Thanksgiving Dinner Menu
I suppose it can happen to anyone who moves to another country. Or to people like me, who don't pay enough attention. In my own defense, I'll say that what is good, food-wise, varies an awful lot from country to country. In some places, you beat the eggs halfway to death before you are allowed to make an omelet, while in other places you barely mix them. In some places, a smooth dish of mashed potatoes is a sure sign that it's made from instant flakes, while in other places lumpy mashed potatoes are reviled as a sign people didn't even care enough for you to mash it for another couple of minutes or use a potato ricer if they are that lazy. And god help you if you didn't even peel the potatoes before cooking/mashing in some places, we don't care if you think most of the nutrition is on the peel or not -- put the peel in a cheesecloth bag and throw them away if it's that important. You get the idea.
Either way, I just accept that different places value different things. And that sometimes people don't warn each other about what's supposed to be "bad" and that I didn't have enough info to watch out for the signs.
That is my story, and I'm sticking to it.
No one told me that Stovetop stuffing was supposed to be bad. Or canned cranberry sauce, for that matter. Canned cranberry sauce reminds me of guava paste, which we do love where I come from. Stovetop stuffing reminds me of my European neighbors (German, Swiss, the occasional French) who make all kinds of delicious foods and are more fond of stronger flavored foods than my compatriots. And, to be complete, un-peeled lumpy mashed potatoes are right out in Brazil, so I see no problems with instant flakes.
So you see, much before I ever reached a table with a "proper" Thanksgiving dinner, I already liked a bunch of stuff that is supposed to be second-class citizens. So it's often the case that you'll see the made-from-scratch stuff on our T-day dinner table, but you'll also find the others, because I like them too. Sometime ago I found out that some friends also like one of them, so I'm not so alone and the stuff disappears anyway.
Anyway, enough of the background background story. The background story is that a few years ago dpolicar invited people for T-day dinner and asked people to bring dessert, adding "there'll be about 20 people"… just to prove that it's better to live in a sitcom than a soap-opera, each group/family of guests basically brought dessert for 20 people. You know our group, I hope, and we do love pies and desserts, but we can't demolish that much dessert, especially after Thanksgiving dinner.
So in the next few years, we have asked people not to bring anything, just themselves. And we've ordered pies. From Petsy's, and they're damned good, let me assure you.
I think it was last year that one of our guest's mom found out that we've been ordering pies and gave her grief about it -- "You didn't make them pie? Why haven't you made them pie, it's so easy? They've bought pies, who buys pies!" -- of course, we think it's funny, we asked people not to bring anything and we think the mom in question is cute as a button and moreover, she's not our mom, we don't have to go home and hear about it.
A few weeks ago, dpolicar and I were at the supermarket. It all started in the bakery, we saw a row of cornbread and one of us said "we could appall so-and-so's mom by buying cornbread for Thanksgiving" to which the other one offered "and canned biscuits!" and later some other stuff like ready-made pie crust with canned pumpkin pie filling. And of course, we'll serve canned "glop" (cranberry sauce), complete with the ridges so you know how thick a slice should be and we'll also have instant mashed potatoes.
But it wasn't until today, at the supermarket again, that I was struck by the piece-de-resistance to anchor the entire dinner menu.
Frozen turkey meatballs... ;-)
But the truth is that we won't do it. We like them both too much to give them a heart attack like that. But I still laugh when I think about it.
Either way, I just accept that different places value different things. And that sometimes people don't warn each other about what's supposed to be "bad" and that I didn't have enough info to watch out for the signs.
That is my story, and I'm sticking to it.
No one told me that Stovetop stuffing was supposed to be bad. Or canned cranberry sauce, for that matter. Canned cranberry sauce reminds me of guava paste, which we do love where I come from. Stovetop stuffing reminds me of my European neighbors (German, Swiss, the occasional French) who make all kinds of delicious foods and are more fond of stronger flavored foods than my compatriots. And, to be complete, un-peeled lumpy mashed potatoes are right out in Brazil, so I see no problems with instant flakes.
So you see, much before I ever reached a table with a "proper" Thanksgiving dinner, I already liked a bunch of stuff that is supposed to be second-class citizens. So it's often the case that you'll see the made-from-scratch stuff on our T-day dinner table, but you'll also find the others, because I like them too. Sometime ago I found out that some friends also like one of them, so I'm not so alone and the stuff disappears anyway.
Anyway, enough of the background background story. The background story is that a few years ago dpolicar invited people for T-day dinner and asked people to bring dessert, adding "there'll be about 20 people"… just to prove that it's better to live in a sitcom than a soap-opera, each group/family of guests basically brought dessert for 20 people. You know our group, I hope, and we do love pies and desserts, but we can't demolish that much dessert, especially after Thanksgiving dinner.
So in the next few years, we have asked people not to bring anything, just themselves. And we've ordered pies. From Petsy's, and they're damned good, let me assure you.
I think it was last year that one of our guest's mom found out that we've been ordering pies and gave her grief about it -- "You didn't make them pie? Why haven't you made them pie, it's so easy? They've bought pies, who buys pies!" -- of course, we think it's funny, we asked people not to bring anything and we think the mom in question is cute as a button and moreover, she's not our mom, we don't have to go home and hear about it.
A few weeks ago, dpolicar and I were at the supermarket. It all started in the bakery, we saw a row of cornbread and one of us said "we could appall so-and-so's mom by buying cornbread for Thanksgiving" to which the other one offered "and canned biscuits!" and later some other stuff like ready-made pie crust with canned pumpkin pie filling. And of course, we'll serve canned "glop" (cranberry sauce), complete with the ridges so you know how thick a slice should be and we'll also have instant mashed potatoes.
But it wasn't until today, at the supermarket again, that I was struck by the piece-de-resistance to anchor the entire dinner menu.
Frozen turkey meatballs... ;-)
But the truth is that we won't do it. We like them both too much to give them a heart attack like that. But I still laugh when I think about it.