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Published: October 13th 2008
Eline to the rescue
Eline (Norway) came over at the last hour and helped Dan with corn pudding.We've already celebrated Thanksgiving more than a month before most of you will! Our Canadian friend Kate hosted a very nice Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday at her home because Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving. Her mom is the Canadian ambassador...and they live in the superfancy ambassador's house. That made it all the more exciting.
Since Dan and I are the other two North Americans in our buddy group, we helped out by cooking a bunch and bringing the food to Kate's. We made two pumpkin pies, vanilla-nutmeg whipped cream, apple and onion stuffing, sweet rolls, Weber family corn pudding and roasted butternut squash and beets. Other people in our group helped Kate prepare the food at her house.
Cooking all that food really made us realize how amazing it is that our moms and grandmothers could possibly do it all by themselves! It was me and Dan cooking only half of the meal...and it still took forever. We made sweet roll and pie crust dough the night before. Then I got up at 8 the morning of (and Dan at 9) and we basically cooked constantly until we went to Kate's at 3. (And then a little more last minute
Saki came too
Saki (Japan) also came to help us carry the food to Kate's. stuff at her house--I made the gravy right before we sat down to eat.)
We were also slightly panicked because we had to transport all the food (something like 7 separate dishes) to Kate's house, which is all the way in Bygdøy. Thankfully we got some helpers, Saki and Eline came to save the day.
It was really a lot of fun and the dinner was pretty tasty, too. Kind of a twist on traditional Thanksgiving at my house. Instead of cranberry sauce, Kate used lingonberries. They taste similar (Dan says better) and are really prevalent here. People eat lingonberry jam or sauce with all kinds of game, I think. And the turkey was from Sweden (you can't really find it here). And of course we had to get creative with the pies because our kitchen doesn't have any pie plates. (There was no way we were going to buy one for a one-time thing--the cheapest still cost something like $20.) One pie was baked into a small pot...it was extra deep dish, I guess. It was probably 3 inches thick, not the prettiest thing either, but it worked out!
During dinner we talked about Thanksgiving traditions,
just trying to explain to people what the holiday is about and what we do. Some people were confused about whether it's a religious holiday or not...that was kind of hard to answer because for some people it is, and some it isn't. I also joked that we were being sacrilegious by not having a prayer together before the meal--but that idea is pretty foreign to everyone but the North Americans. It's not at all common to pray before eating in Europe, I don't even think more religious people do before-meal prayers. It was hard to explain that even in families where the holiday does not have an explicitly religious meaning, you still pray together before the meal. 😊
Afterwards we ate pie and really delicious sorbet from some "conditori" (confectionery) in Oslo. And people just chatted the night away, really. The chicken and turkey that Kate served didn't get quite done in the middle, so in lieu of it getting thrown away I tossed a bunch of the leftovers in a pot and made soup...during the party. A bit odd but it's almost part of the tradition of Thanksgiving that several meals after the fact will consist mainly
SURPRISE IT'S TINY
Itty bitty pie made with the leftover filling and crust (in a pan made for a single egg). of turkey, right?
There's really not much to say besides the fact that all of our foreign and Norwegian friends really seemed to enjoy their first Thanksgiving. Dan and I did, as well. And it's nice not to have to deal with the craziness of "Black Friday." 😊
I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
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Ashley
non-member comment
Oh man!
You weren't kidding about the fancy house, wow! I would have really enjoyed that sort of thing. I love talking about traditions!