Turkey vs. Estonian blood sausage -- Sausage wins.
Mashed potatoes vs. Sauerkraut -- Tie.
Stuffing vs. Sült -- Stuffing wins. By a long shot.
Pumpkin pie vs. Mom's raisin bread fresh out of the oven -- ooohh... tie.
Broccoli goop vs. ...Broccoli goop -- Win. We have this every holiday and it's amazing.
Okay I can't choose. Thankfully, I live in America, where I can celebrate both and I don't have to choose. Poor Estonians. They don't have Thanksgiving. ...That is, most years they don't have Thanksgiving.
Enter Maarika, the Culinarily Enlightened One.
Since Thanksgiving is such a big deal in my family, I knew I was going to feel lonely and depressed witout them. So I decided way back in October that I was going to put on the best Thanksgiving Estonia has ever seen. The first week of November I started organizing menus and talking to my relatives in Tallinn. I e-mailed Mom for recipes. I freaked out a lot. Mom reassured me that my relatives have never had a Thanksgiving before, so if I messed up they wouldn't have anything better to compare it to. Mom found and sent me the gaudiest, corniest Thanksgiving decorations she could find, along with happy Pilgrim cards and cans of pumpkin puree. ... This was the first major holiday meal I was going to be responsible for. This was going to be epic.
On real Thanksgiving, I didn't do much. Went to folk dance practice, ate some gingerbread cookies, listened to ABBA on repeat. On Friday, though, I took the bus up to Tallinn and my Thanksgiving madness began.
Grocery bill: 757.54 EEK (not including the birds)
Number of cooks: 4
Total number of mimosas: 12
Number of pumpkin pies: 2
Total kilos of turkey: 14
Corniness threat level: Orange.
Number of consumers: 12
Number of American flags used: Never enough.
Everything tasted, looked and smelled perfect. My Thanksgiving dinner was such a success that I'm tempted to try it again someday....
But one last thing.
Happy first of December! I'm home in 18 days!
2 comments:
Kraut vs. Mashed 'taters a TIE!?
I'm half (or more) German and I'd easily give that to the spuds.
I've never made Pumpkin pie from a can. I had industrious friends and we learned to make it from the pumpkin as a whole - which was good because then we could bake pumpkin seeds as we went. I highly recommend this: 1 pumpkin, 1 bottle of whiskey, half of the necessary ingredients. The more of the whiskey that is... "applied" the more creative you get for how to make up for the ingredients you don't have. The first year we did it it was perfect - honestly perhaps the best pie I've ever had (and not 'cause it was drunk food, we ended up sober and another day through classes by the time it was cool and firm). The next time it didn't turn out so well... also I had way too much pumpkin so I fed it to the compost worms, but it had too much water in it and they all drowned. I'm still not fully over killing 500 or so worms that we actively making the world a better place. Sounds like your Thanksgiving was a bit more successful.
you can imagine my s korean thanksgiving adventures. turns out pie isnt a staple food over here (unless i unleashed some kind of kim chi-pastry hybrid) but im glad you had a good one. i miss oregon dearly. see you in 9 months
Post a Comment