Updated with Turkey Results!!!!!!!!!!!
For the Rames' in Dublin, Turkey Day was filled with the normal, everyday activities like work and school. There were no crazed crowds of pepper-spraying shoppers to deal with. There wasn't a parade. There wasn't a football game. And most of all there wasn't a TURKEY!! Much to J.J.'s disappointment, we had beef for dinner. But have no fear, the turkey is near!!! We decided that we'd move our Thanksgiving Day celebration to Saturday to give us time to clean, cook, & host. We're actually going to have some Americans over. The Holmes' were introduced to us by Drew and Aya Robbins, our neighbors in Redmond. They have 4 kids with a couple of teenagers. They've been here since early in 2011 and have been our expat mentors prior to and after arriving in Dublin. We're not going to mess with the traditional Thanksgiving Day fare, however. Since Ireland doesn't have an equivalent, no point of assimilating Irish customs. On to the discoveries we've made related to Thanksgiving:
1. The Turkey. Turkey is a traditional Christmas entree and they are plentiful. I'd have to say they haven't pumped their turkey's up with genetic engineering technology or spent as much time breeding their birds to be near-Pterodactyl size. I'm sure this has something to do with the size of the typical Irish oven. And yes, if you look at the picture, you will see our turkey has SHINS?! They took the feet, but left the lower part of his legs. I have an historical hypothesis as to the reason. The Irish have been known to have larger families and to avoid family strife, leaving two additional leg segments was sure make dinner a more pleasant affairs without the wrangling over the limited supply.
So the turkey shins were definitely not edible, but the rest of the bird was great. We learned that our oven is always on convection, which would have been really nice to have known prior to calculating when the turkey should have gone in. So it was finished at tab bit early, if you consider 45 minutes a tad. It had plenty of time to rest and I had plenty of time to make, THE GRAVY!!!! Between the muffled voices stuffed with mashed potatoes and stuffing, words were heard like, "best gravy ever" and "do you have a syringe that would allow me to inject this"? The pan from the oven that we cooked the turkey in was a perfect fit on top of the stove with all four burners going. The 4 cups of gravy were but a memory when dinner was over.
2. The Stuffing. We're going with a chestnut dressing. Martha was strolling down in the city and found a vendor selling chestnuts on the street so we're going to try it out on our guests this year. Plain bread crumbs didn't seem to be something the stores stocked, so it will be a costly addition to the meal as we used some fancy croutons instead. Next time, we'll just have to buy the bread and open it up to dry out. The stuffing was also very good. We didn't even touch the pan that was cooked separately from the bird as it became one of those forgotten dishes on the side table that no one remembered.
3. Potatoes. Well Ireland is known for spuds. Shopping for potatoes in Dublin means heading down the aisle and perusing the myriad choices. There are a lot to choose from. One of our local stores (Superquinn) has home delivery and they list 25 different types of potatoes. We went with the Maris Piper. The reason we went with this variety was simple: they were the cheap store brand. Someday, I aspire to be a potatoe expert to regale my dinner guests with my adventures of shopping for and consuming potatoes in Dublin, but I'm still working on becoming a spud snob. (My spell checker is telling me I've misspelled potatoe, but Dan Quayle and I know differently.) Of course, we'll have some sweet potatoes and fill them with fluff (marshmallow paste).
4. Green bean casserole. The search for French's Fried Onions or a reasonable substitute resulted in failure, so we'll be making green beans with almonds.
5. Cranberries in a can. What is more Thanksgiving that a can-shape plate of cranberries. Sorry, no cans of cranberries in Ireland. We had to buy the bags and make our own. Preliminary sampling says we're better off without the cans! Perhaps the surprise of dinner, the cranberries Martha made were great. Next year we'll make half as many as we ended up having cranberries for numerous lunches and dinners over the next week. It was a bit over the top, even for Thanksgiving.
6. Pumpkin in a can. Nope. When picking up our pumpkins for Halloween, all the bins had recipes for pie with them. We bought the pumpkins, but just never got around to carving them, so we made our own pumpkin pies last night.I'm not sure we'll ever buy pumpkin in a can again!!! Seriously, it was good and easy. Cut pumpkin in two, bake for an hour, pull out the flesh. Put into bowl and mix/blend. Add other pumpkin stuff. Bake. The pie was great and best of all, we have some of that pumpkin in the freezer waiting for the next occasion. I don't think Christmas dinner would be offended by having a pumpkin pie finish up? Do you??
7. French Silk. I'm not sure if this a Thanksgiving tradition in other places, but it is at our house. Martha managed to put this together without the assistance of a mixer. We still haven't picked up one of these kitchen appliances. If our great grandparents survived without one of these in the house, I'm sure we can make it. However, we'll keep the bathrooms.When the gravy ran out, some in the crowd got a bit misty, but when the French Silk pie ran out, real tears flowed. Yes, Grace came back after having a slice of cherry (yummy from the Holmes') and a slice of pumpkin only to find the empty pie tin. We'll need two of those next year.
The Holmes' will bring some dishes and desserts, so it is stacking up to be a food orgy and that's about as traditional as it gets, even if we are in Ireland.
As you can tell from the tense, we haven't actually eaten the meal yet, but I thought I'd better get it out before the motivation is drained from my body by the addition of all the good friends, food and drink. We managed to pick up a 12-year old Jameson on the shopping trip to round out our meal, so there is no doubt the spelling and grammar would deteriorate greatly and I don't want to have to generate a corrected blog after receiving a marked up printout from my Mom. Happy Thanksgiving to all. I am somewhat ashamed to say that there is still a 12-year old Jameson in my cupboard, untouched. Josh was the designated driver that night, so not one to drink alone, Joe left the bottle untouched and joined in with the girls drinking wine and beer. After this feast, there wasn't much room for much anyway.
For the Rames' in Dublin, Turkey Day was filled with the normal, everyday activities like work and school. There were no crazed crowds of pepper-spraying shoppers to deal with. There wasn't a parade. There wasn't a football game. And most of all there wasn't a TURKEY!! Much to J.J.'s disappointment, we had beef for dinner. But have no fear, the turkey is near!!! We decided that we'd move our Thanksgiving Day celebration to Saturday to give us time to clean, cook, & host. We're actually going to have some Americans over. The Holmes' were introduced to us by Drew and Aya Robbins, our neighbors in Redmond. They have 4 kids with a couple of teenagers. They've been here since early in 2011 and have been our expat mentors prior to and after arriving in Dublin. We're not going to mess with the traditional Thanksgiving Day fare, however. Since Ireland doesn't have an equivalent, no point of assimilating Irish customs. On to the discoveries we've made related to Thanksgiving:
1. The Turkey. Turkey is a traditional Christmas entree and they are plentiful. I'd have to say they haven't pumped their turkey's up with genetic engineering technology or spent as much time breeding their birds to be near-Pterodactyl size. I'm sure this has something to do with the size of the typical Irish oven. And yes, if you look at the picture, you will see our turkey has SHINS?! They took the feet, but left the lower part of his legs. I have an historical hypothesis as to the reason. The Irish have been known to have larger families and to avoid family strife, leaving two additional leg segments was sure make dinner a more pleasant affairs without the wrangling over the limited supply.
So the turkey shins were definitely not edible, but the rest of the bird was great. We learned that our oven is always on convection, which would have been really nice to have known prior to calculating when the turkey should have gone in. So it was finished at tab bit early, if you consider 45 minutes a tad. It had plenty of time to rest and I had plenty of time to make, THE GRAVY!!!! Between the muffled voices stuffed with mashed potatoes and stuffing, words were heard like, "best gravy ever" and "do you have a syringe that would allow me to inject this"? The pan from the oven that we cooked the turkey in was a perfect fit on top of the stove with all four burners going. The 4 cups of gravy were but a memory when dinner was over.2. The Stuffing. We're going with a chestnut dressing. Martha was strolling down in the city and found a vendor selling chestnuts on the street so we're going to try it out on our guests this year. Plain bread crumbs didn't seem to be something the stores stocked, so it will be a costly addition to the meal as we used some fancy croutons instead. Next time, we'll just have to buy the bread and open it up to dry out. The stuffing was also very good. We didn't even touch the pan that was cooked separately from the bird as it became one of those forgotten dishes on the side table that no one remembered.
3. Potatoes. Well Ireland is known for spuds. Shopping for potatoes in Dublin means heading down the aisle and perusing the myriad choices. There are a lot to choose from. One of our local stores (Superquinn) has home delivery and they list 25 different types of potatoes. We went with the Maris Piper. The reason we went with this variety was simple: they were the cheap store brand. Someday, I aspire to be a potatoe expert to regale my dinner guests with my adventures of shopping for and consuming potatoes in Dublin, but I'm still working on becoming a spud snob. (My spell checker is telling me I've misspelled potatoe, but Dan Quayle and I know differently.) Of course, we'll have some sweet potatoes and fill them with fluff (marshmallow paste).
4. Green bean casserole. The search for French's Fried Onions or a reasonable substitute resulted in failure, so we'll be making green beans with almonds.
5. Cranberries in a can. What is more Thanksgiving that a can-shape plate of cranberries. Sorry, no cans of cranberries in Ireland. We had to buy the bags and make our own. Preliminary sampling says we're better off without the cans! Perhaps the surprise of dinner, the cranberries Martha made were great. Next year we'll make half as many as we ended up having cranberries for numerous lunches and dinners over the next week. It was a bit over the top, even for Thanksgiving.
6. Pumpkin in a can. Nope. When picking up our pumpkins for Halloween, all the bins had recipes for pie with them. We bought the pumpkins, but just never got around to carving them, so we made our own pumpkin pies last night.I'm not sure we'll ever buy pumpkin in a can again!!! Seriously, it was good and easy. Cut pumpkin in two, bake for an hour, pull out the flesh. Put into bowl and mix/blend. Add other pumpkin stuff. Bake. The pie was great and best of all, we have some of that pumpkin in the freezer waiting for the next occasion. I don't think Christmas dinner would be offended by having a pumpkin pie finish up? Do you??
7. French Silk. I'm not sure if this a Thanksgiving tradition in other places, but it is at our house. Martha managed to put this together without the assistance of a mixer. We still haven't picked up one of these kitchen appliances. If our great grandparents survived without one of these in the house, I'm sure we can make it. However, we'll keep the bathrooms.When the gravy ran out, some in the crowd got a bit misty, but when the French Silk pie ran out, real tears flowed. Yes, Grace came back after having a slice of cherry (yummy from the Holmes') and a slice of pumpkin only to find the empty pie tin. We'll need two of those next year.
The Holmes' will bring some dishes and desserts, so it is stacking up to be a food orgy and that's about as traditional as it gets, even if we are in Ireland.
As you can tell from the tense, we haven't actually eaten the meal yet, but I thought I'd better get it out before the motivation is drained from my body by the addition of all the good friends, food and drink. We managed to pick up a 12-year old Jameson on the shopping trip to round out our meal, so there is no doubt the spelling and grammar would deteriorate greatly and I don't want to have to generate a corrected blog after receiving a marked up printout from my Mom. Happy Thanksgiving to all. I am somewhat ashamed to say that there is still a 12-year old Jameson in my cupboard, untouched. Josh was the designated driver that night, so not one to drink alone, Joe left the bottle untouched and joined in with the girls drinking wine and beer. After this feast, there wasn't much room for much anyway.
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