Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there. It's hard to believe we've been here 4 months already, and even harder to believe that Christmas is right around the corner.
NZ doesn't have anything like Thanksgiving, so this week was just like any other here. The stores are all gearing up for Christmas--in fact, with no Halloween, they've been rolling out their Christmas stuff since mid-October. Tonight is 'Christmas in the Park' here. If the promotional material is correct, 1 out of 4 people in the city will be there. I'm not sure if we will.
We didn't do anything special for Thanksgiving. Debi and I have been battling colds for about 2 weeks now, as have the boys. Of course, since it's spring and there are all sorts of exotic allergens in the air, it's hard to tell what is cold-related and what is allergies. Either way, neither of us has been in the mood to plan or execute a Thanksgiving feast.
Turkeys are available here. However, like their cousin the chicken, they come at a premium price. You won't find birds the size of a Yugo for $.69 per pound here. The turkeys I've seen sell for $40-$60 (or more) and are about the size of US roasting chickens. Poultry is sold by size, which means that you could pay the same price for two birds a pound or so different in weight and it is impossible to say exactly how much a given bird weighs. I'd estimate the turkeys in the range of 6-12 pounds, making them as expensive as beef fillets, racks of lamb, or monk fish. And all the turkeys I've seen are frozen. Perhaps when Christmas comes the butchers will have fresh.
Buying a turkey would be fairly pointless, since I've yet to find cranberries. I'm hoping that they'll magically appear in the week before Christmas, since we do get some American produce here (grapes, nectarines, peaches, and some pears).
The local sweet potatoes, called kumara, are terrific. They are milder than the sweet potatoes or yams in the States, which is good. They aren't stringy either, so mashed they are similar in texture and taste to a mixture of sweet and white potatoes. (Something Dixie got me started doing, thanks to a dish she had at Pascale's.
Finding suitable bread for stuffing wouldn't be any problem. Bread is one of the few things I can find in the grocery store in as many varieties as I would find in the US. They sell cheap white here, too. Of course, there's no Bell's Seasoning, which is too bad since I've always thought the smell of Bell's is the smell of Thanksgiving. Forget the roasting turkey--when those spices hit the butter, onions, and celery, Thanksgiving has begun! (BTW, it would be a bad, bad, bad idea to send me any. NZ has pretty strict rules about importing dried or live plant materials, which includes spices, and violations result in a $200 fine.) If I wanted to I could probably fashion some for myself, since there's a wonderful Indian grocery a couple of blocks from here that has just about every spice you could want either whole or ground, and I'm sure I could find a recipe on google.
The one accompaniment that would not be difficult to find would be the wine. The greatest challenge would be picking among the dozens of pinot gris, pinot noirs, savignon blancs, and Gewürztraminers available--there's a real embarrassment of riches on that front.
Maybe I'll just skip all that other stuff and have some wine.
NZ doesn't have anything like Thanksgiving, so this week was just like any other here. The stores are all gearing up for Christmas--in fact, with no Halloween, they've been rolling out their Christmas stuff since mid-October. Tonight is 'Christmas in the Park' here. If the promotional material is correct, 1 out of 4 people in the city will be there. I'm not sure if we will.
We didn't do anything special for Thanksgiving. Debi and I have been battling colds for about 2 weeks now, as have the boys. Of course, since it's spring and there are all sorts of exotic allergens in the air, it's hard to tell what is cold-related and what is allergies. Either way, neither of us has been in the mood to plan or execute a Thanksgiving feast.
Turkeys are available here. However, like their cousin the chicken, they come at a premium price. You won't find birds the size of a Yugo for $.69 per pound here. The turkeys I've seen sell for $40-$60 (or more) and are about the size of US roasting chickens. Poultry is sold by size, which means that you could pay the same price for two birds a pound or so different in weight and it is impossible to say exactly how much a given bird weighs. I'd estimate the turkeys in the range of 6-12 pounds, making them as expensive as beef fillets, racks of lamb, or monk fish. And all the turkeys I've seen are frozen. Perhaps when Christmas comes the butchers will have fresh.
Buying a turkey would be fairly pointless, since I've yet to find cranberries. I'm hoping that they'll magically appear in the week before Christmas, since we do get some American produce here (grapes, nectarines, peaches, and some pears).
The local sweet potatoes, called kumara, are terrific. They are milder than the sweet potatoes or yams in the States, which is good. They aren't stringy either, so mashed they are similar in texture and taste to a mixture of sweet and white potatoes. (Something Dixie got me started doing, thanks to a dish she had at Pascale's.
Finding suitable bread for stuffing wouldn't be any problem. Bread is one of the few things I can find in the grocery store in as many varieties as I would find in the US. They sell cheap white here, too. Of course, there's no Bell's Seasoning, which is too bad since I've always thought the smell of Bell's is the smell of Thanksgiving. Forget the roasting turkey--when those spices hit the butter, onions, and celery, Thanksgiving has begun! (BTW, it would be a bad, bad, bad idea to send me any. NZ has pretty strict rules about importing dried or live plant materials, which includes spices, and violations result in a $200 fine.) If I wanted to I could probably fashion some for myself, since there's a wonderful Indian grocery a couple of blocks from here that has just about every spice you could want either whole or ground, and I'm sure I could find a recipe on google.
The one accompaniment that would not be difficult to find would be the wine. The greatest challenge would be picking among the dozens of pinot gris, pinot noirs, savignon blancs, and Gewürztraminers available--there's a real embarrassment of riches on that front.
Maybe I'll just skip all that other stuff and have some wine.
posted by Jon A at
8:58 AM
1 Comments:
>>Maybe I'll just skip all that other stuff and have some wine.
You boozehound, you.
Of course, I say that after having skipped Thanksgiving dinner before joining friends for post-dinner drinks (and drinks and drinks) last night. Tee hee!
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