Gobble Gobble Turkey Day

Thoughts on an Australian Thanksgiving. Every year a well meaning soul will ask me, in all sincerity, do we celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia? Well, actually the answer is no. Sadly the pilgrims didn't land in Australia. There were no Indians to share the corn. In fact I have a sneaky suspiscion that many of our first "settlers" weren't of a mind to celebrate their arrival on an annual basis let alone with an "all things cranberry and turkey" fest.

Since we have been living here in the US we have embraced Turkey Day as a day on which to gather our fellow expatriate friends, laugh, cook and eat together. Sometimes a little football will be watched but not too much! We stop for a moment to reflect on our good fortune and things for which we are thankful. It is like Christmas dinner without the stress of Christmas.

We have a fairly traditional Thanksgiving menu- Roast turkey with stuffing, gravy, roast vegetables, green beans, cranberry relish and jelly and a pumpkin pie. We are open to one day experiencing a deep fried turkey (if somebody else cooks it) but will most likely continue to draw the line at anything with marshmallows on top, candied yams, sweet potato pie or the tofu turkey.

We have a Thanksgiving tradition of our own... it's been about 7 years now so it's safe to call it a tradition. In our house the men don their chef hats and do most of the cooking whilst the women watch, heckle, drink wine and then ...eventually eat. Sometimes we women folk do a few dishes, find things that are in plain view, take photos and prepare appetisers and cook the greens.

The routine is fairly well honed. The turkey , around 12-14lbs, is ordered from Wholefoods. The same recipes are used every year. There's some pumpkin soup (butternut squash) to keep us sustained until the main event ( I cook a double batch of this at Halloween to freeze). There will also be a few little hitches. This year Breadwinner decided to store the turkey overnight in the esky (cooler). We have a bear in the neighbourhood, so he locked the esky in the car. Unfortunately it froze. The turkey not the bear. Our oven hasn't been fully functional of late and the spare part did not arrive until late on Friday. When I explained that we were doing an early Thanksgiving meal, the repairman made a special effort to come first thing Saturday morning to fix the oven. I am making huge progress in "Keeping Calm and Carrying on" because the fact that the oven was broken and the turkey frozen didn't bother me at all. In fact I was so relaxed (tired) I slept in until 10am. (Actually I am not well.)

A few small obstacles will not thwart our determined chefs, especially when they have visions of roast potatoes and gravy dancing in their heads.

So meet "Uncle Petey", and the Breadwinner, this years' Gnome Turkey Chefs Extrordinaire.

You can see one of their esteemed colleagues on the brie box.

These two work together like a well oiled machine...or not. Uncle Petey who comes from a short line of chef, is in charge of triumphantly finding the giblets, the potatoes, annual knife sharpening and carving. Mid preparations Uncle Petey will go for a run. Yes...he goes for a run. As he leaves he will sneakily turn the oven off. The Breadwinner, whose own father can barely make a cup of tea, is the expert in cranberry jelly, stuffing and annoying the turkey every 30 minutes. Pulling it out of the oven at every opportunity so it doesn't cook too fast.

Sometimes they move so fast it is hard to capture their speedy culinary moves.

Then they stop to consult Martha. Yes, they will not ask for directions but they will meticulously (ie fearfully) follow a recipe.

Martha requires this turkey be swaddled in muslin like a baby and then be basted lovingly with tons of melted butter and white wine. Every 30 minutes. For what seems like 2 days. Unfortunately the muslin doesn't taste so good.

Since the oven was repair wasn't complete until 11.30am that morning, lunch eventually became dinner.

Fortunately we had ample provisions to keep us sustained until everything came together in a delicious meal..at around 6.30pm.

TA DA ! Isn't he/she/ beautiful!

The kids kept themselves busy....chasing the Apprentice Gnome Turkey. This year he had no actual kitchen duties so no "chef" title. Actually there are two Apprentice Gnome Turkey Chefs... they had better study hard because their hats will be waiting for them next year!
The little people were very well behaved (mostly) , they went on a turkey hunt, coloured placemats, ate mac n cheese and then some turkey, and then settled to watch a new Disney Tinkerbell movie. Later they hid in the "cubby house" to tell spooky stories. 4 year old spooky stories.
There was orange jelly for the kids too ...and waaay to many candy canes.

My favourite thing of all ....the stuffing! Oh my, awesome sausage, apple, cranberry, herb and cornbread stuffing. I am thinking we might just have stuffing for dinner.

Now that our family includes two little US citizens we may well be celebrating Thanksgiving for years to come, at least as far as circumstances/ingredients will permit. In any case we have come to an understanding that there will never again be a hot turkey dinner at our house on Christmas Day. We are going to be having ours some time between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL AND SAFE TRAVELS from the keeper of the recipes.

I've not done this before....

I mean, entering into competitions online.

So a few days ago I did..and look here!

A welcome bright spot amongst a few not so bright spots this week.

I need to post..

I am surprisingly slow at keeping this blog up to date...

let me plonk some photos here in this space for you... and summarise - Halloween was FUN!

We didn't carve our pumpkins this year...instead we went for The Mr Potato Head kits. Easy.

On the Friday morning the twins wore their costumes to pre school for a Pumpkin Party. That afternoon we attended our local Halloween tailgate which shows the best of our local community- not to say that they are all monsters, ghouls and vampires, but that they are hugely creative and generous. The way the cars/trucks/vans are decorated is incredible... maybe next year we'll give that a go...maybe.

I didn't see much of Yum Yum, we became separated in the parade so she did the Halloween tailgate with her daddy whilst I shepherded the Boo duck who did get very enthusiastic about her candy collection.

Our dentist will be pleased to see his best patients taking good care of their teeth..they are still thrilled with the Firefly toothbrushes they collected at the tailgate. They also wore these vampire to teeth the following week.

We were exceptionally pleased that there was no more Halloween for us on Saturday- instead we did the soccer duties, checked on the donut supply at the cider mill and went for a walk in the forest. We re-arranged the junk in our garage into spooky junk in the garage and on Sunday afternoon and into the evening, hosted a bunch of friends in our driveway...because we live in Halloween St. So with a firepit and plenty of food/wine we had a lot of laughs.

Most of the area is semi rural/ hilly. Our street is flat, it's a horseshoe shape and is home to a several enthusiastic homeowners who embrace spooky decor wholeheartedly. We have little choice but to join in..and now the annual celebrations are getting closer and closer to becoming one big street party. We forgot to keep a tally this year ..we get around 200 trick-or-treaters, possibly 300. Still, we are grateful that we don't live in Christmas Street. They must go bonkers with the cars driving slowly past ...over and over again...for weeks! Not to mention the electricity bill.

Eventually the candy high wore off and normal activity has resumed.

Note to self. Halloween 2011..ghosts x 3. This time I really mean it.

Done!

I think I nailed it! When I saw the pink wig for $6 I knew it had to be. We also added a "slime"to a headband to help keep her wig on. The "slime" is a key character of the Dragonquest game...apparently. Bear was very happy with the way the costume looked, the acid test of recognition by her peers was passed with flying colours....although her music teacher thought she was Gelda or was it Zelda?.

two down, one to go

I have completed the costumes for Boo and Yum Yum... they wanted to go as their cuddlies.."Bunny" and "Ducky". It would have been a whole lot easier to just buy them a costume each...but I always have to complicate things and make more work for myself.

Bears' costume is still a WIP, to be completed very soon, hopefully by the time the Halloween tailgate starts this afternoon! The fabric glue is making me feel a little odd.

Wish me luck....

Bear wants to be this "hero" from the Dragonquest game. Apparently the game allows you to choose your own hair colour so we won't be concerned about pink hair. We have come up with a compromise regarding the skirt , it will be an apron. The chances of finding pale yellow long sleeved top and leggings are slim so we will be using white, possibly dyed with some tea.

It's Wednesday night- must be bento time

Yes, you are seeing googly eyes on a banana. I'm hoping it gives them a giggle. Yum Yum is my only banana eater and even then it isn't always her thing. For lack of any other fruit to fill the gaps, Bear and Boo have carrots and teeny rounds of edam cheese-cut with an apple corer. I'm doing the apple pancakes again but I had to combine a Bisquick with a Jemima pancake mix, and it didn't seem to cook as nicely. I couldn't find the fruit leather so this time I used cranberries and dried apricots for faces. The photo is upside down- don't ask. Back in OZ we would ordinarily mix our own pancake (pikelet) batter but we have become accustomed to the reliable results of Aunt Jemima's- (read lazy).The twins will also have a yohgurt drink (Danimals Smoothie) whilst China always has 2% skim milk provided at school.

When 4 year olds paint pumpkins....

When the Breadwinner spied these globs (not globes) he exclaimed his surprise that we would choose to buy green pumpkins. On closer inspection he wanted to know why anyone would paint orange pumpkins, green? There was a very adamant response.."they are NOT green daddy, they are GREY!".

Whew, 'cause what to do with them otherwise? When I think about their handiwork I have to admit they actually came up with a perfectly valid Halloween transformation. I have some ideas on how to complete their vision. Even if I hadn't been distracted by a sparkly cat yawning...

I don't believe I could have (or should have) changed the outcome. They enjoyed themselves and that is what mattered.

Reasons to like Fall-photo fest

I'm sure you can see why we love this time of year here in the US... it's simply beautiful. No more humidity in the air, crisp mornings, colour in the foliage, harvest festivals, apple picking, pie eating, corn mazes, hay rides, doughnuts and apple cider. There are plenty of reasons to get outside and enjoy the sunshine. Halloween is now just weeks away and is a big community wide celebration. We have started decorating the house inside and out and I'd better get cracking on costumes. One farmer, a scarecrow, a bunny, a duck, and some person from DragonQuest ?