Thanksgiving

I think I have managed to recover from the madness (good madness) that was Thanksgiving enough to write about it- it has been a week now. The celebration started on Wednesday evening with Becky and I making the trek up to Lisa's apartment (a relative mansion by CETP teacher's standards- not only does she have more than one room she has 3 AND a kitchen that more than one person can stand in at a time!- hence our seemingly random choice of the small town of Tszavasvári to hold the feast.) Becky and I arrived the night before the other guests in what was meant to be an attempt at organization but mostly just ended up with the three of us eating one of Lisa's coveted boxes of Mac and Cheese and all of the chocolate chip cookies I had made (we had some help with that from Lisa's neighbor Gabor.) We did however, manage to do a turkey-test-run, partly because we had two turkeys and wouldn't be able to cook them both on Thursday and partly because none of us had ever cooked a turkey before and wanted to give it a try first in case we totally ruined it- at least we could learn from our mistakes and have a second go. Luckily the turkey turned out lovely and not only didn't make anyone sick but people actually enjoyed it which was nice. Cooking the turkey took a bit of creativity and inventiveness on our part- we didn't have a roasting pan or any kind of rack, or a turkey baster, or string to tie the legs together....we worked with what we had. In the end we put the turkey in a big soup pot sitting on top of an overturned bowl (so that the juice would drip down instead of the bird just sitting in it and getting soggy on one half and dried out on the top), the only string we could find was blue so the drippings and, gravy made from the drippings, had a bit of a blue tint but tasted fine. Basting was a bit of an ordeal but Becky and I are now pros at what as been dubbed "the Sara method" of Becky holding the bird up out of the pot while yelling at me to hurry because it is heavy and hot, while I pour the juice from the pot into a bowl, Becky buts the bird back in and I pour the juice over the top- ta-dah! basted! we did what we could and it tasted good.

Thursday morning at around 10, with Becky, Lisa and I just waking up and getting ready for the day, we welcomed the first guests- Susan, Judy and Ian. From this point on people and food and wine started pouring in and in the end there was tons of food- traditional Thanksgiving dishes like stuffing, mashed potatoes, and saurkraut (traditional for me and Becky anyway), some Hungarian adaptations of traditional dishes- a lovely squash and pistachio dish and some Hungarian dishes- paprikash krumpli, füszelek and heaps of other wonderful things. We peaked at about 25 people! Hungarian and American, but there was plenty of good food, good wine and conversations in the bizarre mix of Hungarian, English, German and even Spanish that is becoming all too normal in my head.

Most of the guests left Thursday evening (but not before apple pie, chocolate cake and mulled wine!) but there was quite a number of us (mostly Americans) who stayed the night. We ditched the insane mess in Lisa's kitchen and headed for the bar to further celebrate the evening before stumbling back to find a spot to sleep in either Lisa's or Gabor's apartments.

The next morning we started the day with a lovely breakfast of leftover pie, chocolate cake and champagne before heading out to Tokaj- a small town famous for it's wine and wine cellars. We crammed into a dark, damp and moldy cellar and enjoyed a lovely series of Tokaj wines (famous for their sweetness and the unique flavor that is a result of the mold on the walls of the cellars.

Back to Lisa's where we indulged in the best part of Thanksgiving- leftovers.

It was a lovely weekend full of all the things that make Thanksgiving great- friends, food, wine and leftovers. (if only there had been a football game it really would have been perfect.)