Thanksgiving

My niece asked if I would like to celebrate Thanksgiving at her house, since she knew Mike and I always celebrated, even after we got here. At first, I wasn't sure, because of that very reason, but I have learned these past months, that however much I want to be alone sometimes, if people show up, it DOES make the pain dissappear for a while, so I brought Thanksgiving, and they brought the love and hugs.... We all won.

We had a bit of a hussle because they don't know stone ground cornflour here... well, they have cornflour, but it is   F I N E  and doesn't really work to make cornbread, so we decided to take a chance and used Polenta, and it worked great! I don't do "old bread", but we do have "beschuitjes" here, that we normally use for breakfast, after an upset stomach, or crunched real fine as breading, so I used that for the stuffing, which turned out extremely good, with the Turkey in slices below it.... We had a breast, because, I didn't realise that even though they have a lot of Turkey farms here, they don't sell Turkeys, just mainly parts, so we were a bit late to find one, and scrambled around a bit to decide on what, how much, and how to adjust the othere recipes to accommodate.... it was actually a lot of fun, to plan a meal, start to finish, prep the different dishes and than cook.

Being in the middle of the week, and not a local holiday, they each had things to do, so I had the kitchen to myself for a bit in the morning. In the afternoon, after "little man" went down for his nap, my niece helped and I had forgotten how much fun it is to have a cooking buddy. Just chatting and cooking. It seems so ordinary, but we haven't had a kitchen that fit more than one butt at a time for more than 7 years, so this was unexpected, extra fun. 

 After dinner we watched Football. YUP!  Thanks to YT, we watched Mikes Giants play. This was also new to them, so we first had a little bit of explaining, followed by a "watch and pause" first quarter, but after that, they were pretty much in to it, as well. Although I have to admit, that I was glad the little guy was in bed, because there were times my inner sailor came out, hard and heavy.....  

Being able to actually cook more than one thing at a time, was AWESOME!!! Being able to share one of our favorite holidays and introduce some odd stuff.... was FUN. It was a little bit funky because of the different ingredients, but it turned out pretty good. They don't know Caro-syrup here, so I winged that, but it was good. The color was off on the Pecan Pie, but the flavor was there, so I took the win. The green bean casserole was a different animal, and I'm not sure what they ended up doing with it, to be honest. The term "condensed soup" doesn't occur in the vocabulary, nor on the supermarket shelves, so I tried regular cream of chicken soup and strained it a bit.... NAH, not the way to go. I'll have to experiment with that a bit for next time.... 

Friday we went to the biggest Christmas market in the country. from their house it's about an hour drive, from ours, it's about 3 and a bit.... so I was very happy. It was so good. I want to go again! But, I'll settle for next year, and I'll be there when the doors open, and probably will have to be escorted out at closing. It is THAT good. 

 

Traffic was nuts on the way home..... I left at 4 and made it home by 7.  KM wise, it should take about an hour and three quarters, so to say I was done by the time I hit the house, is an understatement.

All in all, a great Holiday Season starter, even when it was bittersweet. 

 As always, don't forget to hug that loved one!!!!!

 Love and hugs,

Pauli