Thanksgiving in London

Living outside of your comfort zone is one thing, but living outside of your comfort zone on Thanksgiving is quite another. I woke up bright and early and although I didn’t have to work, Josh did. To me, working on Thanksgiving is sacrilegious and I was personally glad to have the day off.

I figured it was only right to do something to celebrate while I waited for the evening’s dinner plans—at a French restaurant—but I didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought about watching the parade on the computer, but then remembered that while it was 9am in England it was only 4am in NY. The clowns may have been rising, but they definitely weren’t shining. So after posting a “Happy Thanksgiving” message on Facebook and snooping around to see what everyone back home was up to, I went about my usual business.

Even though I know Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated here, I sort of hoped I’d come across some type of acknowledgement for the day, like a turkey decal in a shop window or a Black Friday sale advert. Alas, there were none. In fact, I had to explain Black Friday to a co-worker and she looked at me like I was a heathen. In hindsight, driving to Walmart at midnight and clawing your way through throngs of people for half-priced electronics doesn’t make for the most heartfelt Thanksgiving story.

Flashing back to a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I’d invited another American couple over for a traditional turkey dinner the weekend after the holiday, as I figured our five-course French tasting menu wasn’t exactly authentic. My plan seemed completely doable and just plain necessary.  You can take the girl out of America, but you can’t take the America out of the girl. While Thanksgiving Day may have been anti-climactic, the thought of Saturday’s dinner plans lifted my spirits.

I started the process by researching recipes and interrogating family and friends on their tried-and-true cooking tricks. Though I graduated from culinary school, the Natural Gourmet focuses on health-supportive food that also happens to be primarily vegan. No roasted turkeys or sausage stuffing, and certainly no metric system.

After watching countless episodes of Barefoot Contessa and talking to Thanksgiving pros, I knew exactly how to cook a six-pound turkey at 350 degrees Fahrenheit—but what did that mean to a Londoner? It meant that I had to do more math this past week than I’ve ever had to do in my life. My preparations felt more like homework than cooking. If a turkey weighs 2.7 kilograms and it should cook for 20 minutes per pound at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, how long does it need to cook in a Celsius oven and at what temperature? After many equations and matrices, I learned that the turkey had to cook for approximately two hours at 176.66 (repeating) degrees Celsius. Impressed?

The process went on as such and my head swirled with gram and kilogram and milliliter conversions. You’d think I was mastering the Theory of Relativity with the pages of notes I was working with. Fractions and decimal points kept me up at night and worries of salmonella poisoning sent chills down my spine. Yes, it’s safe to say I was sufficiently and excessively stressed. But it was Thanksgiving and without a parade or Black Friday sales, the least I could do was serve a properly cooked turkey.

Cheese Platter

Despite two weeks’ worth of over analyzing and agonizing, dinner turned out as I’d hoped—fun, festive and full of food and wine. I’ll admit there were blunders, burns and tears along the way. I can tell you that I have blisters on my knuckles from my tiny oven and I had a near meltdown when the grocery delivery service sent me frozen broccoli instead of fresh broccoli. Not to mention that the farm I purchased my turkey from called me the day before to change my order (including the size and type of turkey), which meant I had to redo my entire cooking chart in the 11^th hour. But all mishaps aside, I’m happy to report that by 7:15pm on Saturday evening four friends sat down to a feast of food that served as a little reminder of home. It may not have been perfect, but it finally felt like Thanksgiving.

Apps - forgot to take pics after this point!

This year, I am thankful for the opportunity to live in London. I am thankful for wonderful friends and family. I am thankful for those of you who helped me plan my dinner and those of you who cheered me on along the way. I am thankful for Cindy, Greg and Josh for being my Thanksgiving Day guinea pigs. I am thankful for my blog readers (become a follower by clicking the “Follow” link at the bottom of the page). And for the first time, I am thankful for my former math teachers, who inadvertently prepared me for my first Thanksgiving abroad. I never thought I’d say this, but they were right. You do use math in your everyday life and you won’t always have access to a calculator. Who knew?