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Published: December 1st 2007
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the Thursday after London weekend was Thanksgiving. Since my arrival lots of people on my floor have expressed an interest in having a thanksgiving celebration, and at first i was all for it. i even wanted to make little pilgrim hats and indian headband thingies out of construction paper. however, once i got back from belgium and london i was really worn out and didn't feel like going through all the fuss that thanksgiving would require. however, everybody kept talking about thanksgiving, and thanksgiving there was.
but we didn't actually have thanksgiving on thanksgiving. thursday is my busiest day and wednesday i don't have anything to do at all, so the feasting was bumped up a little bit. the brits did not care as they know nothing about how thanksgiving should be. the entire concept of thanksgiving is completely befuddling to them. they can't grasp that its just a day where you meet up with your family, eat a lot, and watch tv (oftentimes, football). at one point, two of the girls even told me that they were sorry they didn't have a thanksgiving present for me, but they didn't know what type of presents americans were suppose to give
and receive on thanksgiving. HA! can you imagine how awful it would be if we had to buy presents for both thanksgiving and christmas?
anyway, on tuesday i went around to everyone on my floor and got £3 from all of them. then, i headed to a local grocery store with two helpers. we were planning to cook for about 30 people (at max), and let me tell you, our basket was pretty full by the end of that trip.
on wednesday i started cooking/preparing around noon. first order of business was popping the turkeys in the oven. i had to pull the necks out of their cavities (yuck yuck yuck), dust them with flour (i'm not sure why but i was told to), and then pop them in the turkey bags. i kept looking for the gibblets, but when i didn't find them i just assumed that they had already been removed. when i was tying up one of the turkey bags, though, i noticed something shiny around the neck hole of one turkey. i looked closer, and lo and behold, there were the gibblets in a plastic bag. it was gross getting them out, too, but
i'm really glad i didn't cook those suckers with plastic bags full of gross inside them. on the whole, this was my least favorite part of the day.
while i was attending to the turkey, i had a crew of helpers peeling and slicing apples for the apple pie. i know pumpkin pie is the traditional dessert of thanksgiving, but the lame-o supermarket we went to had neither canned pumpkin nor frozen pumpkin pies. this really upset me, and i thought about calling the whole thing off b/c of the lack of pumpkin pies. i came around, though, and we had apple pie instead. APPLE PIE THAT I MADE! that's right, in addition to cooking two turkeys by myself, i also made two apple pies. well, the filling at least. i definitely did not have the time or motivation to make the crusts. the pies turned out to be tolerable. i didn't put in enough sugar and i kinda cooked the apples for too long, but claire really liked them so i guess they couldn't have been that bad.
in addition to apple pie and turkey, we also had mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, corn, stuffing (but not
decorating
they insisted on having balloons. the homemade kind--i'm not a machine, guys), green beans, rolls, yorkshire puddings (english bread stuff), roast potatoes, pork loin, quorn (vegetarian meat substitute), and a great variety of desserts. i was kind of annoyed when the english kids insisted on bringing in yorkshire puddings b/c the point of thanksgiving was for them to eat american food, but the boys who wanted the yorkshire puddings were also the ones who made the mashed potatoes so out of gratitude i relented.
i made the sweet potatoes by myself, too. i didn't really use a recipe, i just melted butter and sugar together and cooked the sweet potatoes in them, and bam, they tasted like southern sweet potatoes. one of the boys was helping me and tried them early and said "yes, they're alright, but don't you think this marinade is a bit strong." but it wasn't. they just don't know what sweet potatoes are suppose to taste like. julia, the other american at this shindig, totally flipped out over the sweet potatoes, though, and is still talking about how good they were.
all the kids on my floor pitched in and helped so much, which is very very fortunate b/c
i never would have been able to cook dinner for 30 people all by myself. i had a whole slew of boys (and a couple of girls) peeling the apples, potatoes, and carrots for me, a few boys made some really great mashed potatoes all by themselves, ben was in and out of the kitchen obeying my every order all day, allie did a great job of cleaning up the kitchen during the cooking process and assisting in the cooking, and thaaank goodness that claire and a crew of other cleaners did all the cleaning up afterwards.
it was definitely nothing like thanksgiving at home, but i believe a good time was had by all.
oh, and this is the story i told to inform all the english kids about why we have thanksgiving (they don't even know abou the pilgrims over here!):
back in the 1600's, the pilgrims decided they wanted to go to america so they could enjoy religious freedom. they loaded up the mayflower and headed out from plymouth. it took them a long time to cross the ocean, and on the way a lot of people got sick and died. and then, once
they got to america, it was really cold and they had no houses or any idea of what was going on, really, so a bunch more of them died. but eventually things settled down a little bit, and at their first harvest they had a big feast to celebrate that they hadn't died like the rest. some people say indians were in attendance at this feast, but i don't believe it.
watch the video i attached! its funny!
AND ALSO
good luck Christopher Robinson in China!!!!! Have lots of fun!!!!
congratulations Michelle Lucy on your engagement! Woo!
and of course, good luck Kim! I wish I could be there for your big day, and thanks so much for your constant comments! they mean a lot to me 😊
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T REX
Megan H
A Thanksgiving Miracle!
This is really impressive, Sarah! I can't believe you got a bunch of college kids to work as a family to produce what looks like an extremely wholesome meal. Your pilgrim forefathers would be so proud. Also, I like like that your version of the Thanksgiving story excludes Indians. It's pretty funny.