An International Thanksgiving!

Every couple tells the story of the first Thanksgiving they host together and more times than not there is at least some sort of disaster along the way. Well, we are proud to announce that while there were definitely ups and downs to our feast, the festive holiday was celebrated without a major glitch or charred turkey. Thanksgiving is both of our favorite holidays, and since we were celebrating it away from our family and friends, we decided that if we couldn't go home for Thanksgiving, we would bring the Thanksgiving holiday here to Kenya. We had been looking forward to planning Thanksgiving a good month before the day arrived. We had invited a number of guests and had a very traditional menu in mind. As Thanksgiving week approached, we went to the grocery store to price out food and to see if they had what we needed. Our biggest concern was the turkey. While Eric had originally set his hopes high on personally picking out a fresh turkey, and preparing it from the slaughtering to the basting, as Laurel and her friends had done the previous year, convenience won and we opted for the more traditional frozen turkey from one of the local butchers.

With our bird reserved and menu planned, our next order of business was something we put off until the last minute, making sure the oven worked. While Alice assured us it had worked when she first moved into the place, four years ago, she admitted it hadn't been touched in years. It wasn't until Monday night that we decided we needed to look into it. Much to our dismay, the electric oven was not hooked up and it was a little more complicated than just plugging it in. We informed Alice and she said she would call the electrician in the morning. Knowing how Kenyans work, or rather don't, on a time schedule, we reminded her in the morning of her promise to call someone and she delivered, having the electrician show up a quick hour after the call was placed. It was then we decided we needed to stay home to actually make sure the oven worked before the electrician left. It did, albeit without a temperature indicator or knob to adjust the temperature for that matter. We were confident in our ability to wing it and set out for the shopping. Thursday morning rolled around, and we bounded out bed, Eric for the first time ever, eager to start cooking. We almost had to find things to do before preparing the pies, which were slated to be put in the oven at 11:30. Now, we both claim our mothers make the best apple pie and when we emailed home for Thanksgiving recipes, we requested both. Naturally, having Laurel in the kitchen, this turned into a competition. She proposed having a taste contest, not telling our guests whose was whose and having them vote. Eric was quick to veto that idea, as it took away from the meaning of the day, and we decided to make both pies and serve one slice of each. Our mothers would be proud of how our crusts turned out and we were getting really excited about cooking our masterpieces when billows of smoke pouring out of the oven snapped us back to reality. We had been baking bread crumbs for the stuffing and were appalled to see smoke coming out of every crevasse possible. It smelled terrible. We cracked open every window in the house, disconnected the gas for the stove and crossed our fingers something wouldn't explode. We took the bread crumbs out, and having no plan B, put our pies in the oven and hoped for the best.

Thankfully, after awhile the smoke stopped and we concluded that it was the buildup of cobwebs and cockroaches between the oven and the stove burning off after so many years of not being used. Appetizing, we know. The pies cooked quickly, very quickly actually and as our crusts turned golden brown, we were dumbfounded that we may actually have pulled off one of the hardest parts of the meal.

While the bottom crusts were a little soggy, we didn't want to burn the top, so decided for first-timers, they were pretty good and set our priority to preparing the turkey. We had a 5 kg turkey and had no idea how to go about preparing it. Internet research didn't help either, as every article insisted on a meat thermometer, which we couldn't find anywhere. Knowing the basics, we cleaned the bird, spiced it, and stuffed the inside with some lemon, onion, and the stuffing. We read somewhere to put water at the bottom of the pan with some rosemary and thyme, so we did that, closed the bird up, and tossed it in the oven. We should mention we didn't have a traditional pan to put the turkey in, and instead had to use this ginormous pot that just barely fit in the oven. But, it had to do.

As the turkey cooked, Eric literally pulled up a chair in front of the oven, watching it as intently as a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons. I assured him watching it did not make the time go by faster, but he was so anxious to baste the thing to make sure it wasn't dry, not to mention we had no idea what temperature we were cooking the thing at.

Between basting the turkey and checking on it every five minutes, we started preparing all of our vegetable dishes, peeling carrots and potatoes and snapping green beans. Luckily, our friend Carmen came over to help and she was a master peeler. Eric and I were a little knife challenged when it came to peeling as we are spoiled with the convenience and apparently strictly American peeler. in no time everything was peeled, washed, cut, and ready to cook. Now we just had to wait for the turkey to be done to free up the oven. it is amazing how time flies and when we opened the oven after what felt like an hour, which in reality was three and half, the bird looked incredible and smelled amazing! "Should we take it out?", Laurel asked. " I don't know," Eric replied, "I never thought we'd get this far". Having no other ideas, we pulled it out and had Eric cut into it in an inconspicuous spot. We were elated to find that the meat was not only completely white all the way through, but was incredibly moist ( we obviously had to taste it immediately). It was almost too easy.

Setting that aside, we putzed around some more cooking, baking, and counting down the minutes until the guests arrived so we could dig into our prized turkey. Another thing we are immensely proud of about our meal was the homemade french fried onion rings to top the green bean casserole. Obviously, French fried onion rings is not one of the imported goods here, and we didn't plan ahead enough to have them sent to us ( not that they would've gotten to us in time even if we had), so we went about making our own. Alot of oil, flour, and onion induced tears later, they were a success!! Except that we only ended up with about half of what we made because, well, they smelled delicious and tasted like a bloomin' onion!!

Caitlin, our American friend, was our first guest, and kept us company in the kitchen while we scrambled to have everything done on time. Valeria came shortly after and it became apparent that everyone would want to hang out in the kitchen, which was not only not big enough, but also had too much going on to begin with. As Carmen, Sebastian, and Raul arrived, we shooed everyone out into the dining room. Our Kenyan friend Brian, who runs on Kenyan time consistently, frantically called and said he was on his way and we better not start without him ( we had warned him about showing up past the scheduled time)! Alice, the lady we are staying with, was also MIA, and after a quick call to her, it was obvious she was not going to be home anytime soon. But, the food was ready, we were starving, and the guests were waiting, so it was on with the show. Eric carved the turkey and Laurel set out the rest of the dishes, after a last minute rush to make the gravy and get everything out, as we had no idea where half the stuff in the kitchen was. Brian arrived and we were ready. Before we dug in, Eric explained the origin of the holiday and also requested that everyone go around the table and say one thing they were thankful for this year. This is a tradition that is done at the Edwards' Thanksgiving dinner and something that we really wanted to do. After everyone had finished and Eric prayed for the food, we served ourselves heaping plates and got ready to dig in....... And then the power went out! But, we didn't care in the least because we had finished all of our cooking, food was served, and we really didn't need to see to eat, because, well, Thanksgiving dinner is meant o be mixed together and eaten. The power stayed out for the majority of the meal, until Alice arrived and got the electrician to fix the problem. Turns out all of our cooking with the oven had blown a fuse or something... oops.

 Alice was joined by our friend Simon, who also showed up a good hour and a half past dinner, so we put together plates for them while we were preparing the pies. Now, apple pie is best served with ice cream, but we decided to go for homemade whipped cream. Which is great, except once again, we were going without the modern convenience of an egg beater, so Laurel literally sat there and beat the cream for what seemed like hours as the guests watched in amusement. Finally, it started stiffening and we were once again amazed that it actually turned out, albeit it had way more powder sugar than necessary! The meal concluded with a piece of each pie, which we could barely finish because we were all so full. Now I understand why Thanksgiving is served in the afternoon, because having it for dinner, then trying to go to bed is a problem. Both of our stomachs hurt so bad from the richness of the food and the sheer quantity of it consumed, we were so thankful for our guests who helped us with dishes. Our Thanksgiving concluded around 11 o clock and we rolled to bed.

One of the funniest parts of the night was having our househelp, who is responsible for all of the cooking, taste our American food. We were really excited because we knew they were flavor combinations she had never tried before, and wanted to see her reaction to the meal. First, she tried the pasta salad. "Is it supposed to be served cold?", she asked with a facial expression that said it all. She also hated the green bean casserole and the honey glazed carrots we made. So basically, she like the mashed potatoes and the turkey, the two most basic dishes possible. Alice said it's because she comes straight from the village. Alice, on the other hand, loved every dish and asked when we were having Thanksgiving again. Everyone agreed the meal was delicious and that our holiday was a great success.

After everyone left, as we were washing dishes, we decided that it is alot more stressful to host Thanksgiving than we imagined. The cooking throughout the day when no one was around was fine, but as guests showed up and we were finishing cooking, things got a little hectic! But, it was well worth sharing Thanksgiving with a fellow American, Spaniard, French/Venezuelan, and Kenyans alike. We all agree that Thanksgiving, the meaning behind it, and the food, should be an international  holiday.

I'd say that alone made our first thanksgiving a success.

-Laurel & Eric