Thanksgiving

As most of you know from the 'Thanksgiving hangover' that you might be suffering from today, yesterday was Thanksgiving. This year, it was a special one for me... the first legit holiday away from my family... but also the first legit holiday in a new country! I decided to make some traditional Thanksgiving food for the housemates. Little did they know, I have never cooked most of those things in my life and I set my goals high with my menu choices.

Thanksgiving day began with a trip downtown to buy all of the ingredients for dinner. It was so strange to shop in a grocery store on Thanksgiving... it was like any other day. Of course, in the US, you don't dare to go into a grocery store on Thanksgiving (or the day before)... you might get trampled.

My housemate, Nicole, joined me on this shopping adventure. Yes, it was an adventure...

First stop: Tesco. Found most of our ingredients here... no pumpkin, though. Hmm. Maybe Marks and Spencers would have a can of pumpkin?

Second stop: Boots Pharmacy. I needed to pick up more medicine and the distilled water I had ordered on Monday to use with my Neti Pot. Bad news, it was very ambiguous whether or not it was actually distilled water... and it was a 5 liter bottle. SO HEAVY and obnoxious.

Third stop: Poundland to pick up some cheap things Tesco didn't have.

Fourth stop: Marks and Spencers to find that they did not have pumpkin. We were told to go to a store that might had it. The name escapes me... I think it began with an 'S.'

Fifth stop: The store that began with an 'S.' Low and behold, THEY HAD CANS OF PUMPKIN.

Sixth stop: Bakery. Do you sell just the crust of a pie? No. Moving on..

Seventh stop: Back to Marks and Spencers for the pie crust which was actually pastry dough. Any pie tins? No.

Eigth stop: Poundland for a cake pan that we will use as a pie tin.

Ninth stop: Dangit, we forgot to get cranberries and we need Whipped Cream for the pumpkin pie. Back to Tesco.

After nine, yes NINE, different stops, we had all the ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner. We took a taxi back to the house because that 5 liter bottle of questionable water I was carrying would not have made it home otherwise.

Nicole and I started cooking around 1pm, took a short break, and finished by 6:30pm... just on time for the 7pm dinner time! :) Everything went smoothly. That pumpkin pie, after so much hassle to get the ingredients, became holy. Nothing was going to destroy that pie... not even our sketchy oven was going to harm it.

Special note on the oven: 
1) The temperature is in Celsius... uhh
2) All of the hieroglyphic-like symbols are mostly worn off. Is it on 'bake'? Mayybeee?
3) There is no way to regulate the temperature... it is a complete guessing game. The lowest temperature could melt Hell.
4) We've only used it about 4 times since we've been here... it scares us a little.

All in all, the Thanksgiving dinner was a success... and we have TONS of leftovers which are taking over the house fridge (which is a mini-fridge).

It wasn't exactly like the Thanksgiving that I'm used to, but I was able to spend the day listening to Christmas music with my housemates. What more could I ask for? :)

Happy Thanksgiving!