And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

For dinner today we are having:

6 Zufelts (I'm including the fluffy yittle doggie baby for fun - then I can eat more)

5 Brits

4 Koreans

3 Utahns (and 3 more Americans from where I'm not yet sure)

2 Chinese interns from ExxonMobil

and I think I'll have to go find a partridge in a pear tree to round things out

 

Actual grand total: 22 people

 

Brian had to work both Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday because it isn't a holiday here at all so we rescheduled our festivites to Saturday afternoon.  So while you are sleeping at 3 am after a long day of Black Friday shopping, we'll be stuffing ourselves with turkey and, well, stuffing.

 

Maddie has been listening real close to her lessons from Ms. Kiran at school and has been calling our celebration "The Feast" all week. Every single day she asks, "How many more days until The Feast?" or "Is it the day of The Feast yet?" She is sort of making the pressure and expectation level for me to perform go up don't you think? I hope I can deliver. At 6:45 am this morning the kids (Ben and Maddie) got up and started crafting table and wall decorations for the big event. Ben's only request is that we find A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie so everyone can watch it. I think that's a splendid idea...now if we can find it that'd be perfect!

 

The run down on our guest list:

Jenna, the Brit, is super excited. She's always wanted to go to a "proper Thanksgiving dinner."  Say it with a British accent and it'll make you smile even more. Think of the fact that she associated Angie Zufelt with the word proper and you may fall off your chair laughing. I promised her a fantastic traditional spread of Thanksgiving food but made no committments on the "proper" part of the request. I'll do my best, but I left all candlesticks and the nice dishes (that I don't own) in storage in the US. We'll make due with Corelle dishes, everyday silverware and neon colors of Ikea cups.  We did save our Halloween pumpkins for decorations since we were in Australia and never got around to carving them. Yesterday she sent me an SMS (that means a text message) saying she'd been dieting all week in preparation - I think she's got this holiday down already!

 

Nahyun, the Korean, has lived on our street in our little American neighborhood for three years so her kids can go to the American school.  Her son Allen is one of Ben's very best friends. They had the same teacher last year and again this year. Maddie and Eun Seo are now great buddies too.  Nahyun is extremely interested in all my American cooking. She has a helper that does most of the cooking but often she will make Korean dishes and bring me some to try. She seasoned some pork for me to fry up one day that was to die for!  She often happens by around dinner time to pick up her kids and I introduced her to a new, exotic and strange ingredient last week.  Cream of chicken soup. I had to giggle. She had never seen it in her whole life. I'm not sure I could cook anything without a can of cream of chicken or mushroom soup. My recipe book would be stripped of nearly half the recipes instantly.  She loved a simple rice and chicken oven bake I sent home with her.

 

When I invited her family to Thanksgiving dinner via email she replied and then came over the next day literally giddy with excitement. She has never in her life tasted turkey and is honored to be invited to an American Thanksgiving. After three years of learning about this holiday she is finally going to see what it's all about. At least Zufelt style. She asked what she could bring and I suggested a fruit salad. Then I had to clarify. She couldn't imagine putting salad dressing on fruit so asked which kind. Our American-ness sure can mess other people up. I explained it just meant to put it in a bowl, no dressing required. Then she asked what kind of fruit my kids liked so I asked Maddie.  "ROCK MELON!!" came the enthusiastic reply. "What is rock melon?" I translated from Singaporean to American and gave it a shot. "Cantelope?" I queried. Nope. So we went to google. She'd never seen it. She knew watermelon from living in Singpore but in Korea had only ever had honeydew, which they simply call melon because there is only green melons sold. I've never liked honeydew so I asked, neither did she.  We both agree, it's never sweet enough.  I told her rock melon was not required but showed her with online pictures what it looks like and how to prepare it if she wants to try it. If not, I'll get her one next week. I bet she'll love it!

 

To keep things interesteing for the American contingency attending The Feast today we are breaking from regular oven baked tradition and going Southern.  Our neighbors are from Houston and have a deep fryer they used on Thursday for their big dinner.  We'll be taking a wagon over this morning to get the fryer and the oil. This is our first year actually doing the deep frying and I'm hoping it works out really great. My brother fries a mean turkey so I'm hoping we don't disapoint.

 

Our Chinese guests are two college interns that have been working for Brian at ExxonMobil and, well, they have no idea what they are getting into in the first place. This whole holiday is brand spanking new to them so they are just along for the ride.  I need to tell Brian to remind them we don't drink. Sometimes I forget that and it's akward when people show up with a lovely bottle of wine as a generous gift but we allow let alcohol in our house for us or others. Better nip that in the butt before we get surprised by it. Another guest offered to bring wine yesterday, otherwise I wouldn't have remembered at all.

 

Finally, for the partridge, I found some bird seed when I was unpacking boxes yesterday. Yes. I'm still unpacking from when we moved here in January and got our shipment in April. Just the random stuff that could be tossed and no one would actually miss it so it wasn't urgent. You know, stuff like birdseed.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!