感恩节快乐!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Thanksgiving 2008 was a HUGE success here in Zhanjiang. We spent all week planning and preparing our feast. We all had classes Thursday and Friday, so we celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday night. We invited all of our closest Chinese friends, and there were 17 people all together. There is a hotel on campus that has a restaurant on the second floor, and we arranged to rent a room from them. They allowed us to bring in some of our own American dishes as long as we ordered some of their food too. It worked out pretty well.

I arranged my classes so that I would not have to teach at all on Friday. With Kudo's help, we managed to track down a turkey. Friday morning I got up early and went down to the docks to pick it up.

The Docks

There I met our friend Jude who works at a hospital downtown and together we went off in search of the elusive meat importer. Most of the shops understandably deal in seafood distribution, so finding this particular importer took some hunting, but finally we found it tucked away in a back alley.

It may not look like much, but it delivers the goods.

We walked up and when the owner saw me he said, "You must be here for the turkey!" Both Jude and I were a little surprised that he knew before we said anything, but he said that he doesn't get too many orders for turkeys (they mostly deal in seafood and other types of poultry), so when he saw a giant foreigner, he simply put two and two together. He sent one of his workers scurrying back into the giant walk-in freezer they had and we chatted about this and that. When the worker came back with the bird, they were all pretty proud of the fact that it was a 6 kilo bird. Apparently that's one of the biggest they've ever ordered.

Victorious!

Thank you Norbest!

That little turkey made quite the journey to get to us. It most likely came from a farm in Nebraska, all the way to Zhanjiang, China. Just knowing all the work that went into getting it to us made all the more delicious.

After I grabbed the turkey and said goodbye to Jude (she was on-call that night at the hospital and couldn't attend the dinner), I raced back to school before the bird could start to thaw out. I met Kudo at the hotel, and together we met the Chef who would be in charge of preparing our bird.

This man is a pro.

He showed me his ovens and we discussed how the bird should be thawed out and the proper cooking techniques (he had never heard of basting before). He was pretty impressed at how much I knew about cooking, and I told him all those years at the Victorian Times Teahouse had really paid off! He was a little thrown off when he realized that the bird's head had been chopped off and the insides cleaned out (in China they usually just chop up the WHOLE bird, head, feet, everything, and cook it all). He was afraid the bird would get dried out, and that's why I stressed the importance of basting. He said he could handle it, and then as we were walking back he stopped and looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. He brought me into a separate room and said, "You know, we could always use that...":

Eat your heart out Lloyd! ;-)

That, gentle readers, is an industrial-sized deep-fat fryer. Or maybe I should say a China-sized deep-fat fryer. Or maybe a DEEP-fat fryer. I think you get the picture. I kid you not, you could deep fry a human being in that monster (not that you would ever want to, but you could). He asked me if I wanted the bird deep fried. Having feasted upon Lloyd's deep-fried turkeys many a time up in Bagley, I emphatically answered "Yes!" I was really excited because I knew how good a deep-fried bird tasted, and the chef was excited because he'd never fried anything that big before. Plus the bird would stay nice and moist that way, and the chef wouldn't have to baste all day long. I believe that's what Michael Scott would call a "win-win-win" situation. ;-)

With the bird taken care of, I rushed home to start cooking the rest of the feast. Mary Jane was in Hong Kong for the week, but had kindly allowed us the use of her apartment/kitchen, since it's much, much cleaner and more well furnished than ours. I had prepared the Jello the night before (sorry Mom, I had to use the Australian Jello, yours didn't make it in time), so first on my list was pumpkin pie. Using my Mom's filling recipe and Linda's crust recipe (we couldn't find shortening Mom), I quickly whipped up three pies...

Unfortunately the toaster oven Linda let us borrow was a bit temperamental and the first two pies got a little "crispy," but by the third pie I had the wacky heat distribution figured out and so the last one turned pretty good:

After the pies were finished, I got to work on the stuffing. John's mom had mailed him some Stove Top mix (thanks Mrs. Berning!), but we were afraid there wouldn't be enough to go around, so I mixed up some home-made stuffing using Mom's recipe. I couldn't find wild rice (go figure, no rice in China), but it still turned out to be really delicious.

By then John and Ben were out of class, so while John made hors d’oeuvres of pickles wrapped in cream cheese and ham, Ben and I got to work on the mashed potatoes. He peeled, and I diced. Then while the potatoes were boiling Ben minced garlic to add to the potatoes, and I put together the cranberry sauce. MJ couldn't find real cranberry sauce in HK, but she had found two different brands of cranberry jelly and some Craisins, so I just mixed them all together.

Then Ben ran upstairs to cook himself some bread using a special mix his mom had sent over (he's alergic to wheat), and I got to work on the gravy. David was down in his place making Mac and Cheese, so everyone was busy chipping in. It was a real team effort.

We had told everyone to be at the restaurant at 7:00pm, and we barely made the deadline (the potatoes took longer to boil than expected). Luckily both O.K. and Kudo showed up to help carry all the food over to the hotel. Everyone was there waiting for us, and we had a wonderful spread of food, both American and Chinese. It was a feast for the ages. And the crown jewel of the feast was most definitely the turkey:

It turned out beautifully.

Yours truly trying my best to tame the beast with a very dull knife.

Everyone raved about how moist and flavorful the turkey was. We all agreed that deep-frying was the way to go. By the time were were done with it, there wasn't much left:

Linda saved the bones and is going to make us turkey soup!

By end of the meal, we were all super stuffed and loosening our belts. I had saved the pie for the end and everyone complained that they didn't have room. But once I set it on the table, it was amazing how quickly those three pies disappeared!

All in all it was a wonderful evening. A delicious meal was consumed, cultural traditions were exchanged, friendships were celebrated and strengthened, and everyone was extremely thankful. It was everything that a Thanksgiving meal should be.

(l to r): Kudo, Mrs. Kudo, Jacob Wu, Ben, Russel, John, Liu

(l to r): Kevin, Angel, Liu Laoshi, Linda, David, Arron

This year, after weeks of planning and shopping, and hours and hours spent in the kitchen, I found myself especially thankful for all the work that all of the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters of the world do every year. Face it guys, when it comes to cooking, we just don't do our share. We watch football all day, and the food just magically appears before us. We pretend to "chip in" by offering to carve the turkey or mash the potatoes, but isn't that really just an excuse to use a big knife and exert some testosterone? Maybe that's just me... but at least I'm "man" enough to admit it.

So to Mommy and Grandma and Audrey and Colleen and Marilyn and Diane and Jodi and Kari and Jeni and all the rest, please allow me to give you a China-sized

THANK YOU!!!

I've always appreciated the food, but it wasn't until this year that I could truly appreciate the effort.

Oh, and the best part of our meal? There was enough food for the traditional Day-After-Thanksgiving Left-Overs!

Sophie, Chocolate and Jackie really like that tradition!

P.S. What's up with all of the links this time around? Product placement anyone?