In short, Thanksgiving was a success. To flesh it out a little more, Thanksgiving was a HUGE success.
It was one of the best Thanksgiving's in the history of all my 21 Thanksgivings. One night, my flat mates Laura, Apryl, and I along with our friends Ed and Stephane, decided we needed to introduce the English to the wonderful American tradition. I am not one to go into solliloquies about the symbolism of traditions and what not, but if there were any one day that solidified all of my feelings and thoughts about the world, it would be Thanksgiving, and especially Thanksgiving 2009. A better time during a holiday, I don't think I have had.
Once it had been decided, and once the actual date of Thanksgiving had been discovered (after some mix-ups), everyone was invited. And I mean everyone. We made it a huge potluck event, to which everyone contributed something. We had traditional English Yorkshire puddings and mash, traditional Korean Kimchi, noodles, chicken, and other spicy delicacies, traditional French cake and crepes, and a huge array of family recipies from the United States. My friends from Nigeria attended as well, and brought some drinks, which were slightly overlooked. I made [American style] biscuits [not British style, which are cookies], green beans, corn, and the most gorgeous turkey I have ever cooked. In fact, it was the first and only turkey I have ever cooked, so that's what made it even more special for turning out as good as it did. I was (and still am) so proud of that turkey I could burst. I took the advice of nearly everyone and compiled them into one turkey, and the result was succulent perfection.
So, here's the story of the turkey.
It was the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, and I was buying the last of the supplies for our shin dig at Sainsbury's. I had read somewhere that you had to let the turkey thaw for 48 hours before cooking. Well, this turned out to work perfectly, because the 10kg turkey I bought (that's 22 lbs!!!), was half the size of our mini freezers (why they give two mini-freezers for a flat of 8 is beyond me). There was no way that bad boy was fitting in the freezers. So, after buying the turkey, my friends Stephane and I hoisted it into my back pack, and I packed the turkey back to my flat where I deposited it in the sink to thaw for the next day and a half. On Thursday, I popped it into the oven around 1:30pm, and at a quarter to six (the party starting at 6pm), I took it out to discover it had cooked perfectly. Now to unwrap the foil from around it to toast the top. I put it back in, and at 6pm exactly, the turkey was ready to eat.
There are very few times in my life I feel absolute and total triumph. This is one of them.
Not only did I manage to host an international Thanksgiving party, I cooked the turkey perfectly to boot. Boo-yah.
So, on with the night.
My flat mates and I hung out together with our friends from the frisbee team, and some of our French and Korean friends. We told jokes, talked about our countries, drew hand turkeys (one of the funnest Thanksgiving traditions), and ate as much as we could possibly muster. I laughed and smiled so much my face hurt. That's how good it was.
There are only two down notes to all of this: my friend Ed was under pain killers at the time, having just come from surgery the day before [but he was determined not to miss it]. However, this made him funnier, as he didn't know what was going on half the time, and also doesn't remember most of it. The second down note was I quite ill and contracted some sort of weird eye infection. But, there was too much good stuff going on to notice much of that.
My favorite dish of the evening was the Korean food. It was SO GOOD. Oh, and my turkey, which was also SO GOOD.
Hannah/Flat 29 turkey recipe:
Buy large frozen turkey
Pack said frozen turkey home in you back pack
Let thaw for two days
Remove innards [miss your dog because you know she can't have the bits no one will eat]
Rub entire bird with butter
Melt butter and drizzle bird.
Rub this butter into the bird.
Add a little salt, herbs, and garlic powder
Stuff body cavity with onions, lemon, and shallots
Set on rack in baking pan
Pour orange juice into the bottom of pan
Cover pan and bird in aluminum foil
Stuff it into your tiny oven
Bake for four hours
Take out of oven, remove foil
Put back in oven for 15 to 20 minutes to allow the butter to brown the top of the bird
Remove and beam with happiness
