A Quick Report on Thanksgiving

It's already after midnight and I have big plans for tomorrow, so I won't make this a long post...but Rena and I had a spectacular evening with our Swiss clan tonight, and I just wanted to document it! I'm recording for posterity our fantastic menu, and a pic or two, starting with this one:


Here we all are, post-feast, fat and happy.

I'm going to be honest and say that Rena did the lion's share of the cooking tonight, but I was a very capable sous-chef and chopped like a champ. Christopher Balduc and Laurence Guillod, who both work with Rena at the opera, also helped with the cooking quite a bit. I still can't believe that we all fit in the kitchen at the same time. (Well, actually, we didn't. Rena had to kick us out a couple of times!) Our other guests brought bread, wine, and other lovely foodstuffs to make the meal complete. It was truly a group effort.

Here are a few pics of us hard at work:


Chris prepping the turnips...


Laurence with her lovely pies!


Rena and me, working our fingers to the bone, clearly.

Here's what we served:

Rosemary Roasted Mixed Nuts
Stuffed Mushrooms
Gluehwein (mulled wine) with raisins and slivered almonds

Turkey (of course!)
Cranberry Sauce
Gravy
Roasted Beets and Sweet Potatoes
Green Beans with Garlic, Lemon, and Almonds
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Carrots and Turnips (Chris)
Wild Rice Stuffing
Apple/Cranberry Stuffing (Chris)
Olive Bread (provided by Rolando)
lots and lots of wine

Apple and Pumpkin Pies (Laurence)

It was a fantastic and complete Thanksgiving dinner, especially considering that we did it all in Switzerland. Chris even contributed California wine!

As you no doubt noticed in the menu, we DID manage to find a whole turkey for the occasion:


13 pounds of deliciousness that Rena referred to as "Lady"

"Lady" was considerably more expensive than her sisters in the USA, but she proved to be the keystone of our meal. She was worth every one of the 73 (!) Francs we spent to bring her home. In addition to being perfectly delectable the first time around, Rena and I have big plans to live on turkey noodle soup for the forseeable future!

The evening was full of merriment, and we managed to send just about everyone home with a care-package. It never ceases to amaze me how we can eat SO MUCH and still have so much left over. It's the miracle of Thanksgiving, I guess!

By the time the party ended, the first real snowfall of the year in Basel had begun! A magical end to a magical evening.

Tomorrow, instead of doing the annual Black Friday pilgrimage to Macy's, I'll be doing a little heavy lifting...I'm helping my friend Iryna move. Although I will miss heading to the mall with Mom in search of bargains, it'll be good to work off some of my Thanksgiving indulgence.

Ugh, we had that meal 5 hours ago and I'm still full! Another words, it was a good old-fashioned Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving in Basel

Rena and I have begun discussing Thanksgiving. It's early yet, so we're not too stressed about it, but we're planning: how many can we have over? What sort of dietary restrictions do people have? What kind of stuffing should we make? In or out of the bird (or both)? And, most importantly, where are we going to find a whole turkey in Switzerland (and how much is it going to cost us)?

Last night, Rena was googling Ina Garten as we sat together on the couch watching a Mad Men marathon (it was a very good night). We perused the food network website too, salivating over all kinds of Thanksgiving recipes. Roasted winter vegetables. Rosemary cashews. Pecan pie. Times like these, I wish I had two stomachs.

At one point, she looked at me and said, "Do you have any special requests for the menu? Anything you need for Thanksgiving to be Thanksgiving?" And, I said no.

She seemed a little surprised. Upon further reflection, so am I, actually. No specific Thanksgiving requests? Really? I LOVE Thanksgiving. What is up with that?

I do have specific foods that I associate with Thanksgiving, like everybody else. My Aunt Barbara's sweet potatoes and apples, for example. I love that recipe, but I don't really like to make it myself. I prefer to eat Aunt Barbara's recipe from her very own pyrex dish while sitting across the table from her.

What I like most about my mother's sage stuffing is watching her mix it up in our big yellow mixing bowl, bread crumbs with melted butter, chopped celery and onions...it's been the same as long as I can remember. It's a Thanksgiving I can count on.

Of course, I can't always have Thanksgiving at home. Sometimes, I'm in a hotel room. Sometimes I have an apartment, but I'm subsisting with 2 burners and a microwave. A person in my position can't always count on Thanksgiving being predictable or traditional.

This year is no different. No Mom. No Aunt Barbara. Maybe no turkey! Rena and I are blazing a new trail in Basel, so why not start by christening a new menu? Rena's gluten-free, so...maybe wild rice stuffing? One can't walk two blocks in this town without being tempted by the street vendors offering heisse marroni (roasted chestnuts), 3 Francs per 100 grams. Maybe we can do something with those, too, as a subtle homage to fall in Europe. In addition to the Americans that we have invited, we're also having guests who hail from the Ukraine and Mexico. Maybe we can incorporate something yummy from those cultures? At this point, the options are endless!

Rena and I have 10 days to make a menu, divvy up the responsibility, and whip our little apartment into festive splendor. I may not be sure what this Thankgiving is going to taste like, but I'm already sure that it will be a wonderful holiday with all the necessary Thanksgiving ingredients: a toasty house with a bustling kitchen, a table full of delicious food prepared with love and care (and research!), and some wonderful friends to share it all with.

So far in this life, no matter where I am, what size my kitchen, or how far away I get from my traditional Thanksgiving at home, I've always been able to celebrate in a way that makes me feel like I've had Thanksgiving. I'm very thankful for that.

Happy Holiday, everybody!

A Clear Sign from the Cosmos

A weird thing happened to me tonight.

It's around 3am in Basel, and I've been playing with writing a blog post for quite some time now. I have felt the need to write for several days, but I didn't have any idea what to say--which is a strange and new state for me! For better or for worse, I am rarely at a loss for words.

I've been in one of those pensive Autumn moods where everything seems a little sad, but beautifully so. Tonight, I was determined to finally write something. I was trying to find a subject that wouldn't be completely depressing (for me and for you!) but still authentic, and I came up with what I still think is a clever idea: an open letter to the Cosmos.

The premise was this: my thirty-fourth birthday is coming up on January 7th, which is less than two months away (!). I wrote a (very charming) little letter to the Cosmos asking for a special birthday gift: a brief outline of how the rest of my life will go.

In the letter/blog post, I specified that I wasn't looking for a fortune-telling. I didn't need specifics of where I'll live in the future, or how long I'll live or with whom I'm live. I also urged the Cosmos to avoid any direct divulgences of future ailments. I just wanted to have a quick consultation with the future me to find out if the older and wiser Mary Elizabeth felt content with the choices I am making now. After all, there's still time to try something else, right?

I even gave examples of what I was looking for, because I realized my request was a little unorthodox. I wrote, I'd be just thrilled to receive a missive that reads something like this:

KEEP IT UP, YOU'RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK. IT ALL WORKS OUT PRETTY WELL.

or

STOP NOW. NOT WORTH IT. SURPRISE US BOTH AND TRY SOMETHING ELSE. BRAZIL, MAYBE?

or, lastly

BRACE YOURSELF FOR YEARS 38-43. THEY WILL ABSOLUTELY SUCK, BUT YOU'LL SURVIVE.


I closed my letter to the Cosmos by again recognizing that my gift request was a little unusual, apologizing for my boldness, and explaining that the only reason I wanted to know anything at all about my future is to make sure I was doing this magical lifetime the proper justice. I added, at the very bottom, that if direct instruction wasn't possible, I'd also gladly accept a (clear) sign.

I was proofreading my blog entry in preparation for publication, when my computer suddenly froze up. That doesn't happen often, since my computer is still young and spry (unlike me, haha). Still, I wasn't particularly worried because the program I use to write my blog posts automatically saves my work every 2 minutes. At the most, I'd lose a few sentences.

So, I restarted, and don't you know the ENTIRE thing was lost? No trace. It was like I never even wrote the letter.

I would be naive not to recognize a sign as clear as that. Point taken, Cosmos. I will mind my own damned business and wait for my life to unfold like everyone else.

You can't blame a girl for asking, though.