Thanksgiving!

So we celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. It was a LOT of work; I can now really appreciate what my parents went through every year to put it together. So on Friday, we picked up our 11 pound turkey from a Metzgerei (meat shop). Often my host family just buys fresh meat from the market, so going to this little shop in the next town over was really cool to visit. They have all these sorts of meats that look really good, and they know their business. The guy who gave us our turkey also gave us a tip to keep the meat juicy, by putting a pan of water underneath the cooking turkey to keep the air moist. We also went to a Hofladen, because Birgit thought that would be cool for me to visit. It’s basically a local farmer’s shop, so there were fresh apples, eggs, cheeses, and baked goods from local farms or shops. Once we bought everything we needed on my long list of supplies, I began the preparations by making my family’s 7 Layer Salad and JellO Salad. And the substitutes for the things you can’t buy in Germany, like canned cream of mushroom soup, or creamed corn. Basically all the things that normally come in a can.

Saturday morning I had a painting class from the Volkshochschule, so I woke up a bit earlier to prepare a few things. I finished the JellO stuff, and put the turkey in the brine. The bowl was too small to totally dunk the turkey, but we just flipped it after a few hours once I got back, and I don’t think it made a difference. I was very fortunate to have help throughout the day from 2 girls in my school, and a little from my host family. I would have gone nuts without them. We made pumpkin pie, mini-apple pies in a muffin tin (cute!), cornbread casserole, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, a pastry thingy called Red Plum Tasty, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, dinner rolls, and turkey (naturally). It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. I was standing the entire day, and the oven ran non-stop. But it was soooooo worth it. Between the brine, intensive-butter-rub-down, the water tip, and a meat thermometer, the turkey came out PERFECT. I’m so pleased.

They said it tasted really good, better than they expected; even the dog couldn’t resist and stole a bone from the carcass while we weren’t looking. Oops! Everything was interesting and new to them. They found the sweet potato casserole with marshmallows especially weird, and not much was eaten, which I can understand. I don’t like it either. I just thought I should make it for tradition’s sake. And I didn’t particularly like the way the pumpkin pie tasted, because I used a pre-spiced pumpkin can. But otherwise, everything was great, I’m so so so pleased, and it was a good experience for everyone. My host family said I’ll have to come back every year to make a turkey for them, haha. Happy Thanksgiving!