thanksgiving in december

well, if we can have "christmas in july," then why not "thanksgiving in december?" sounds fair to me...

alright, so what the hell am i talking about. i'll try to explain.

a couple months ago, christine (markus's girlfriend, who is austrian, but her mother was american, so she knows about odd little quirky bizarre things like thanksgiving) suggested that we should try to have a thanksgiving dinner, just for fun, and other people agreed that it sounded like an amusing idea. well, what they really meant was that it would be _amusing_ for *them* to *make* _fun_ of... [rolls eyes] i wasn't offended; just a little intrigued. and, of course, if it involves the preparation and consumption of good ole tasty food, regardless of any associated arcane stereotypes, i'm pretty easy to convince.

but, of course, we don't get the extended weekend off of school here to prepare for it, so doing it on a thursday was basically out of the question. after proposing a couple of weekend days, we finally settled on the first sunday in december, which was last sunday (the 5th). even so, a bunch of people bailed on me at the last minute for various reasons, but i had a very nice dinner with jim, markus, norman, and his girlfriend. ironically, christine (the one to blame for the whole mess) was amoung those who couldn't come; something about being on call for the hospital. even enno managed to somehow double book himself, and so i was flying solo in the kitchen, which was a little unnerving, but ended reasonably well.

the day before was another shopping adventure, even crazier this time because i had to somehow locate a whole turkey. i'm now convinced that i got the only one in all of lausanne, since i had to go through like 5 stores to find it. i was pretty worried for a while. so much so, even, that i paid more than $45 to get this 10 pound turkey. not without internal strife, mind you, but i did pay it. :) i'm quite sure that prices in the US are much more reasonable (for just about everything), but while i always knew thanksgiving was a lot of work, i never really appreciated that it was probably also a pretty expensive event. preparing food for about six people, i spent over $150 just in materials. but in any case, by the time the stores closed, i was pretty sure i had everything that i would need.

so later that evening i went to see "the incredibles" with jim and flavius (sic? doesn't really matter, since i usually just call him "other german" anyway. the great part is that he actually answers to this now. [evil grin]). i'm sorry, i'm a sucker for cute & funny kids films; this was awesome, and everybody needs to go see it. probably the coolest film i've seen in a long time. especially the really short clothing designer ("edna mode"), since her accent, excitement, and bouncy overly physical gestures remind me a little bit of what a charicature of my great aunt mary might be like. sadly, she recently passed away, but she was definitely the coolest relative i had. ever since i can remember, i've always been in awe of her. four foot eleven, and capable of absolutely anything. i've got a picture that she sent me from egypt of her riding on a camel (with the pyramids in the background) when she was already like 75 years old. the woman was just amazing. and like you've all heard me say a hundred times, she was also the greatest cook ever, and i feel amazingly fortunate to have learned even the few things that i was able to from her.

yeah, it was a great film; go see it.

okay, then sunday was the main psycho event. i got up, got dressed, went into the kitchen at about 9:30, and seriously didn't really leave until we sat down to eat around 6:00ish. naturally, i was constantly worried that everything was going to be a monumental disaster, but i actually managed it, and nearly everything came out alright (even if somethings weren't quite like i expected or would have wanted them, they were still good). what stressed me the most was that a lot of the things on the menu i had never really made before (certainly not on my own). like, for instance, the turkey and the stuffing. but i just made something up, and it came out great. i couldn't find a meat thermometer, so i left it in a while longer than i was supposed to, just to be sure i didn't kill us all or anything like that. it was a little drier than the perfect turkey, but i've had much worse. the real miracle, though, was the gravy. i had no clue what i was supposed to do, but some higher power took pity on me, and it came out passable from just doing my best and faking it.

then we had sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, extra stuffing, brocolli casserole, and a green salad. and afterwards, the pumpkin pie (from a real pumpkin!) and an apple pie and ice cream, too. most of them thought the pumpkin pie was a little weird (probably the idea more than anything), but they said it tasted good anyway. the apple one, on the other hand, got instantly devoured. apparent pies (as we know them, at least) are not a european thing. i think i mentioned already before how difficult it was to locate a real pie plate. and as far as i can tell, there isn't really a french word for them, either. they have two words, "gateau" and "tarte," which usually refer to cake like substances and very shallow fruit tarts, respectively. but those aren't even consistently used or well-defined. so i have no idea what i should call a pie...

and people stayed around and talked for a while, and i tried to get things cleaned up as best as i could muster, and picked the carcass and put the food away. finally just yesterday (wednesday) i did the last of the dishes from sunday. :) i'm too lazy to dry them, so i would just do as much as would fit in the dish drain, and then wait for them to dry before repeating the process.

i think i can choose to call it a reasonable success, given that the few people who did come not only seemed to enjoy themselves, but actually needled a few of the people that didn't come, and told them what they missed out on. that made me feel a little bit proud of myself. doesn't happen often, but those are good moments. maybe more people will show up next year...