Andrew returned on November 23rd. Since he wasn't with us on Thanksgiving day and because many of our friends had inquired about Thanksgiving traditions in the United States, we decided that a wonderful way to show our gratitude to some our new found friends, and celebrate Andrew's return, would be to invite some friends to our cabaña for a Thanksgiving feast. We were excited but had some hurdles to overcome. First, as much as we wanted to invite everyone that we had met, we had to limit ourselves to under 30 people, which was challenging, as everyone had been so kind and welcoming. Our next hurdle was locating a turkey. Could we even get one? Turkey is not a common food in Argentina, but I went to my local carniceria and inquired about whether he could get us some "pavo". He asked me what size, did some checking, and sure enough, was able to find one. We wanted to make pumpkin pie, but alas it is spring in Argentina not fall and canned pumpkin is not available here, so we decided on apple crisp instead. Potatoes are readily available, as are "batatas" (sweet potatoes), so we added mashed potatoes and candied yams, both very traditional in our family, to our menu. I usually make my candied yams with maple syrup, something that you definitely can't find in South America, so I had Andrew bring a small bottle of maple syrup with him on the plane. Of course stuffing was simple to make. We also decided to serve carrots as they were easy to buy and prepare. Another one of our family favorites for Thanksgiving is sparkling apple cider. Amazingly, as we were walking through the main isle of the supermarket we noticed an end display with, of all things, sparkling apple cider! Our needed list of ingredients for our feast was complete.
A couple of days before Thanksgiving, we had moved from one cabaña to another slightly larger one next to a river. The first cabaña had had no oven but fortunately the new one did, albeit quite a small one. Unfortunately, it was only able to cook on one temperature - very hot! There was also no hot water in the kitchen, only in the bathroom, so any dishes we used had to be washed in the bathroom sink. Since we didn't have enough pans, we borrowed some from our friends. We knew that this would be quite a challenging meal to make due to our limitations but remarkably, everything came together almost perfectly.
Stuffing the turkey - I had to use a needle and thread to hold it together!
Apple crisp prep with a little helper
Not the most elegant looking Thanksgiving spread, but an accomplishment for us given our limited resources!
Our dinner was a big hit and we had a wonderful time sharing Thanksgiving with some of our new friends. We wished that we could have invited all of them, but with our limited space and ability to cook, the size group we ended up with worked out perfectly. It was a lovely, fun-filled evening, and a perfect way to show our thankfulness for our wonderful friends who had made our stay in Alta Gracia so memorable.
Our attempt at a group photo - sadly some people didn't make it into the camera's range.
Everyone had a great time.
No comments:
Post a Comment