A German Thanksgiving

Maybe one of my favourite holiday’s is Thanksgiving.....not the last Thursday of every November like they have in the US but the Canadian Version which falls on the second Monday of the month of October. This year was the first year that I was unable to celebrate Thanksgiving because I had just returned back from my Grandfather’s funeral and wasn’t fully prepared to do the whole cooking a turkey and making the side dishes. However when American Thanksgiving came around I was more than pumped to cook! All we needed was a venue and some dinner guests!! Megan and Jon stepped in to be the hosts and my roommates plus a handful of the hockey players were the guests! Therefore on Wednesday night it was decided that at Megan and Jon’s would be the multicultural thanksgiving.....even more perfect because it was our day off.

Thanksgiving is so important to me because it was always the holiday at my house that everyone enjoyed....it didn’t drag out over a couple of days so it was fast and relatively painless! Also the true definition of Thanksgiving to me is being able to celebrate all the successes of the previous year and be thankful for all of the advantages I had in the previous year. But more it was about appreciating those around me in my family, something that I am truly thankful for now that I am older and away from home. I have a pretty amazing family and I couldn’t be prouder to have them!

The preparations started at 2pm in the afternoon. Megan, Michele and I headed out to do the grocery shopping but more we were in search of a turkey!! We were able to find one there was only one problem.....it was frozen into a solid rock! After our shop we headed home to Jon’s negative attitude that we weren’t going to be able to cook a turkey from frozen.....I was out to prove him wrong! The finished product, success!

We flash defrosted it for 2 hours in the sink in cold water and then put it in the oven after I had to pry open the legs to remove the neck and the gizzards. Then it was into the oven when I crossed my fingers hoping that I wouldn’t mess it up. In the mean time we prepared all the side dishes while I continued to watch the turkey with a keen eye! At 8pm I removed the turkey to let it rest....praying that it was cooked but wasn’t over cooked. Luckily it was done to perfection and our Thanksgiving was ready to begin.

Our Spread!!

Our Thanksgiving in Germany was a little unorthodox but it included all the regular foods, turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, the dreaded brussel sprouts plus stuffing flown in from Canada and good company so that’s what made it fun. We had 3 first timers (2 German Guys and our Czech roommate), 2 American and 5 Canadians.....it was quite the cultural experience.

The whole group minus Jana

We had to explain to Jana (our roommate) the importance of stuffing yourself until you couldn’t even move. Typically Thanksgiving is the one day of the year where you can eat so much food and not feel guilty about doing it. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around that concept and only had one plate of food compared to the two full plates that the rest of us had.

The Perfect Well Balanced Plate

As a group we were able to plough through most of the food (minus the veggies) and everyone could barely move but I hope they were all happily full and in the Turkey comma!! After the eating we left the dishes for the guys to finish and headed to the Banhof for a little dancing in an attempt to even burn off a few of the calories!

I couldn’t have been happier to cook and am happy that the cooking of my first Thanksgiving dinner alone went relatively easily.....good thing there was a few of us helping each other yet! Next year I will be sure to buy the turkey they day in advance and defrost it overnight!!