We had our Thanksgiving dinner last night (Friday). My husband didn’t have to work (weekends are Friday and Saturday here), although I did, so he made everything except the mashed potatoes, which I made when dinner was about ready. (That was a job – turned out we don’t have an electric mixer, but we did have a ricer, so I made them pretty much by hand, or more correctly, brute force).

Of course, before he could really start the turkey he had to unpack the 10 remaining boxes in the kitchen to find the things he needed, like a big pan for a 20 pound turkey. He filled the bird with diced vegetables because we just didn’t have the ingredients for stuffing (and certainly not our usual, which has pancetta, wine, walnuts, rice, fresh spinach and such in it). The gravy recipe he found called for wine, which we had to omit, but he did manage to find fresh American cranberries in the supermarket.

So the three of us (including Sahraa!) sat down for dinner at around 10 p.m., exhausted but happy to be able to celebrate this most meaningful American holiday together in a very strange land.