fakesgiving in the uk!

thanksgiving..such a strange holiday to try to explain. we always just think of it as a time to indulge and hang out with all our favourite people. this year, in another country, it was bound to be a bit different. on thanksgiving day the international office hosted a dinner for us all where they made turkey and potatoes and we were responsible for everything else. lila made pumpkin pie and came over to mine where we drank gin and lemonade and starting imagining our incredible thanksgiving dinner. wait, we're in england, incredible food? exactly. we showed up to the dinner with our lovingly prepared stuffing and pumpkin pie only to find that our dishes were the absolute highlight. one end had 3 kids from hong kong who brought a frozen pizza and dessert covered in whipped cream and some sort of glazed red berry on top. the other end of the table had a couple americans who brought their english friends and the thanksgiving classic: baked beans with potatoes and cheese. no. unacceptable.

unsatisfied with thursdays events, the following sunday alice and i headed into town and cleaned out sainsbury's and waitrose, returning to kbh with a mission of making the best feast we could. i made stuffing (my absolute favourite part of any big meal) and alice peeled potatoes for hours while describing her famous roasted rosemary potatoes. the lovely scottish girls, cara and catherine, came to join in our domesticity..

...and catherine brought a haggis, her scottish contribution to the meal.

none of us really knew how to cook a chicken, so alice had to call her mum to talk us through it. fortunately ben showed up just in time to do the actual stuffing as we were all a little too squeamish. i think he may have enjoyed himself a little too much..


i have no idea why we thought two chickens were necessary, but we did and ended up having to "whack one in" hanna's oven down the hall. a few hours later the whole floor smelled of garlic and herbs and people started flooding into our flat.


our efforts paid off and we managed to put together a great meal with our friends. alice kept saying that she was the 'native english' person teaching me how to make a roast, trying to translate thanksgiving into uk terms.

i saw this today while i walked through town to penrhyn road and couldn't resist taking a picture as it reminded me of my first breakfast here with rob:
i sat at the kitchen table sipping my lavazza coffee brewed in my beloved moka pot that i brought here in my suitcase (that is now gathering dust since i've fallen in love with english tea..). rob came in and after putting the super-fast electric kettle on boiled a perfect egg and toasted, buttered and cut a piece of bread into little strips, or "soldiers." the egg was nestled into a little faded, plastic cup shaped like a pair of trousers bringing humpty-dumpty to breakfast for a a brief moment until rob sliced the top off the egg to expose the warm, liquidy yolk that the soldiers would be dipped into. i'm pretty sure i just sat there staring and thinking, "wow, i really am in england," since nowhere in the states would a hungover 19 year old be capable of anything more than pouring milk over his lucky charms. i'm still waiting for him to make me one...