Today was our big Thanksgiving celebration! It was a bit haphazard in the execution, as we had a few late RSVPs, but everything worked out.
Claire and I had spent the previous few days pre-cooking some of our meals, so most of the day was spent on the more frivolous aspects of Thanksgiving. Namely, we spent several hours making handturkey decorations as well as a home made turkey centerpiece:
Masterful.
The day was a bit odd, in that while we were painting and taping paper to balloons, a real estate agent was wandering through, taking measurements and doing some sort of property assessment. It was one of those twinned moments of worrying about how we were going to deal with our flat being taken away from us a few weeks in advance combined with the excitement of preparing for a big dinner to feed nine people.
For the most part, though, the day went extremely well. A few days prior, Claire had prepared her delectable tourtieres, which made the house smell like Christmas, so all we had to do was bake them. We'd also made our classic pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust, this time with bonus handturkey outlined with brown sugar, and we were well in hand with a vegan version of baked rice and pumpkin pastries.
Claire and I did end up having a last minute gravy emergency, though, which was possibly the most stressed either of us have been in any of our cooking ventures. We had mashed potatoes and American biscuits on the menu (although our Australian friend and her Kiwi sister-in-law were making them), and I demanded excellent - or at least palatable - gravy. It took us a few batches of last minute panic, but we got there in the end.
Anyway, we had aimed to have guests arrive at around seven, and just on time was a person we had never met before. It turns out that he was a friend of our third and absent cohost, but we started him off on handturkey-making.
Now, it was actually really interesting to have these guys do handturkeys, because this ubiquitous American public school activity had no analogue in New Zealand. Because no one celebrated Turkey Day in New Zealand, none of our guests had made a hand turkey before or had even heard of them. Claire and I had to explain that your hand was a turkey, your thumb was traditionally the head, and you got to decorate it however you wanted. Quite a few of them ended up being a bit stumpy because we forgot to mention that feet generally happened beneath the bottom of your palm. A few of our guests were a tad nonplussed ("What does a turkey look like?"), but we emphasized that this was an activity traditionally done by enthusiastic five year olds and ultimately looked like they were fingerpainted by elephants.
Despite the unfamiliarity, or perhaps because of it, the results were spectacular. In addition to a few abstract hand turkeys, we had a steampunk zombie turkey, an Indian chef turkey, a strange stag-rooster-turkey, Art Deco turkey. I was so pleased.
How can you not love this?
After everyone arrived and everyone created their hand turkey, we ate in the tradition of Americans, which is to say long past satiety and with many sighs and loosened belts. It was most excellent.
We sat around and talked for a good long while and the easy comfort of the moment was a really welcome break from all the other thoughts we'd been going through.
The evening ended with an endless game of Carmen Sandiego, where by the end we all started to slump over with the weight of our bellies and the hour.
Our guests staggered out at around two in the morning, and Claire and I looked at the culinary warzone in our kitchen and smiled, because that was precisely right.
Excellent company, excellent food. Many hand turkeys.
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