Turkey Day

I threw my first Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, with turkey and the works. It's probably a good thing that I did it in Australia since Aussies and my other international student friends don't celebrate it and wouldn't really know if the food is as good as it should be! But it was a pretty good practice run.

Preparing for the dinner (i.e., getting all the ingredients) gave me a sense of what it must have been like to be an immigrant prior to international trade and globalization. There were few turkeys to be found and certainly none as big as those we find at home. I managed to find one about 8lbs at Queen Victoria market's meat section. We fed 12 people.

I had wanted to make an apple and chestnut stuffing, but 'tisn't the season for chestnuts here (since it's heading into summer), which, I just realized, means they can't sing about chestnuts roasting over an open fire--at least not at Christmas... Anyway, I had to just make apple stuffing instead. I had hoped to make pecan and pumpkin pie, too, but I couldn't find pecans that didn't cost me an arm and a leg and they don't sell canned pumpkin here (they don't even know what pumpkin pie is--so sad!). But I managed to acquire both when I went to a Thanksgiving dessert party thrown by a former Rotary scholar from Mississippi, so I was very happy. Apparently, there is a USA food store that has all sorts of American food, but it is very expensive.


Can't wait to eat the leftovers... Hope you all had a good one.