Oooooooo it's Thanksgiving time and everybody's feeling fine!

So says the singing card my parents sent us - and it's true!

Yesterday was a big day for me - my very first time cooking the traditional Thanksgiving meal all by myself. We invited nine of our Swiss friends for dinner, so I was cooking for eleven, which is also the most people I've ever cooked for at once. Add the size of a Thanksgiving meal and the number of people involved and I think I'm done cooking for the next couple days!

I split my grocery shopping over three days to keep my grocery-toting manageable. I ordered my turkey breast in French with a little bit of guidance from a friend. I borrowed one table, four chairs, three plates, four wine glasses, and one hour of baking time from Steph and Dani.

And then the cooking... I started at 10 in the morning on Sunday and finished at 7:15 Sunday night - just in time to eat around 7:30! Here's our menu and links to a few of the recipes I used.


Spinach Salad
with Cranberries and Nuts

Turkey-Bacon Roulade
Stuffed with Chestnut-Apple Stuffing

Cranberry Sauce with Red Wine and Lemon

Ham
with Apricot Horseradish Jezebel Sauce

Macaroni and Cheese
With Cheddar and Gruyere

Honey-Glazed Carrots

Traditional Green Bean Casserole
Topped with Fried Onion Strings

Sweet Potato Casserole
with Marshmallow Topping

Mashed Potatoes
with Butter and Cream

Pumpkin Pie
with Vanilla Whipped Cream

Joining up to demolish this massive pile of food were our neighbors, Monsieur et Madame Favre, Dani and Steph, Olivier and Celia and Danae, and Mr K's awesome co-worker Nipun (of shoe-swappin' IKEA-hikin' fame). We put a good dent in the food, completely finishing off 2 pounds (1 kilo) of ham and 3 pounds (1.5 kilos) of turkey. Mr K and I were lucky enough to end up with leftovers of all the side dishes, meaning I get the next couple days off from cooking! (Our guests are probably not aware of the fact that thanksgiving food always tastes better the next day when you eat it right from the storage container while standing in the kitchen... if they did, I imagine they would be over here right now!)We sent everyone home with some pumpkin pie and then, early this morning headed to Bern for the ONION MARKET...

But that post will have to wait for another day!

Also coming up this week "Son of Thanksgiving" - starring a boatload of Bern-dwelling-Barbers and even more turkey! Stay tuned.

Gobble gobble!

A sighting of the rare Swiss
Tree Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving! Poor Mr K had to work today as Thanksgiving, as all of you not-natural-blonds know, is an American holiday and thus not celebrated here. We are having Kasia and Peter over for a little non-turkey dinner tonight and then going to the home of Mr K's coworker to have Thanksgiving tomorrow with said coworker's wife and kids and sundry other Americans imported for the holiday. I wish I could be home with my family for the holiday but maybe next year we can make the trip back.

So, in a country without Thanksgiving, you may be wondering how on earth anyone here knows when to start decorating for Christmas. The answer is.... late October. Yup, my first sighting of Christmas-related decorative goodness was before Halloween, which is also not much of a holiday here. Every day more stores put out more Christmas decor and suggestions for gifts, and things are starting to look very festive around here. The fact that we're expected to get more snow Sunday through Wednesday of next week also doesn't hurt! A nice thing about no Thanksgiving here... no Black Friday shopping... which is a bonus, considering we kind of live above a mall.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving! I'm off to pick up lentils, hams, and other non-turkey items! Entertain me: vote in my new poll!