I’ll start with the food…It took one full day of cooking plus a day of shopping and prep but IT WAS NOT IN VAIN! Stu and I with the help of our friends Laura, Rhian, and especially Jo, made a really freakin’ delicious meal for24 happy travelers. There was enough food for everyone to be properly (over)full (1 big plate plus seconds for most). It was a pretty traditional meal with all the standard dishes but everything was just right, despite some stretches to find ingredient substitutes.
MEAT: We cooked both a turkey & chicken for our main meats. We did both cooked in the oven (with oven bags—thanks to June's advice!) with a few veggies floating around and salt/pepper/olive oil for seasoning. The turkey and the chicken were actually both about the same size (3 kilos or 6ish pounds) and they took 2 hours and 45 min to cook. At the last minute we bought 2 pre-cooked (little) chickens from the grocery store to supplement…which ended up being a good idea. We also had gravy made from the pan juices AND cranberry sauce which our German friend Laura found at the grocery store! We spent ages looking for fresh cranberries and had sort of given up on the idea of making cranberry sauce but on the day of the feast Laura found some jars of it in the international section at Pack’n Save. The cranberry sauce definitely madethe meal complete.
SIDES: For sides we had two different kids of stuffing (one was a Stu’s mom’s pork sausage and cornbread stuffing recipe) and the other was a variation of a recipe got from Sarah Helinek (bread, chicken stock, celery, onion…+ the turkey giblets…that was my Brittish friend Jo’s addition and it was actually really tasty). We also had mashed potatoes that used sour cream, cream cheese, milk, butter, cheddar cheese, chives, and garlic—sort of an amalgamation of recipes (my brother Jon and Stu’s mom). Then we had sweet potato casserole complete with marshmallows on top (epicurous). The next casserole was a green bean casserole with a cornflake/cheese topping (epicurous + creative input). And of course, to round it all out: rolls and salad (apples, cheddar cheese and Mikaela’s salad dressing which I love on the salad). OH and of course we had asparagus. Stu and Kong and Heho had done some asparagus harvesting just that morning and Kong was kind enough to cook us all that they brought home with an Asian sauce and bacon. Though not a traditional Thanksgiving dish, it was definitely fitting given how much asparagus has been part of our life here in Napier.
DESSERTS: For dessert we had pumpkin pie (four of them, each nicely divided into 6 slices) and a BIG cranberry-apple crumble (or casserole depending on if it’s served as a side or a dessert). Stu’s familynormally serves it as a side dish but we ran out of oven space for the main meal…regardless of it’s order of appearance in the meal it was AMAZING and the dried cranberries we used turned out to be just as delicious as fresh ones. Oh and we had vanilla ice cream to go with thedesserts. It was pretty funny to watch everyone eat at this point because everyone was already full (as they should be) but also couldn't let the dessert on their plate go to waste....I heard about 15 different people say "there's no way I can eat this" and then proceed to all but lick the plate clean.
Now onto the people. I should start by saying that we live in a hostel with about 75 people. Obviously, it is impossible to cook for 75 and I have to say it was difficult to narrow things down to 24. Anyway, that aside, it was a wonderful group complete with all the nationalities I’ve mentioned before. I think we had 2 Mexicans, 6 Germans, 2 Americans, 2 Scottish, 1 Malaysian, 1 Korean, 1 Czech, and perhaps 9 Brits? Definitely a disproportionate number of Brittish people…Everyone who ate with us was a long term traveler, so someone we've known for at least a month now and who we will continue to live with through Christmas or the end of January. Out of all those people only 1 had ever eaten a Thanksgiving dinner before (1 of the Mex
ican guys lived in America for a few years with his family) so being able to share a first Thanksgiving with 21 new friends was a pretty cool experience.
As for appreciating both of these things… I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am. Stu gave a really nice speech at the beginning of the meal. I can’t remember exactly what he said but he talked about being grateful for all that we have and he asked everyone to take a minute of silence to recognized how lucky all of us were to be in a foreign country so far from home, but in each other’s company. I know that the biological family that you grow up with is perhaps the only constant family, but it seems to me that if you are open and honest you can find family almost anywhere you go. I am so lucky to be apart of so many families at this point in my life. I have my Curme family, my Bowles family, my Craft family, my Howe family, my Georgetown family, my Gwynn Valley family…and now Stu and I are a part of this Napier family that is forming. It is made up of travelers so I perhaps this family will not be as permanent as the others, but however transient it may be, it was our family for Thanksgiving 2010 and I am grateful to have shared it with them.
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