Kernovich Abroad: Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! It really made me miss the USA and family today but we were determined to bring Thanksgiving to London. Our 5kg turkey was delivered Wednesday. In case you were wondering about turkeys over here, here is the description of our bird: "Select Farm Turkey is reared on the Irish borders, in the counties of Monaghan, Eire, and Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. They enjoy natural daylight, fresh air and darkness at night for sleeping, encouraging their natural behaviour." I was a bit intimidated about cooking a full Thanksgiving meal. Thank goodness for YouTube. We watched videos about how to prepare and stuff a turkey, how to insert a meat thermometer and how to carve a turkey and our turkey was delicious! JJ had to work, but took a half day to come home to help me prepare the meal. We got the turkey in the oven and Tyler woke up from his afternoon nap so we decided to make a new tradition of heading to the pub right down the road for a bit. Tyler enjoyed his Cheerio snack there and JJ and I enjoyed some pints. Then we came back home to Skype with friends and family and prepare the rest of the food. We had to deal with some adverse conditions in the kitchen. First of all, our kitchen is tiny, about 3 feet wide, so there is no space for two people. Second, our kitchen light stopped working yesterday so we brought a bedside table lamp upstairs, but it didn't provide much light. Third, the roasting pan that I brought here to the UK specifically for turkey cooking we discovered today didn't fit in our tiny Euro oven. Then there is also the curious toddler who likes to grab on to legs while you are in the kitchen, crowding the space even more. But we made it all work. For dinner we had turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, applesauce and pumpkin pie. It was so good! Thank you Sarah and Auntie Sue for the recipes! It was like a little glorious touch of home. The only thing that wasn't too good was the gravy, I will have to work on that next year. Since the turkey got in the oven late, we had to push dinner time back a bit. We wanted to dine with Tyler though so we gave him an extra little catnap to get him through to dinner time which was 7:30pm (bedtime is usually at 7). He was a little slap happy but enjoyed his meal and seeing all the friends and family on the computer screen on Skype. They even showed the football games on TV here (darn Lions!).

All in all, it wasn't like being home in the US, but we had a nice little Thanksgiving here with the 3 of us. We have so much to be thankful for and hope that you all had a nice holiday too!