Preparing for a Feast

 

Thanksgiving is just two days away. Lin is hosting this year and we've been discussing the dinner and its preparation for the past month. The supermarkets and stores are stocked with all the traditional foods and accompaniments and advertising to the hilt. There's lots to do to serve a special holiday dinner for 12 people without getting verklempt and all stressed out. The anticipation is half the fun. The other half is actually pulling it off without a hitch.

We're not quite sure the 23 pound turkey (11kg, yikes!) is going to fit in the oven, but we'll figure that out. Heck, I go through that every year on the boat with a turkey less than half that size. I usually end up taking my tape to the store with me to measure in advance. Our local wild turkeys have been scarce lately. They must have gotten the memo.

It's not just preparing and serving dinner itself, of course. It's the tablecloth and napkins, seating arrangements, flowers, candles and wine. It's washing all the special, rarely used china, polishing the silver and shining up the crystal. Everything needs to be just right. Setting a beautiful table makes the meal all that more enjoyable. It's creating a menu that's sure to please everyone at the table, even the curmudgeons. It's shopping here and shopping there to make sure we have all the ingredients … enough butter, enough cream, enough cranberries … and still forgetting something that was or was not on the grocery list, but is critical to the perfect feast. It's talking David into running back to the crowded store early on Thanksgiving morning to get the forgotten item and waiting patiently in line with all the other men who are doing exactly the same thing.

We've not celebrated Thanksgiving in the States for many years. We're usually on our boat and have friends aboard or go to someone else's boat for a feast. Sometimes we can't find cranberries or cranberry sauce and sometimes we can't even find a whole turkey and settle for drumsticks.

We've spent Thanksgiving in South America, New Zealand and Australia and introduced many people to our traditional Thanksgiving dinner custom. One Thanksgiving was spent at sea en route from Uruguay to South Africa. We had canned turkey and all the fixin's to remember the celebration … despite lumpy seas and rain in the South Atlantic. It's a celebration for us wherever we are.

So, here's this year's menu …

Honkin' big roast turkey with savory stuffing and lots of gravy

Mashed potatoes

Fresh green peas

Butternut squash

Carrots with turnip (rutabaga or Swedes for the folks down under)

Pickle/olive tray

Freshly made cranberry sauce

Hot Parker House rolls

Pinot grigio / Cabernet sauvignon

What have we forgotten? How are you celebrating Thanksgiving this year?

Dessert is a whole different story. More on that later.

Not from the USA? Alone on Thanksgiving? No problem … we'll set a place for you at our table.

Hallowe'en

 

All Hallows Eve, shortened to Hallowe'en, has to be one of the biggest, most popular holidays in the US, but it all started in Ireland. And we thought the Irish only celebrated St. Patrick's Day. Au contraire … they light bonfires, dress in costume, go trick-or-treating and party hardy. Not so different than here, probably because we borrowed most of our traditions from them … and then enhanced and commercialized them a bit.

More candy is purchased in the US on the days leading up to Hallowe'en than for any other holiday. Americans purchase 600 million pounds worth of Hallowe'en candy … $2 billion in sales! More than Easter, Christmas and Valentines Day … wow! The top seller? Candy corn, according to the Chegg Blog. I believe it. We're not usually candy eaters, but we've been nibbling on candy corn since the end of September.

Decorating for Hallowe'en has become quite the expense. Never mind the cornstalks, pumpkins and occasional plastic skeleton we used to employ each year. Now people trim their houses with orange lights, buy huge, scary inflatables and deck out their yards with motorized coffins and animated zombies. Beyond the $2 billion in candy sales, Americans are expected to spend nearly another $5 billion in decorations and costumes. That's quite a wad to spend in these reputedly terrible economic times.

There are scary movies to watch like Halloween 1, 2, 3+, ad nauseum. There are stories to read like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (also a movie and a television series if you're lazy) and a host of others. Most importantly, there are cool costumes to wear.

Witches consider Hallowe'en their most important holiday of the year. It's known as Samhain (pronounced Sow-en) on the Wicca calendar, their New Year, and it's quite a solemn celebration signifying the end of the harvest and remembering the dead (ask my sister, if you don't believe me).

Interestingly, Hallowe'en is not commercially celebrated to any great extent in most other places we've visited in our travels. In many South American countries the Day of the Dead (el dia de los muertos) is celebrated by taking the whole family on a picnic to the cemetery and sharing the day with deceased friends and relatives. Kind of a nice thought actually … people no longer living are remembered and included in a family get together.

So what are you doing this evening? We'll be filling trick-or-treat bags with Snickers and Twix for the neighborhood kids and hopefully avoiding any tricks … while sipping hot cider and rum.

Pumpkins in the Park

 

We thought it might be fun to walk over to Bird Park for their annual Pumpkins in the Park festivities the other night. It was crisp, cold and clear and the leaves crunched under our feet as we made our way along the busy sidewalk.

Local pumpkin carvers of all ages had gathered together to display their pumpkin art as luminaria along the park's many trails. There were probably over 100 pumpkins and the park was crowded with high-spirited families pulling kids in wagons and sipping hot cocoa and cider to fend off the cold.

This is a fierce competition with categories such as scariest, most unusual, most creative, funniest and most traditional. It was evident some people had taken this quite seriously and the results ranged from gory to exquisite.

The pumpkins were judged by guest pumpkin judges (not sure of their qualifications). Ribbons and prizes were awarded at the pumpkin podium. Our personal favorite was an intricately carved decorative leaf pattern that stole the show.

A storyteller was on hand telling scary ghost stories and there were games for the younger kids to play.

Though they did have a specific “Senior” category, we didn't enter. It seems to us that a “Senior” might be able to compete adequately in the other categories without a category specific to age. After all, we've been carving pumpkins much longer than the rest of the group. Costumes were encouraged, but we had left our sailor costumes on the boat, so we just went as old farts.