Turkey Day

So here I go, late as always.

Typical I guess. :)

I guess I should probably tell everyone about my Thanksgiving, even though I am a couple weeks late.

Thanksgiving was….fun/stressful/strange. As most people with an education at least to the third grade know, Thanksgiving is an American holiday. (kudos to Rachel…nah just kidding) Not really found in other countries and not found in Sweden either. But as an exchange student I wanted to do something for my family and friends that was thanksgiving-ish.

So in a moment of pure recklessness I decided to have my own Thanksgiving feast and invited, not only, the family, but also four of my friends as well.

It wasn’t until the Saturday before our Swedish Thanksgiving (I used Sunday, before actual turkey day because it was the most convenient for everyone) that I realized what I had just signed up for. I was going to be cooking food for 16 people, and I had never even cooked a turkey before.

And then of course there was the issue of finding the ingredients (the most frustrating part) in the end I couldn’t find more than half of the right things and had to end up substituting ingredients and changing the menu several times. I couldn’t find pumpkin pie mix, so I had planned to make it with real pumpkin except I couldn’t find that so I just dropped that idea and made apple pie instead.

The turkey wasn’t hard to find, but it was ridiculously small compared to the bird that’s always served at my house. And forget green bean casserole, I had to actually make the cream of mushroom using powdered mushroom soup and crème fresh. No Frenchs onions and even the beans were different.

Somehow everything worked out and everybody ate and ate heartily. Apparently everyone was impressed with the food and I just didn’t have the heart to tell them that mine was the microwaveable version of a real Thanksgiving dinner.

But it was nice, and somehow everyone seemed content. All the kids were fascinated and appalled at the turkey heart and neck that I had pulled out once the bird was unfrozen. I was going to tell them that it was tradition to eat this as well, but it might have scared them too much.

Kalkon (Cal-coon) Turkey