I also want to send out a big congratulations to my friends Angie and Nate. On Friday November 21st they welcomed a beautiful little girl into the world. I look forward to meeting her when I finally visit and I hope to be able to watch her grow and adjust to the world as her new parents grow and adjust to her. Angie and Nate, good luck to you. I know you will do awesome.
So Katherine, my roommate, and I decided that we wanted to host a Thanksgiving gathering at our place to help get us through the holiday being away from family. Our goal was to make it as authentic as possible in a country that doesn't eat turkey or really know what an American Thanksgiving is all about. (Okay, granted, most Americans don't really know what it's about either, but there's lots of food and drinking and that's all good.)
The biggest obstacle is that we don't have an oven so there is no way we are going to be able to cook a turkey. A friend of ours has an oven so I figured I would hunt down a bird and give making one a go. Finding a frozen turkey that wasn't an obscene price was proving to be harder than I anticipated. There is a Costco in the area that I live in and I thought they would have some turkeys during the holiday, but I was mistaken. Hmmm. What to do?
Then a light shone down when I found out that there are restaurants and hotels that will make the turkey for you. Well that's just the most fantastic news I've heard yet. Woohoo!
Now to order one. Right. Easier said than done.
Tania has a friend who gave her a number of the Hyatt. She said that they had ordered from them in the past and it was pretty good. Sweetness and light. So I call the number and the woman that I talk to doesn't really speak English and of course my Chinese is abysmal. She managed to convey that it will be a 5kg bird and it will be $1099NT. Wow. That's an awesome price (about 30US). I have to double check with a couple of other numbers I have to see if that's a good price and plan to call back. Turns out that all the other numbers I have either don't call back or don't work anymore so the Hyatt it is.
I call later in the week and after a mangled conversation of me trying to ask questions and getting no real answers I think I have ordered a turkey. Either that or I've just purchased a small Asian child. I'm hoping for the turkey.
Katherine and I have made a few friends in our time here and we decided to invite pretty much all of them. Really, you invite 20 people and maybe 15 will show right. Well we invited 22 and 19 planned to arrive with appetites and wine in tow. Good grief. We have a good size apartment, but I don't know how it's going to handle a crowd this size. Going to be interesting.
Here is our refrigerator and freezer with about 90% of the groceries in it.
The big days rolls up in beautiful glory. The sun is shining and it's a lovely 70 plus degree day. Bliss. Katherine got up early and started cutting veggies and whatnot. I have to teach my last Saturday class so I eat breakfast and go off to work. Miranda has ordered pizza for the kids because it is their last class at Hess. These kids have officially taken every class they can with Hess. So the pizza shows up and the kids just sit there. I tell them to help themselves and pour them all some soda and still nothing. Welly finally gets up and takes a piece which he offers to me. These kids are a little overly mannered. It weirds me out a bit. They all finally take one piece of pizza. In the states this pizza would have been demolished with minutes of getting through the door.
So I get to take pizza home for lunch. Woohoo. After eating Katherine and I commence to making the feast. At 3:30 I get a call from Esther informing me that there is no turkey at the Hyatt. The Hyatt does not make turkeys to go. Well shit. Who did I order a turkey from? Esther starts asking me questions like did the person on the phone actually say they were from the Hyatt. Well of course...they...uh. Hmmm. I give her the number of the person I talked to since Esther speaks Chinese I figure they can figure things out.
Esther calls me back and tells me that the turkey is right here in Hsi Chi (where I live) and that it actually costs $1999.00. Oh. Well that's okay. I asked her if she would still be willing to get the bird, because I knew she would have an easier time giving the cab driver directions than I would. About an hour later she shows up with a beautiful turkey in a box. It turns out that the bird is at the Costco which is about a 10 minute drive from my place. Now I feel awful for sending my friend halfway around Taipei and back to get this damn thing. She extracted payment in monetary form and all was well. Plus she now has a story to tell.
Soon after she arrives I drag her off with me over to Wes's place so we can cook the green bean casserole in his oven. It takes a little longer than I want it too, so we finally just take it out and head back. Once we get back more people have arrived and the party is starting to get into swing. Being a host I of course spend a good portion of my time prepping food and getting it out for eating.
There is of course a turkey to tackle. I have never actually carved a bird and was almost immediately yelled at that I was mangling the poor thing. Tania stepped in and took over and did a lovely job.We found pumpkin pie! Yay for Costco. It was soo tasty.
This is about 2/3 of the food. Isn't it fantastic.
Because there were several people in attendance who were not American we put on a play to inform them. The video is on my facebook page for those of you who would care to view it. I tried to put a link here, but it's not working so I had to remove it.We ultimately had 20 people milling about and mingling. Everyone seemed to have a good time and liked the food so I declare the event a success.
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