My Big Fat Aussie Thanksgiving

Well, I did it; I have now successfully prepared a Thanksgiving feast.  Over the past two days, I have gone shopping and have spent a number of hours in the kitchen.  On Wednesday, I went to Victoria Market to get the necessary fruits and veggies, and then later in the day I made the trek to the grocery store for the rest of the ingredients.  Luckily I had some help from my roommate, otherwise I don't think I would have been able to carry it all in one go.

Once I got home, I cut up and prepared the vegetables so they would be ready to go when I needed them.  The first dish I tackled was the cranberry relish.  It was relatively easy, but just needed to get into the refrigerator to chill overnight.  The one hurdle came when I discovered that I was going to have to use dried cranberries because fresh/frozen ones were nowhere to be found.  After that was the pumpkin pie.  I had to make my own purée, but since I'd done it once already it wasn't too difficult.  There was a little mishap getting the mixture into the oven (aka the pie tin was flimsy and the mix was runny so some of it spilled over the side) but once that was taken care of, it was smooth sailing.  When that was finished, I called it a day.

This morning I got up and went straight into making the mashed potatoes, followed soon after by the stuffing.  This was probably the dish I couldn't wait to get my hands on because it smelled so good while it was baking.  After that was the green bean casserole, the turkey, and finally the yams.  I had to get creative because near the end we were running low on oven-safe dishes.  Luckily I'm an engineer so I was able to rig something up ;)  While I was waiting for the turkey to cook through, I decided to pack up some of my things.  I wanted to put together a donation bag for The Salvation Army ("The Salvos"), so I thought it would be a good time to pack up the things I won't be needing in the next month or so.  My desk is now cleaned out and half of my closet is packed away.  It's kind of surreal, but exciting at the same time.

There was a last minute push to get everything on the table, but I was successful and the feast started after Liz got home from work at around 7:15.  Liz, Sun, and I all took turns ceremoniously "carving" the turkey and overall, my roommates were very impressed.  They continued to ask questions about the food and the holiday in general throughout the meal.  It made me really happy to be eating this sort of "comfort food" and I felt just a little bit more connected to the ones I love at home.  It was really a great evening, even though now I'm super full (isn't stuffing yourself part of the protocol for this holiday?).  We have enough leftovers to feed ourselves for the next couple of days; I won't have to cook again until the beginning of next week, which is really nice to know.

I had a lot of fun with the whole experience, but hopefully next year I'll be surrounded by family.  I would love to help out in the kitchen more, so maybe my mom will relinquish some of the responsibilities.  For now, I think I'll just revel in the praise of my roommates and enjoy this feeling in my stomach.  I'm one full and very happy camper.