Yes, ladies and gentlemen, step right up for the cultural freak show. Today we celebrated American Thanksgiving (albeit a few days late) – in Germany. Here is a chronicle of our festival.

9:00 – The alarm goes off. Two sleepy Marcards try to pretend it isn’t so. Doesn’t happen.
Between 9:00 and 12:00 – [sung to the tune of "Rawhide"] Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning… Get those Marcards cleaning… (except we never did make it to Kehrwoche – the mandatory cleaning of the stairs. Hm… hope our landlords don’t read the blog…)
12:00 – Kristy makes guacamole to go with the chips that we have as pre-dinner snacks, since, through years of experience, we know the turkey will never be done earlier than a half hour later than the ETA, and people need something to eat while they’re waiting to eat.
12:15 – Kristy begins preparing the stuffing, planning to put the bird in the nest at 12:30.

Note the handiness of the extra-deep countertop.

12:30 – Flo helps out a lot, particularly peeling and cutting the potatoes. He insists I capture photographic evidence, lest anyone question the validity of my previous assertion.

12:45 – Kristy calls Mom, waking her out of her peaceful Sunday morning slumber, with some last minute questions: “What about basting? Did you say cover or uncover the turkey? How much water is ‘slight,’ exactly?” We then shoot the breeze for a few minutes.

12:52 – Flo discusses the obsceneness of shoving bread stuffs in a turkey’s um, hinter parts. Kristy, upon expressing some incredulity in this matter, receives a lesson in turkey anatomy.

12:55 – Flo wins. I really give it to the turkey.

12:56 – Flo points out that he’s seen my Mom do it and she always shoves real hard In fact, his exact words are, “Ah, push it. Push it real good.” (Think Salt’n'Pepa) Therefore, I adopt this strategy and forthwith force enough stuffing for a ten pound turkey into an eight pound squawker.
1:00 – We put the turkey in the oven. Hello, extra half hour for munching nachos and guacamole.
Between 1:00 and 2:00 – Reprise of “Rawhide”
Between 2:00 and 3:00 – Oh, you know, the usual, putting on the potatoes to boil, reheating the sweet potatoes, cooking cabbage (cabbage? Yeah, I needed a vegetable, because I couldn’t find butternut squash, and I thought, if the Germans don’t like American Thanksgiving food, at least they’ll have cabbage!), whipping up some biscuits from scratch, fixin’ the gravy, setting the table…

3:00 – Matze and Dana arrive… exactly on time. We set them on the chips and guac.
Between 3:00 and 3:30 – see entry for “Between 2:00 and 3:00″.
3:15 – Kristy makes these fantastic buttermilk biscuits and waits for there to be space in the oven in order to actually bake them. I’m sorry, Mom, your recipe got here just a bit too late for me to use, and these looked easier. They actually tasted quite like ones from the store, that you buy for Thanksgiving. Plus, buttermilk is really easy to come by here.

For a glance at the recipe yourselves, click here.
3:30 – Andy and Chantal arrive… we set them on the chips and guac.
3:35 РFlo creates his pi̬ce de resistance: the sweet potatoes with fluff topping. I did indeed find proper fluff. There are some benefits to being near a U.S. Army Airbase.

He continues to insist it would make a rotten sandwich.
3:40 – The chicken flies the coop. Or, the turkey does. We take that baby out of the oven and holy moly. It was perfect! Mom told me to throw it in a pan with a little water and a peeled onion & let her rip. When I poke it with a fork and it doesn’t ‘feel’ raw anymore, it’s done. I was skeptical, I admit, but it worked. It was tender and juicy, but not undercooked. Oh man oh man, the house smelled so good.


4:00 – We finally sit down to eat; exactly one half hour after I planned. Cheers!

(From left: Matze, Dana, Chantal, Andy, Flo)
Much later that night: after the indigestion goes down and the pant buttons are refastened – Dessert! Pumpkin pie with home made whipped cream.

All in all, it was absolutely lovely. We got to spend the whole evening with people we really enjoy. I got to share my culture. They got to eat turkey (none but Flo ever had). We felt overstuffed and pleasant. There was no football game. I’m sorry Jeremy, but what that translates into is: we talked to each other about more than simply whether the ref made a bad call or not. It was great. It actually felt like Thanksgiving, and I wasn’t sure if it would.