Thanksgiving 2010

The 2nd Annual Brno Thanksgiving was a success. It's a lot of work putting on Thanksgiving in Europe. Trying to find all of the ingredients is a chore...thank goodness for care packages from home. Plus cooking in metric is not fun for me. There is no 350°F on my oven over here. It's work, but it is oh so worth it.

Friday was spent baking and starting almost all of the side dishes. I was up on Saturday morning at 5 AM to prep the turkey and have it in the oven by 5:30 AM. A short 8 hours later and Tom was done.

People are shocked that my oven is large enough to cook such a big turkey. I guess it's a matter of perspective because I think my oven here is tiny. At 12,6 kg (27.7 lbs) this is the 2nd largest bird I've cooked, only slightly smaller than last year. I called it "Frankenturkey" because it was larger than my nephew. Somehow we ended up naming it "Tom".

Kamila, Tomáš and Ross came over to help with the last minute details and to sort out the music. After everyone arrived and we had been warmed up with enough wine, I explained what Thanksgiving is all about. We went around the group and each person said what they were thankful for.

The food was a big hit. It is so cool seeing all of the reactions to the different items. To Czechs, our holiday foods are very unusual.







We had Tom (the turkey), cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, glazed carrots, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with marshmallow, broccoli cheese casserole, cranberry sauce, corn bread muffins with honey butter, macaroni & cheese, marshmallow fruit salad, black beans & rice, deviled eggs, red velvet cake, pecan pies and pumpkin pies. Plus, Claudia made her famous pumpkin soup and Rose hooked us up with some real Mexican queso dip. Yummy!!

Claudia and Tomáš were the only ones who were here last year. I guess that's what happens with a big group of expats...people are always moving on. But on the bright side, a whole new group of Euro-folk discovered what a "turkey coma" is.