Turkish Thanksgiving

First of all, sorry we have neglected the blog for the past few weeks, it has been a little bit of a whirlwind lately between lost internet connections and extra hours at work. But we're back.

So we finally got to make it happen. Ever since we left America it was our plan to share our Thanksgiving traditions with our new friends. The challenge about doing this in a country that doesn’t celebrate it is that they tend to make plans without knowing it would conflict with the holiday. On Thanksgiving we had our weekly staff meeting that lasted until 6:30 so we planned to have dinner on Saturday. Turns out the school was having a dinner to celebrate Teacher’s Day on Saturday, so postponed, Sunday was a fund-raising brunch to buy a wheelchair for someone in the community. Moved to Monday, the school planned a Foreign Languages (our department) seminar although we didn’t have to attend many of our colleagues did. Finally we said Tuesday it is, not ideal since that meant cooking on Monday night and reheating on Tuesday, but it needed to happen before December rolled around.

We went for it, all the fixins. 2 Large Chickens (Turkey wasn’t possible here we only found one that was severely freezer burnt) Stuffing, Cranberry sauce from the can (Thanks D & B, it was a hit with the locals) Pumpkin pies from an actual pumpkin, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy. Almost everything was delicious and the Turkish people were delighted to try things they had never tried. Turkish people have never been introduced to the delights of gravy! So they got to taste what Erin described as “Meat Pudding.” They continuously asked Erin how she made the Cranberry Jelly.

Cranberry Jelly, can rings and all

You may be wondering what wasn’t delicious. Well it turns out that when you are looking to buy chickens you don’t want to get the largest ones you can find. When you can’t read Turkish it is so easy to accidentally purchase the type of chicken (possibly a rooster) that people use for stewing and dumplings. So except for the breasts that were edible, most of the chickens were jerky. Some of it could be saved for soup for the next day, but mostly it was disappointing. Last night though redemption was had when I tried again and roasted a delightfully tasty chicken with crispy skin and juicy breasts. I couldn’t let that bad chicken be on my reputation for too long.

All in all it was a great opportunity to share a holiday of thankfulness with our new friends and a different culture. We definitely are thankful for having met such a great group of people here in Turkey. The transition to a new culture, language and job much easier.