American supper

We had our good-bye America supper the other night. Suddenly, my boys love mashed potato. They were never very interested in eating it before, but they are now. (Except for baby Chuck who says it 'looks like paste', impeccable logic that one...)
The menu:
A roasted chicken. In keeping with my pesto turkey idea from Thanksgiving, I made a paste of caper, lemon, garlic and olive oil (use a knife or mortar and pestle, don't go electric, capers get bitter) and rubbed this under the skin of the chicken, I also spatchcocked it to cut down on cook time (cut out the backbone- there's a link under ~food blog fun~ to Gwyneth Paltrow showing you how to do this).
Mashed potato. Just steamed them until fork tender and mashed them up with some butter. Ok, a lot! of butter, a bit of milk and some garlic powder. I can't wait to make mashed potato with garlic cream here in Dubai...
Steamed green beans. Topped with a dash of sesame oil, some sesame seeds and a bit of soy sauce.
Salad of AMERICAN golden raisins (which I forgot to pack for Dubai, DARN!), apple chunks, almonds and some maytag blue cheese over romaine. With a vinaigrette.
And APPLE CRUMBLE for dessert.
Now its time for me to be in Dubai and repeat over and over that I will do Yoga every day and eat mostly vegan food and attend mass regularly and be generally sound in mind and body.... until Christmas or until I am completely seduced by siren song of the 4lbs of cured meats, 10 bottles of wine and 3lbs of cheese my DH ported over here from Venice and Milan....