Thanksgiving Times Three

One of the things that is rather fun about living overseas is celebrating holidays. I find Thanksgiving to be an especially interesting holiday experienced abroad because while it is a holiday only celebrated by Americans and Canadians (and the Canadians celebrate a month earlier), everyone knows about it and wants to celebrate.  I found it very interesting when I heard that the student council was hosting a Thanksgiving Dinner and so I decided to buy tickets (40 RMB or about $6) and go. The tickets said the menu was turkey, mashed potatoes, salad and a fruit cup. I wasn't sure how good it was going to be because Chinese turkey isn't known to be tasty (Chinese think turkey is tough and not good, but that's because the domestic birds are tough and not good. You can buy turkeys imported from the U.S.), but I figured it would be a fun evening. I ran into some friends in the hallway (the wife of one of my co-workers is quickly becoming a very good friend) and we went to the cafeteria together. The students weren't quite ready and we had to wait a few minutes. When we walked in they had the lights down and hit lit a hundred or more tea lights. They had a collections of greeting cards (with blank insides) that you could select one from (free with your dinner ticket), flowers which you could buy and I think something else (but I just don't remember). The students had arranged the tables in a U-shape with rows of additional tables in rows and the bottom of the U. They had the sound system ready to go and throughout dinner the students performed (singing, playing instruments, etc.). With the candles and the students in uniform it reminded me of Hogwarts (are students uniforms are rather formal with skirts, blouses and sweaters for the girls, slacks, sweater vests, suit jackets, ties, etc for the boys). It felt somewhat magical.
Unfortunately, the magic ended with the appearance. The food was already sitting at each place. It was in plastic take-out containers with chopsticks on top. I laughed an commented how this would be my first time eating Thanksgiving dinner with chopsticks. Inside the food container the turkey was rather pink and from a pig (it was ham and sausage), the mashed potatoes had turned into a weird sushi roll (seaweed wrapper surrounding rices, a few anaemic looking vegetables and egg. The whole thing was then topped with a squirt of mayonnaise). We did have a tiny bit of leafy veggies to serve as the salad, but the fruit cup had become soup. The students said that they had discovered they couldn't afford to buy the turkey and mashed potatoes. (Last year they had turkey and mashed potatoes, but apparently the ticket price was 70 RMB and they felt not enough people came. I'm not sure how they thought they could drop the price and afford to buy turkey) One of my coworkers complained and they did provide fruit cups (procured from the coffee shop located within our cafeteria) that were quite tasty. The students also did a good job with the entertainment. It will definitely be a Thanksgiving I will never forget.
I hosted my own Thanksgiving dinner as well, but since Thursday and Friday were regular work days I had to host it on Saturday. Friday evening I started cooking and I got up Saturday morning and continued to cook. I served mashed potatoes with gravy, home made bread, cornbread stuffing (made from homemade cornbread), apple pie and pumpkin pie (both with homemade crusts and the pumpkin was cooked down from, well a pumpkin), salad, fruit salad, deviled eggs, sweet potatoes with apples and dried cranberries (my favorite way to make them), cranberry sauce (out of a can because you cannot get fresh cranberries in China) and roasted chickens (unfortunately I forgot to take pictures). A couple of things you have to understand about cooking this feast. 1) There are no ovens in China. Actually, if you own your own place it is now possible to buy an oven at IKEA or a few other places. They aren't as big as American ovens, but not terrible. I, however, rent. I cooked everything in a toaster oven or on the stove (I have a two burner stove, but only one burner is working. 2) I could have purchased turkey from the import store, but I didn't have the oven space to cook it. I also could have purchased turkey already cooked from somewhere (I don't know where it is, but I know someone who did buy turkey from there), but it cost about 215 RMB (USD 32) per kilogram (or about $15/lb). I bought already roasted chicken for 16 RMB per kilo (or $2/lb). I think I made the wise choice.
I had 10 guests over and we had a grand time. I didn't have enough chairs for everyone (even with people sitting on the couch), but we made it work. I invited mostly American and Canadian friends because I knew they were the ones that would appreciate it the most. We did have a few other nationalities represented and it was a total blast. I am now thinking about hosting a Christmas party.
With all of that celebrating you would think I would have been Thanksgiving Day'd out, but no. On Sunday my small group had another Thanksgiving dinner. I made a chocolate cream pie for this one (I wanted to make a graham cracker crust, but there aren't any graham crackers here - at least not without paying a fortune at an import store for them - so I used digestive biscuits. I didn't think they turned out nearly as good as a graham cracker crust would have, but the others at least claimed they liked the crust.), and brought some of the sweet potatoes and bread from the day before. This time we had turkey! Third time's the charm (however, the turkey alone cost as much as my entire feast the day before). I did a really good job not overeating on Saturday, but on Sunday I didn't resist the temptations quite so well. Thankfully, after Sunday's feast Thanksgiving was finally over.

Thanksgiving dinner number 1: The first time I've ever eaten Thanksgiving dinner with chopsticks! 

Thanksgiving dinner number 2: I forgot to take a picture of the wonderful spread, but we had two awesome pies: apple and pumpkin.

Thanksgiving dinner number 2 - The aftermath: my refrigerator isn't much bigger than a dorm size fridge. That made it rather difficult to fit all the leftovers in it.

Thanksgiving dinner number 3: We're still setting up. I didn't get a picture, but this one actually had real turkey!