The British are coming...to Thanksgiving dinner

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Thanksgiving 2009 - Shanghai, China
Last year, I triumphantly concocted a Thanksgiving meal on Thursday and it involved some odd substitutions. It was quite memorable, quite enjoyable, but it was not quite the same.
This year, after much soul searching and much consternation over the budgetary implications, I decided that I just had to do it. I had to buy the $100 bird (technically more like $130 but it included delivery and came with stuffing, gravy and the elusive cranberries I cannot find anywhere here in Shanghai. I know it’s absurd to spend that much on an imported turkey, but Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I wanted to do it right this year. Since Mark was out of town on Thursday (made it home late that night) and the kids had school (not a holiday here), we did our celebration on Saturday. A lot of our friends here did the same. In the spirit of our first Shanghai Thanksgiving, we ate chicken on Thursday.

We invited the English friends to dinner. Joanna, Ian, William and Sophie were our first friends in Shanghai so who better than to share our favorite holiday with after experiencing over a year in China together? I remember last year feeling like I couldn’t even imagine pulling off the whole feast thing. This year I was excited for the challenge and also excited to teach our friends about the holiday.

I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner, but I finally bought an electric mixer. Not a fancy one, mind you. A $20 Westinghouse beater with several handy attachments (classic beaters, a whisk and 2 dough hooks!). We upgraded to the mega mixer and food processor at home and our classic mixer got packed away or sold long ago. But now that I have one in China, I am declaring my love for the classic mixer. It did the job and I am sure to use it tons more while we remain in Shanghai.

Here’s what I made and the corresponding story behind each dish:
The turkey. Having ordered our main course earlier in the week, turkey prep was limited to answering the door. It arrived in a giant styrofoam round container tied with string and we had to cut our way through the string to check out the contents. This was after I paid the delivery guy, so we were eager to confirm the bird was indeed in the package. It was. It came in a disposable roasting dish and the gravy and cranberries were in their own containers. We left the turkey inside and I checked turkey off the list. That was easy.

Mashed sweet potatoes. I bought what I assumed were sweet potatoes at the store. They were the right shape, the right color so I bought a bag’s worth and took them home. However, I got a little nervous when I started washing and peeling them and found the interior to be a much lighter shade than I had expected. I did a quick zap in the microwave of one piece of raw potato and decided it was going to work. It turned yellow enough and tasted sweet potatoish so I continued. I used my single large pot (not so large, but the largest I have) and boiled water and then added the peeled and cut up sweet potatoes and boiled them until they were beyond soft but not disintegrating in the water. Then, I transferred these to my only large steel bowl where I proceeded to puree them with my new mixer. I added brown sugar and cinnamon until they were the perfect color, texture and flavor. These then got covered and refrigerated since I started this project at about noon and dinner was at five.

After the sweet potatoes were done, I moved on to the regular white potatoes. Garlic mashed. A must have at Thanksgiving. Same drill with the one pot and the one bowl (washing both between potato preps). The mixer saved me so much work and while not perfectly smooth, the potatoes were mostly smooth and we agreed that the occasional lumps helped everyone know they were real and not from a box. Milk, butter, garlic, salt and pepper were my mix-ins and they drew rave reviews.

Next up, green bean casserole. I did it a little different than the classic cream of mushroom soup, canned green beans and those crunchy fried onions on top. I did find canned green beans and Cambell’s cream of celery soup. Couldn’t find the onions last year so once again I made my own. They are better. And even though I couldn’t easily bake the whole concoction, after heating it up on the stove in (you guessed it, the same big pot), it tasted delicious. I have made this dish from scratch before but I wanted to introduce our friends to the real deal (except for the fancier onions) and they loved it.

We had rolls from a French bakery, Jello I made the night before because I was trying to add as many American classics to our table. We had cranberry sauce (not as good as my fresh relish but filled the need) and gravy from the turkey provider. The stuffing they made was not up to my requirements. It was also not very plentiful, so at the last minute I made my own.

Because I had a previous Thanksgiving in Shanghai to reference, I bought some stuffing mix when we were home in August and brought it across the world to China. I figured it would be handy regardless of whether we had chicken, turkey or all side dishes. The stuffing recipe my mom taught me to make is in my permanent long-term memory. I made it with my mom every Thanksgiving that we were together, and later I made it in my house on my own. I didn’t make that stuffing recipe because I had these odd stuffing mixes as starters and I didn’t feel like peeling fresh water chestnuts after peeling all those potatoes. But I managed to make a great stuffing with apples in place of the water chestnuts, lots of fresh celery and onions and broth mixed in with the bread crumbs. I made this in my big stir fry pan and it worked surprisingly well.

We all sat down and took turns sharing what we are thankful for. This is a tradition in both the Slaven and Gorodezky households. Our guests were happy to participate and we gave our thanks before we feasted. Our group of eight Shanghai settlers, eating turkey in China.

We took a break after dinner and went out into the chilly Shanghai evening for a walk around the park. A group of roller skaters with lightup wheels whizzed past us and on occasion around us as we sauntered around trying to digest and prepare for dessert. The kids ran and played, while the four adults walked less briskly.

Dessert was pumpkin and pecan pie. Both pies were made by a friend of mine who upon learning I was going to spend $60 to buy pies, offered to make them for me for free in her oven. She borrowed pie pans, baked them on Saturday morning and had them driven over to my house fresh out of the oven. Another example of the many advantages to having more friends this year. Mark was so happy to have his favorite, pecan pie. We made whipped cream (or whooping cream as Emily calls it) and filled ourselves even fuller with yummy pie.

The kids and I are getting ready to journey home for almost 4 weeks total. Almost 3 weeks in Evanston and 1 in Santa Barbara. Mark will join us for 2 of the weeks. He has not been home in almost a year. He is so excited to see our family and friends back home and finally meet his baby niece and nephew in Chicago!

I’m doing the now usual routine of taking inventory of our supplies and making lists for when we are in the US, stocking up once again. We have an overstock situation on some of our supplies, but we have run out of key items like coffee (have some but it’s B list), maple syrup and granola bars. You can buy these things here but they are so expensive we try not to.

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Photos

flowers for the table
from Mark and the kids

Comments

[amy d]

turkey
We went to my in-laws in Kentucky for Thanksgiving. We had ham. Just wasn't the same. Funny to think of all the trouble and expense you went through for turkey, and we didn't even have any.

[Emily]

Nice work!
Props to you for cobbling together a very respectable T-giving dinner while over half-a-world away from the States! We were in Nepal for the holiday, in mid-trek across the Annapurnas. We didn't have much choice, as we were camping out at a remote teahouse for the night, but the owner put together a pretty nice chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and veggies, and Ollie ordered a side of lasagna. A minor smorgasbord after a long day's hike. Hope you're doing well and enjoy your time back home! e

[Linda]

Great blog!
Your food prep stories always make me hungry. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends, pretty much the same menu. No pecan pie though. I heard a funny story...from the "cook". She and I couldn't stop laughing. They had picked up all their food pre-prepared...all they had to do was heat it in the microwave. There were four adults, so each was in charge of one thing...but the guest in charge of the turkey couldn't figure out the thermometer in the turkey and wound up overcooking it...and the other guest spent ten minutes trying to decide how long to microwave the potatoes.