Thanksgiving in December

For Thanksgiving last year, my friend Katie, a fellow American, hosted myself and about a dozen others for a big feast. My contribution to the meal was my first-ever pumpkin pie, and as you might recall, tracking down the canned pumpkin puree turned out to be quite the adventure. Because God forbid I make my own pumpkin puree.

This year, I saw that pumpkin pie -- as they'd say in poker -- and then raised the stakes. Significantly. For a few weeks ago, I decided that I would host my own feast for a group of ten or so, and that I would make the lion's share of the dishes. What gave me the naive audacity that I could take on such a challenge, I'm not sure. For putting on the feast proved to be a beast. Consider the lead-up to the meal, which I hosted somewhat belatedly this past Sunday:

Sunday prior
After lengthy consultations with my mom (who was fortunately in the country at the time), I determined my menu: turkey, gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, stuffed sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and pecan pie. Note, this is only what I was making for a group that started off as ten and ultimately reduced to seven. Others would be bringing more dishes: cheese, crackers, appetizers, lemon meringue pie and ice cream.

Monday
Located what were possibly the last two cans of pumpkin puree in Sydney. It's one thing to find pumpkin puree in Sydney at some random time of the year. For a real challenge, try finding some cans the week after Thanksgiving, when expat Americans have horded them by the dozen. Fortunately, after searching far and wide for the puree last year, I established some connections and was able to secure and order two cans for myself.

Wednesday
Picked up said cans of pumpkin puree.

Friday
The big grocery shop. My shopping list? Compiled as an Excel spreadsheet that itemized and aggregated every ingredient from each of the dishes that I was making. (Yes, I am a nerd.) I think I can very safely say that I've never bought so much food on my own in one outing.

Saturday
Started the day with a cricket match and actually matched my all-time high score, with nine runs.* Then I rented a costume for my agency's Christmas party.** And then I came home to prep some dishes and bake the pies. This took the rest of the day.

*That high score, which I set in my first ever match and recapped in this post, coincidentally came against the same team and on the same exact weekend a year ago.

**The theme of this party? The Mad Hatters Tea Party. The costume? The Ace of Hearts. Will there be pictures? Maybe.

Sunday
Got up around 8, somewhat hung over from a house party the previous night, and was at it the rest of the day. First, the stuffing. Then, the green bean casserole. Then, the stuffed sweet potatoes. And then, as the potatoes were cooking, I had a bit of a panic attack when, speaking to my mom on the phone (who's now back in LA), she expressed pure bewilderment that I hadn't started the turkey yet. Andy, a turkey takes forever to cook! Needless to say, my confidence was shaken. Because when my mom speaks on the topic of cooking, you listen. So I rushed the potatoes, tossed the turkey in the oven and, well, two hours later, behold:

It turned out freaking perfect. At just about the time we planned to sit down.

The rest of the dishes? Freaking perfect! Here's a plate with turkey, stuffing and green bean casserole:

And here's a plate with the three pies (lemon meringue, pecan and pumpkin):

Freaking yum.

I couldn't move for the rest of the day, partly because I'm not sure I've ever eaten so much food in my life* and partly because that cooking sapped all my energy. Do I have a newfound appreciation for someone who can pull off a feast like that? Absolutely. Was it worth the effort? Yeah, I think so. Will I do it again next year? Let's not get ahead of ourselves. For now, it's leftovers for the next few weeks!

*Well, except for this.

The search continues

But no longer for the pumpkin puree. Fortunately, Katie (my American friend here) found some at USA Foods and has ordered enough for each of us to cook our own pies. Her pies will be edible. Mine? TBD. But at least it will contain puree! This is certainly a bonus, because from what I've learned over the last few days, that ingredient is somewhat essential to make pumpkin pie and will thusly increase the edibility factor at least two-fold. And in case I ever get a craving for some Folgers Classic that has been packaged in the US (because God forbid I purchase Folgers Classic that's packaged in Australia), now I know where to go.

Unfortunately, the ingredient that's now eluding me are pie shells. (Also fairly important to the creation of a pie, as I've learned.) You wouldn't think that would be too hard to track down, but I'm having more trouble than anticipated. You see, Aussies seem to like to use the same word for many different things. For example, if you were to talk about "football" or "footy" with an Aussie, that could mean one of five things (and I feel like I'm forgetting even more): Rugby Union, Rugby League, Australian Rules Football, American football or soccer. (Soccer used to be known as soccer here, but as of recently, they've inexplicably decided to start to call it football. You know, just to make things even more hopelessly confusing.)

Anyway, this is a longwinded way of saying that I've run into the same trouble with pies. Because beyond your basic pie with a fruit filling, "pie" is also used to refer to meat pies or pizza. And they don't seem to like to make shells for my most basic of pies. The confusion!

All this said, I'm still confident that I'll be able to track said pie shells down by Saturday. And if not, I guess I'll just avoid this dinner and not return any of Katie's phone calls. I'm sure she won't mind. Good times.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone.

Throwin' some Salty Chocolate Kleinballs

Why is South Park not regarded as one of the greatest TV shows of the last decade? It's leaps and bounds better than anything else out there (animated or not), and that's 100% because of Matt Stone and Trey Parker. When you have two guys that (a) have incredibly demented senses of humor, (b) don't give a shit about who they insult and (c) can throw an episode together in two seconds so the shows are ridiculously timely, it's a perfect storm. Then how come it never gets the credit it deserves? I don't have an answer to this, and really, beyond the fact that I needed some way to segue between the title of this blog to the rest of this post, this has nothing to do with anything. But it's true.

The last week or two, I've been on the search for pumpkin puree. You see, an American friend of mine here is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner next week and I've offered to make pumpkin pie. Why would I offer to make pumpkin pie when (a) I've never made a pie -- let alone a pumpkin pie -- in my life, (b) don't have all of the necessary equipment and (c) have an oven that's been nicknamed Old Unfaithful? Honestly, I have no good answer for this. But I've made a commitment and now I'm screwed. Because I can't for the life of me find pumpkin puree in Sydney. No one has it. And I'm not about to puree a pumpkin. This can't end well.

For those who missed it, yesterday -- actually, it would still be today in the US -- was Steve Irwin Day. Let's never forget.

On top of all of the Steve Irwin tributes, yesterday -- err, today -- was also a big day for me because I received my first pay check in three months! What a novel and thrilling concept for money to be place into my account instead of helplessly watching my balance slowly waste away.

Lately, I've been struggling to come up with things to write about, so that only can mean one thing: ROAD TRIP!! That's right, starting this month (or maybe next), I've made a resolution to take at least one weekend trip a month. So that will give me a total of, uhhhh, one more thing to write about every month. Problem solved.