Thursday, November 18, 2010

Ya'll better be thankful, darnit!

As our American readers know, Thanksgiving is coming up. This is a holiday every American has grown up with, and each family has its own traditions that make this time of year special. Hollywood likes to satirize the drama that can sometimes come from having so much family together time, but being away from home during the holidays certainly makes one long for the days of family tension filling the air over the dinner table.

The hubs and I are hosting Thanksgiving for our colleagues. I've wanted to host Thanksgiving for years, but I've generally been overridden by family members with bigger houses and larger dining room tables. I'm really excited to finally get to have a house full of guests and yummy Thanksgiving aromas.

Well, hopefully my house will be filled with the usual aromas. See, some of the traditional American products are hard to find over here, making the typical dishes (read: dressing and green bean casserole) a lot harder to prepare than they should be.

A few of the things that are going to require a little extra searching: marshmallows (pork products are illegal, you know. google it.), celery, condensed soups (a la cream of mushroom and others), Jiffy corn bread mix, and any sort of cooking wine/sherry/alcohol at all.

Luckily, I don't think my guests will mind. All of the residents of the house are invited, including our Thai neighbor with mad skills in the kitchen. We're also inviting another family from down the street, and the matriarch is Mexican--tamales, anyone? Add to that our new boss and her billionaire husband, both Saudis, who have offered to bring a dish. I asked for the most authentically Saudi dish they could muster. It's going to be a very international Thanksgiving, and half the guests aren't going to miss the traditional dishes anyway.

While I might not be able to have the candied yams or the mashed potatoes with bacon bits, I'm pretty sure the first Thanksgiving I host around my table will be one for the personal history books.

Vicariously yours,



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