As an Aussie, to me, Thanksgiving has always conjured up
images of giant turkeys, large family gatherings and hollowed-out
pumpkins (yes, I’m a little confused with Halloween there, never-the-less there
is pumpkin pie!). So, after 22 years of our Aussie-equivalent: rowdy Australia Day, I
was ecstatic when I realised I would be in the USA for their iconic family holiday.
It’s only 8pm and I’m exhausted, but it’s been a wonderfully
festive day. It started out with a morning full of cooking whilst watching the
TODAY show’s parade; we made corn muffins (interesting savoury cake), stuffing
(for the turkey of course), and pumpkin pie (I was a little hesitant about
trying this one but I can actually say it was pretty delicious, it somewhat
reminded me of carrot cake). The cooking was followed by the traditional
Thanksgiving Day Dog Show, a full 3 hours of television dedicated to primped
and preened pooches strutting their stuff – apparently it’s one the highest
rating programs of the year. Then it was time to head to the neighbourhood’s
Thanksgiving lunch/afternoon/dinner – it seems, on this holiday, regular meal
times are not an influencing factor but it turns out I’m actually glad we had
‘dinner’ at 4pm because even now, 4 hours later, I’m still stuffed!
I felt like a total tourist when I first laid eyes on the
turkey – here was I envisaging a bird slightly larger than a regular roast
chicken. But oh no. This beast weighed 9kgs so it’s safe to say there was
plenty to go around for the 15 of us at lunch.
I thoroughly enjoyed the day and want to say a big thank you
to those I shared the celebration with. It has been a wonderful first
Thanksgiving for me and I hope to share many more in the future.
Off to New York
tomorrow, more posts then.