Just like the fourth of July...

It get's harder and harder to make friends the older you get. When my two besties and I ended up living in different cities for most of our college years I thought it would be impossible to make friends like that again, but I did, I met some of my best friends in college. But, when all of my college friends left our little city for bigger and better job opportunities I thought that would really be it. I would have to visit them all over the country in order to have that good of friends. Because at 23 I really thought I had made the best of the friends I would ever have. I should've learned to not trust my worries, because it was in my mid twenties that I met my best friend. She wasn't in a very good place, was in the middle of a tough relationship, had been knocked down a few times in her life. But it wasn't me swooping in to help her out, help her through this tough time, that is not how we became friends. No, it was the other way around. In the middle of all her crap, she lent us a hand though only knowing us in passing. This act, taking Jesse and I in when we needed a place to live for a month, is so representative of who she is as a friend. Jesse only lived there for two weeks until he went off to Oregon for his summer job (I joined him just two weeks later). In those two weeks when it was just the two of us, me finishing my art school final projects, us talking over bad television and even worse beer. We opened up, we bonded, and thus solidified our storybook friendship.

When she started dating her soon to be husband he would get so confused when the two of us were together. Because it would appear that we were having full conversations, understanding everything the other was saying, and yet only a few words would leave our mouth. We were speaking our secret language, one we didn't even know we had. Jesse and I had been together for awhile when her and I met so he never even paid attention to our babbling. But this new guy thought it was hilarious. And Jesse and I loved this new guy. Not just because he was such a vast improvement over the other guys, but because he was genuinely a great guy and one we immediately attached ourselves to. So much so that the four of us (plus a stowaway) took an all night road trip to San Francisco just months after they started dating. Well, we couldn't have been happier when they got engaged, or sadder when they moved 9 hours away (he got his dream job). And I couldn't have been more honored to have been asked to be her maid of honor.

Which! Is kind of why I started writing this post. Just this last weekend we flew up our bride to be to enjoy a weekend in the city, to relax, and to see family, and to take a break from wedding planning.  We had a small shower at her sister's house, it was all sorts of america. With sliders and potato salad. Lemon drop martini's (yum!) and champagne jell-o. And to top it off, Pie! We followed this up with some line dancing lessons, a rooftop sunset and cocktail, and her and I ended the night with a glass of champagne and our feet up.  Which is just how we started our friendship, although the alcohol has gotten better.

We had visited her and her fiance the week before and she made us these amazing turkey burgers. So, while I had planned to make beef sliders, I took notes from her and decided to make turkey sliders instead. When the men returned to pick up their women from the shower they hovered around the left over sliders and devoured them. So it is by request of the brides sister that I post my recipe, as vague and homecooking as it is.

All American Turkey Sliders
(Did you know the wild Turkey was ALMOST the national bird for the USA? The more you know...ding ding ding)

All ingredients are "ish".

1 lb ground turkey
1 egg
2 tbls soy sauce
2 tbls Worcestershire sauce
1 tbls garlic powder
1 tbls dried oregano
1/4 onion shredded
1 slice of bread toasted and ground into bread crumbs

Salt
Pepper

Combine all the ingredients (hands work best here, especially little kid hands!). Form into 2 1/2 inch round patties and line them on a baking sheet about an inch apart. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. Add cheese at the end if you'd like. I served them on potato rolls. But some stores offer slider buns now! You can grill the burgers too, they would be awesome that way! Since I was cooking thirty of them at a party (i doubled this recipe) I needed to cook a lot of them without having to hover over a grill.

Stick 'em with an american flag pick, sing the National Anthem, and get your America on. I just realized how perfectly appropriate these are for the Olympics. Ahhh, the Olympics, that is a whole other post on it's own...

The parties were a blast, I love my bff, and I cannot wait for the REAL party in just a few weeks.