Thanksgiving

On Thursday, I celebrated American Thanksgiving in Austria.  My roommates (Courtney Bradley and Jessica Jenkins) are Canadian, so we celebrated their Thanksgiving in October.  Unfortunately, we could not find a turkey for their Thanksgiving, but  I was lucky enough to grab one of two turkeys in the grocery store a couple weeks ago!

On Thanksgiving Day, I opened the refrigerator to find my thawed-out turkey.  I proceeded to wash and clean out my turkey.  I made stuffing for the turkey, although the grocery stores here don't actually have a bag called "stuffing mix."  I used bread cubes, called knödel brot (dumpling bread), which are used to make knödels, or dumplings.  The grocery store also did not have all of the same spices and herbs that my mother usually puts in her stuffing mix, so I had to do without certain things like savory.  That is one thing I found difficult when trying to cook something from home.  The grocery stores here simply don't have the same ingredients as the grocery stores back home in America.  I had to work with what I could find at the store.  After making the stuffing, I opened the turkey up and jammed all my knödel brot stuffing inside.  I seasoned the outside of the turkey with rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper.  I also put slices of butter on the skin of the turkey.  I put the turkey into the oven at 10 a.m.  It was a "4,444 kg" turkey, which is about 9.7 lbs, so it needed to cook for about 4 to 4 1/2 hours.  To my surprise, the total bake time took about 5 or more hours.  This was my first turkey that I baked all on my own and I think it turned out great!

My boyfriend, Michi Schmieder, arrived at the apartment several minutes before the turkey had finished.  He was so sweet in that he brought me a bouquet of red roses!  I put the flowers in some water and continued my role as the master chef of the household.  I took the turkey out and carved slices of meat.  In addition to the turkey and its stuffing, I also served rice with gravy, green bean casserole, scalloped potatoes, deviled eggs, and crackers topped with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and a pepper (a tribute to the Quinnipiac women's ice hockey Thanksgiving feast).  For dessert, I made a sort of apple crumble-like thing.  It originally started out as an apple pie, but Austria doesn't have pie pans.  I had to use a spring-form pan for my apple pie...crumble...crisp thing.  All in all, it was a great first American Thanksgiving in Austria!  After cooking all day on Thursday, I don't think I will be cooking for a while!