Thanksgiving

OK, I have not been very good about updating the blog since holidays started, and a lot has gone on since then so be prepared for a long read. I think I will break it up into three parts, being Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. To fill the gaps between these holidays just picture lots of food and drink and that pretty much pulls it all together.

I have to say that missing Thanksgiving may have been the worst part of not being home for the holiday season because at this point in my life it edges out Christmas. But my housemates and I put on one hell of a thanksgiving production that, after five hours of cooking (the most in my life), had a room of Spaniards very impressed with American food and culture.

I have not mentioned yet that I have a new roommate, Courtney,  who is from Renton, WA (Seattle area) and has been living with us since mid October. For the last two years she participated in the program that I am in and is now working in Malaga as an English teacher. Courtney and I really made the entire dinner minus sweet potatos that were provided by Cara, another language assistant like me who is from New York. Courtney and I selected dishes we wanted and the night before thanksgiving Eugenio, Courtney and I shopped like crazy to find all the right ingredients. Improvisation is always necesary for cooking here because the supermarkets usually don´t have all of the ingredientes to make American food. For example making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a process because people don´t eat peanut butter here and you have to go on a quest to find peanut butter and when you do find it you have to pay about triple the price. So it can be a pain in the ass to make a dish that is not common to Spain i.e. Mexican food, which kills me. Eugenio´s mom was a saint as usual (she always makes food for us) and provided us with the turkey. After all the cooking I really appreciate the effort that goes into thanksgiving, and I also really appreciate potlucks. Courtney and I made everything from scratch and the menu included turkey with carrots and potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravey, stuffing, yams,  cheesy broccoli with fried onions (I tried my best to create something similar to Rod and Cathy´s cheesy broccoli), salad, beer, wine, apple pie and cheese cake.

It was an awesome spread and the best part was the appreciation from all of our friends. We were a total of 13 people. None of the Spaniards had ever eaten turkey prepared whole, and they had never had gravey like the kind we made and the certainly had never seen anything like stuffing, cheesy broccoli or sweet potatoes. They loved it! I started the dinner with an exemplary toast about giving thanks for family, friends, health, food, good company ect. Everyone laughed and smiled and all the Spaniards were convinced that I had recited the toast before the dinner (Of course I didn´t! It was a pretty standard thanksgiving toast but they have never heard one). Haha. Throughout the meal everyone at the table made their own toast. It was pretty hilarious listening to everyone because they are all big bromistas, jokesters, and were cracking me up with their toasts. I grabbed one of the legs of the turkey and ate it by hand boisterously and drank out of a litro bottle of beer, epitomizing the Thanksgiving sentiment. It felt really good to be able to share a bit of American culture and food the with the Spaniards because Spaniards are very proud of their culture and  food and ask frequently about American food and culture for comparison, but it is difficult to explain because the US as a culture is a mixture of cultures. I felt very proud to share something so American with them and that they enjoyed it so much. The US as a whole may not have traditional foods and customs that have been engrained in culture since ancient history like Spain, but we have a very strong culture and it was nice to be able demonstrate it so well.

By the end of the evening everyone was stuffed from food and very happy. We all joked that the three Americans were the start of an American conquest back to Europe through Spain and that our thanksgiving celebration was a repitition of history, the Spaniards being the natives and the Americans the pilgrims.