Thanksgiving

As soon as the month of November hit, all the US expats were talking turkey. Good turkeys are not easy to find and they are pricey. A group of us from Church made plans to share a table for the holiday. Three birds were prepared for the weekend- each family that cooked one got it from a different store so we could compare notes, prices, and results. I got our bird from the butcher we regularly go to for our meats. It was the biggest of the three, and the least expensive. It came as a frozen, plastic-wrapped hunk. A few days before the feast, Selvi and I moved it from the freezer to the fridge. As it thawed, a problem began to emerge. 

I screamed out loud once it dawned on me what I was looking at. Selvi gets all the credit for doing the dirty work. Beheading a turkey is not for the faint of heart. She also stood at the sink and plucked out the rest of the feather nubs...

Once Selvi had worked her magic, I brined the turkey, stuffed it with compound butter and it roasted up almost like what we are used to (and the gravy made from the drippings was on point!). Together, Selvi and I made a sweet potato casserole (the sweet potatoes here are yellow) and a green bean casserole (can't get canned soup or canned beans here... so we did it all from scratch).

We ended up with 23 lovely people at our house for the big meal. Thanksgiving Thursday was not a holiday, so we hosted the event the following Saturday. That morning all the guys took the kids to the green space at our friends complex for a turkey bowl. We were scheduled to begin our meal around 2. But Indian + mormon standard time converged in a resulting 3PM lunch.

Everyone brought an impressive amount of food. All the beloved staples were present. It was a taste of home and we were so happy to have shared it with these fine people.