I may have celebrated Thanksgiving more this year than any year in the past, which is ironic since I was not on American turf. Granted, my celebrations were a bit different, and it was my first Thanksgiving away from my family. Luckily, I had some good friends to celebrate with here so I was not lonely on a holiday centered around spending time with good company!
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| Thanksgiving Dinner |
Thanksgiving #1 - Dinner with other auxiliares/expats!
My roommates and I hosted a Thanksgiving feast in our
piso for dinner on Thursday. Since our
piso has both an oven & a large table, we cooked the chicken here. (No, I do not mean the turkey. It is tough to find turkey here, and if you want a whole one, it must be ordered weeks in advance from what I have gathered, so we settled for baking 2 chickens instead.) There were 11 of us & everyone brought a dish. We had mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, salad, rolls, a jello dish (family tradition of one of the auxiliares, kind of our substitute for cranberry sauce), apple pie, and a couple other desserts.
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| The rest of our group |
Thanksgiving #2 - Skyping with my family!
It was really fun to be able to see and chat with not only my parents and siblings, but also my aunt, uncle, and cousins! It made me feel not so far away to talk and joke around with them for 30 minutes. Definitely made it feel more like a holiday as well.
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| My family on Thanksgiving last year - miss you all so much! |
Thanksgiving #3 - Cooking a Thanksgiving meal for a few of the Spaniards in Mérida
On Sunday Angela and I cooked another traditional thanksgiving meal for her host family and a few other guests. It came out really well, and they seemed to enjoy it. The menu was very similar, but we added homemade stuffing this time. It turned out to be my favorite part of the meal. I was very proud of our cooking skills because we only partially used a recipe, then just invented the rest. (We used bread, celery, celery leaves, onions, garlic, chicken stock, and quite a few spices & herbs.) I stayed around to hangout for several hours after the meal, it was a great time to just relax & enjoy each other's company.
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| Part of our improvised Thankgiving dinner |
I have been cooking from scratch way more than any other time in the past. It's not as intimidating as I once thought, and I usually end up like the food more than the quick things I would make back home.
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| Another homemade success! |
