The Turkey Chronicles – Day 1

DAY 1

Oh Thanksgiving!!!! The time of year when most Americans gain a few extra inches around the waist (myself included). Living abroad, these holidays take on a whole new level of importance. Its my way of reconnecting with my American roots. The crisp autumnal air and the sound of leaves crunching beneath my shoes is just a distant memory…I miss this time of year in Washington…sigh…

Ok…enough of that sappy stuff….Gotta get down to business. I love cooking & baking. Funny though, it’s a relatively new phenomena with me. I was NEVER a baker until the year before last. And cooking??? Well, let’s just say I was the queen of heat ‘n serve. I mean…I had my moments of shear brilliance with a dish here and there….but nothing compared to what I do these days…So to get a better appreciation of how far my cooking skills of come along here are a few snippets of my ‘not so gracious’ moments in the kitchen…..So it all started back in Jordan – circa 2007. I was invited to a potluck Thanksgiving. All I had to do was bake a pumpkin pie. It was a friggin’ disaster!!!! It took 3 hours to bake – and even then it was still ‘runny’ in the middle….ugh…not my finest moment. But then, a funny thing happened. I had to move out of my apartment and needed a place to camp out until I found a new place. I moved in with my friend Heather aka ‘Monartha’ (a Martha Stewart crossed with Monica from ‘Friends’). Every night, that girl was either baking, cooking or prepping – in order to cook and bake more stuff. She baked brownies and birthday cakes…and cookies…I was allowed to ‘watch’ and occasionally crack an egg or two. And sometimes, I could even eat the leftover icing – but she was so exact in her measurements it was a rare treat.

Monartha had cooking gadgets too! Lemon zesters, and scales, and food processors, and rubber spatulas and parchment paper and fancy whisks…..and special towels etc..oh…and a huge collection of cookie cutters and decorations…..One day, I thought it would be nice to contribute to the baking. So I decided to make rice crispy treats. They came out rock hard…and then I broke her rubber spatula in half – trying to dislodge the little treats that were stuck to the bottom of the dish…sooooo sad….

So one day, I just started to watch her as she cooked and baked….I asked all sorts of questions – like…how can you tell if you put too much flour in the cake…or not enough eggs…and what is ‘cream of tarter’ – and why do you only need a pinch of it! Coming from a family of cooks, you would think that I would have inherited the same skills. For instance, my mom would open the pantry door, have one quick glance at a few of the items on the shelf and say ‘I think I’ll whip up a cake’. No measurements….no recipes….no instructions….just a handful of this…a dash of that….a dollop of this and voila the cake was baking in the oven. And it would happen so quickly I had no time to ask questions…my mom’s reply was always ‘Its easy…you just have to watch carefully next time’. Hard to do because she never really made the same cake twice…

Slowly but surely, I gradually overcame the intimidation factor…and started baking simple recipes – from scratch. That same year with Heather, we cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for a few of her friends….she had great recipes that were so easy to follow – almost foolproof! And out of the blue – something just ‘clicked’. It’s as if the cooking gene finally got activated. Things like cooking temperatures and vanilla extract and baking powder took on a whole new level of importance. I started to develop a sensitivity for when something was too creamy and needed just a little more of the dry ingredients…it’s just so strange – very hard to explain. That same year, I cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner for my some of my Jordanian friends – there were 20 in all…Last year…I did a dinner for about 10 of my close friends here in Beirut. My dinner guests from last year and the year before describe me as this amazing chef – and that my food is magic!! I don’t see it that way…I just like to cook food that tastes good…oh well…I’m happy if they’re happy.

This year, I think I have lost my mind. I’m doing a seated dinner for 40-45 friends. The menu for this year is even more daunting than last year. Here’s a sneak peak at this year’s feast:

• fried turkey
• baked turkey
• pumpkin or butternut squash soup
• cream of crab soup (not quite ‘harvest’ -y but yummy nonetheless)
• sweet potato casserole
• potato cheese casserole
• corn pudding
• stuffing
• gravy
• cranberry sauce
• apple pie
• pumpkin pie
• rolls (maybe)
• peach cobbler (maybe)

I’m encouraging everyone to bring their favorite dish as well…With the planned feast just a week away, I need to start the prep planning. The one (and certainly not the only one) drawback of living abroad is that you don’t have the convenience of Costco or grocery stores that will carry the products you need on a regular basis. For instance, I can’t find cornmeal – CRITICAL INGREDIENT for stuffing….not sure how that will work itself out in the next few days.

 

AND…this will be a sit down dinner – I’ve got this grand idea that everyone will be at a super long table with me, Martha Junior, sitting at the end carving the turkey(s). I’ve called a company that will deliver tables and full place settings….I’m concerned that the tables won’t be in a straight line….and that I’ll run out of room and have to create a separate eating area….kind of like a satellite dining area for overflow guests…..I think that is a silly thought…I’ve got a turkey to fry…that is what I should worry about, no?

 

 

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