

Our meal ended with an All-American apple pie made by Butkus.  He did not have long to put his meal together, but he still did a great job.

Next year, those who served us today, shall eat with us, and continue to do so for years to come.

There were a lot of courses today because there were a lot of new angels.

I give thanks for those who are still with their parents and ask that next year we don’t have as many courses because we don’t have as many angels.

I would be happy to go hungry next Thanksgiving if every dog got to stay with their parents.