Thursday, November 26, 2009
We almost died…it was that good!
Thanksgiving is one of those American holidays that one ought not to neglect and so when our host family asked us to share one of our ‘American dishes’ we decided to go all out! But, this being Laura and my first time cooking a turkey with all the fixings, in a 3rd world country, limited supplies, and a rickety old gas oven, it made for quite the adventure! :)
It was approaching 3am when Laura & I were in the backyard with a bloody turkey, hosing it off, that we realized we might not make it to school that morning. We thought it would be clever to speed up the thawing process by placing it on kitchen floor for 15+ hrs - in the dead of summer - apparently that’s a big no, no! But being the determined young ladies that we are (not stubborn ;) we "Googled" ways of decontaminating the potential seminela & found soaking the bird in a bucket of water, with bags of salt as it refrigerated - would be our only hope.
& Being the imaginative creature that I am, I envisioned my entire Bolivian family, including my host madre (who was 9 months pregnant) getting supper sick and going to the hospital – But of course no such thing happened, clearly God looks after lil lamb and all my silliness! :) When we took the bird out of the lil oven, Margarita (the family’s kitchen helper) had never seen a real turkey before, only on the ‘television’ – so this was a particular treat for her! :) & not only was it a huge success, but my host family wanted to eat the leftovers that night, only a few hours after we had cleared the table! My host padre later commented that he had eaten so much, he wasn’t sure if it was safe for his stomach! Lol, haha welcome to Thanksgiving! :D
Perhaps our strategy wasn't as "beautiful" as we would have liked, but the results were pretty delicious! :)
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." - Sir Winston Churchill
