Well, it has come and gone, but a memorable experience nonetheless. I arrived back around the 15th of November and promptly began thinking about how to make the day special. I knew it would be very different being the only ones in town celebrating this American holiday, but hey, at least bringing this new tradition is better than importing fast food! Richard is still a little fuzzy on what the holiday is about and it wasn't easy to explain for some reason, but for me it was mainly about family and thankfulness and turkey!
Turkey here is a once a year event on Christmas. It's a luxury for sure, but I was missing the taste of turkey and wanted to give it a try. It is also almost summer here and that added a surprising element. Basically, I never thought about the fact that Thanksgiving in the NW involves cold weather and you don't mind the hot oven. I found a nice 5 pound turkey breast and tried a new recipe.
The other added challenge was my new diet restrictions and available ingredients. My favorite food for Thanksgiving is the dressing (not on the diet list) but I made and exception and made it from scratch. It came out great. So we had the turkey, dressing, gravy, greenbean (without the cream of mushroom, not available) and then for dessert I really wanted to make pumpkin pie, bt couldn't find any can or fresh so I settled for what is currenty the hot item of the season...watermelon. Richard didn't know what to think of any of it. The only familiar food he ate was the turkey. So it was an adjustment for him. He has really never eaten anything but Peruvian food his whole life. He's a great sport about always trying new foods and dishes.
We invited his brother Alex for our lunch feast. He loves to cook and enjoyed learning about new dishes and techniques so that also made it fun. The three of us had a lovely lunch that didn't turn out that bad, maybe pretty good. It was weird that it wasn't a holiday and everyone was working and it was a normal day, but it was nice to take time and give thanks. We each said what we were thankful for and had turkey left over.
The sad part was when we were watching the news the day after and he asks me about the scenes of shopping and the emphasis on money the day after. That was also very odd to explain. Nothing like living outside the country to shed light on our reality that we as so used to we don't even notice it.
Anyway, that was the day no day off, but I tried.
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