Thanksgiving
It started out as just an idea: why don’t we have a Thanksgiving dinner and invite our friends over to celebrate? We found a turkey and agreed to buy it when the time came. We emailed our families to get our favorite recipes and started to look around for various ingredients. We agreed on a convenient date and began to invite those people we wanted to share our tradition with. This is where things began to get out of hand. It was not long before the guest list had about 70 people on it – but how could we whittle it down? This was our family, afterall.
The question then became, how are we going to feed all of these people? And where are we going to fit them all? And how do we bake pies and cook a turkey without an oven? And by the way…does anyone know how to kill and prepare a turkey???
Before I realized what we had gotten ourselves into, we had rented chairs and tables, made a special trip to Arusha to buy necessary ingredients, talked a friend into letting us take over her kitchen for a day (or the weekend, if we needed to, depending on when there happened to be electricity), and then suddenly there was a live turkey tied to our porch. This was definitely going to be memorable.
We lucked out completely that weekend. There was electricity when we needed it, where we needed it, and the weather was beautiful. We woke up early Saturday morning, made a run to the market and several other shops around town to make sure we had everything we needed, and then we ladies loaded up a taxi and headed to Sandra’s house to bake like crazy. And we did – it literally took the entire day, and most of the night, to get everything baked. We made 6 pies (3 apples, 2 sweet potato, and 1 pumpkin) from scratch, chocolate chip cookies, rice crispy treats, glazed sweet potatoes, cornbread, fudge, and baked mac ‘n cheese. We had very little idea of what we were doing and none of us had ever made pumpkin pie or cornbread from scratch before. But, incredibly, it all turned out pretty damn good.
Meanwhile, poor Brendan (the only man of the house, and thus the one assigned all of the bothersome tasks) was running around town, picking up chairs and tables, crates of soda, sharpening knives and getting everything ready for the turkey sacrifice. We all returned home that night (after spilling pie juice all over the taxi seat) exhausted, but feeling good.
The next morning, we woke up early and started preparing everything -- peeling potatoes, carrots, soaking beans, washing green beans, and cleaning rice. Throughout the morning, I tried not to look the turkey in the eye, feeling pangs of guilt knowing we would be eating it by the end of the day. I have never been directly responsible for killing anything bigger than a spider, and I was not sure how I was going to feel about it. Sure enough, when the time came to do the deed, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Brendan was given the duty of doing the killing, while the other girls helped and I looked on from a comfortable distance. We tried to give it the most humane death that we could...we even fed it some corn that morning. We had decided it might work better if we fried it, instead of BBQing it over our tiny charcoal grill, which probably would have taken 2 days. That's the way Tanzanians are used to eating their poultry and it wouldn't take nearly as long that way. So, we borrowed a giant pot, bought a barrel of oil, and after the turkey had been plucked and cleaned, Brendan devised a wire contraption and we gently lowered the 20 lb. turkey in.
People began to arrive at 3 and were starting to eye all the food, so we invited them to start on the first course while we waited for the turkey to cook. I don't know how we managed to prepare enough food for everyone, but we had more than enough (thanks to our friends that agreed to help out and bring a dish). We had mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, cornbread stuffing, green beans, rice and beans, cranberries, fruit salad, chapati, rolls, macaroni and cheese, chicken, and even bruschetta. The turkey came out after most people had already eaten, but they were so excited to try it that they literally ran up for a helping -- and seconds of everything else. Then, in fine Thanksgiving tradition, after everyone was sufficiently stuffed, we brought out the dessert. It went so fast that we had to make sure to save a pie in the kitchen just for us. :)
It turned out to be a great evening. It was hard to find time for myself to eat, since I was running around talking to people and making sure there was enough food. It's hard work being a hostess. Even harder work, though, is the clean-up. The kitchen was such a wreck, it was almost comical. And, to make things even more fun, the power went out promptly at 6, leaving us to wash dishes by candelight. Thankfully, though, all our mzungu friends stuck around for drinks, so we had plenty of help and we made quite a night of it! It was definitely a Thanksgiving I will never forget.
The question then became, how are we going to feed all of these people? And where are we going to fit them all? And how do we bake pies and cook a turkey without an oven? And by the way…does anyone know how to kill and prepare a turkey???
Before I realized what we had gotten ourselves into, we had rented chairs and tables, made a special trip to Arusha to buy necessary ingredients, talked a friend into letting us take over her kitchen for a day (or the weekend, if we needed to, depending on when there happened to be electricity), and then suddenly there was a live turkey tied to our porch. This was definitely going to be memorable.
We lucked out completely that weekend. There was electricity when we needed it, where we needed it, and the weather was beautiful. We woke up early Saturday morning, made a run to the market and several other shops around town to make sure we had everything we needed, and then we ladies loaded up a taxi and headed to Sandra’s house to bake like crazy. And we did – it literally took the entire day, and most of the night, to get everything baked. We made 6 pies (3 apples, 2 sweet potato, and 1 pumpkin) from scratch, chocolate chip cookies, rice crispy treats, glazed sweet potatoes, cornbread, fudge, and baked mac ‘n cheese. We had very little idea of what we were doing and none of us had ever made pumpkin pie or cornbread from scratch before. But, incredibly, it all turned out pretty damn good.
Meanwhile, poor Brendan (the only man of the house, and thus the one assigned all of the bothersome tasks) was running around town, picking up chairs and tables, crates of soda, sharpening knives and getting everything ready for the turkey sacrifice. We all returned home that night (after spilling pie juice all over the taxi seat) exhausted, but feeling good.
The next morning, we woke up early and started preparing everything -- peeling potatoes, carrots, soaking beans, washing green beans, and cleaning rice. Throughout the morning, I tried not to look the turkey in the eye, feeling pangs of guilt knowing we would be eating it by the end of the day. I have never been directly responsible for killing anything bigger than a spider, and I was not sure how I was going to feel about it. Sure enough, when the time came to do the deed, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Brendan was given the duty of doing the killing, while the other girls helped and I looked on from a comfortable distance. We tried to give it the most humane death that we could...we even fed it some corn that morning. We had decided it might work better if we fried it, instead of BBQing it over our tiny charcoal grill, which probably would have taken 2 days. That's the way Tanzanians are used to eating their poultry and it wouldn't take nearly as long that way. So, we borrowed a giant pot, bought a barrel of oil, and after the turkey had been plucked and cleaned, Brendan devised a wire contraption and we gently lowered the 20 lb. turkey in.
People began to arrive at 3 and were starting to eye all the food, so we invited them to start on the first course while we waited for the turkey to cook. I don't know how we managed to prepare enough food for everyone, but we had more than enough (thanks to our friends that agreed to help out and bring a dish). We had mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, cornbread stuffing, green beans, rice and beans, cranberries, fruit salad, chapati, rolls, macaroni and cheese, chicken, and even bruschetta. The turkey came out after most people had already eaten, but they were so excited to try it that they literally ran up for a helping -- and seconds of everything else. Then, in fine Thanksgiving tradition, after everyone was sufficiently stuffed, we brought out the dessert. It went so fast that we had to make sure to save a pie in the kitchen just for us. :)
It turned out to be a great evening. It was hard to find time for myself to eat, since I was running around talking to people and making sure there was enough food. It's hard work being a hostess. Even harder work, though, is the clean-up. The kitchen was such a wreck, it was almost comical. And, to make things even more fun, the power went out promptly at 6, leaving us to wash dishes by candelight. Thankfully, though, all our mzungu friends stuck around for drinks, so we had plenty of help and we made quite a night of it! It was definitely a Thanksgiving I will never forget.
posted by Ashley at
4:14 PM
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1 comments
