November 24 - the last Thursday of the month - Thanksgiving Day. Where do I normally find myself on Thanksgiving? Usually (for the first 20 year of my life) at home in Florida surrounded by family and food. I try to catch a glimpse of the parade, while the boys watch football. I help mom put the finishing touches on the dishes. I come home from a holiday shift at work, tired and hungry for Thanksgiving dinner.This year was different - okay, last year was as well, but this year I am in the Netherlands. In Maastricht, we do not have days off of school. There is no official holiday. Shops are open, life is normaal. But for the Americans in town, it is Thanksgiving. And we decided to celebrate! How? By making a massive Thanksgiving dinner for 30+ people of course!
Let me regale the tale....
We then enjoyed a coffee at McDonalds, where we discussed the strategy. When cooking for so many people and so many different dishes, it is important to have a plan in place to stay organized. We would begin the following Wednesday. First we would shop and pick up the Turkey before heading to Tafelstraat to begin the preparations. On Thursday, we would complete the cooking and present the feast to everyone.
So, on Wednesday, we met at Tafelstraat, prepared with our previously purchased ingredients, shopping list and several shopping bags. We began by picking up the Turkey - 26 euros for 4-5 kg. With the bird in hand, we headed to Jumbo, the nearby grocery store in the city to complete our shopping. We filled an entire cart with ingredients - cheese, butter, pasta, vegetables, everything! We then returned to the markt for eggs and celery (which we could not find at the grocery!). With our backpacks and saddle bags loaded, we carefully cycled back to Tafelstraat.
We arrived back in the kitchen around 2pm, with a few ingredients missing. Clara went to the Albert Heijn just across the river in search of cream cheese and some lunch for us, while I began carving the pumpkin. I was a bit nervous about the pumpkin part, but it was a success! It was not too tricky to cut. We baked it for a little over an hour to dehydrate it and turn it into a puree (the whole time I was missing canned pumpkin from the states!). When Clara returned, we cooked our pizzas and ate a lunch of frozen pizza and apple juice. Yum!
Back in the kitchen, Clara began making graham cracker and gingerbread pie crusts, since pre-made crusts are unheard of in Netherlands. Kudos to Clara for making 11 pie shells! Woo hoo! Meanwhile, I worked in my own little station preparing the various fillings for the pies - 9 different kinds! This was what we worked on for most of the afternoon. Seriously. Clara went for a spinning class at the gym around 7pm while I continued working in the kitchen. On her way back, she picked up some more butter and things we had forgotten as well as some things for pasta. We made a nice pasta dinner and continued cooking! After finishing up the pies (dessert first, of course!), we began on some of the casseroles. Clara made the mashed potato casserole, while I did the broccoli, sweet potato and green bean casserole. We also prepared the layered salad and boiled some eggs (for deviled eggs) to sit overnight. At 2 o'clock in the morning, we called it quits, and headed home for the evening. It was a pretty silent ride home so early in the morning!
I woke up around 10 the next morning to a text from Clara, who was already at the University to test a participant. Her participant did not show up, so I invited her over for a coffee before we would head back into the city for the rest of the cooking. She came and we had a nice coffee and did the final shopping for the meal before returning to Tafelstraat for more cooking!
Back in the kitchen, we continued our preparations. Clara crafted the cheese ball appetizer, while I worked on creamy peanut butter ginger dip and put the finishing touches on the green bean casserole. Clara was in charge of the turkey, as she had conducted the research on preparing the bird. I must say, she did an excellent job! Neither one of us had any experience making a turkey. My family normally fries it, while Clara's normally eats goose. But it turned out fantastic! Clara stuffed it with all kind of yumminess - apples, onions, garlic, cilantro!
On the other side of the kitchen, I prepared the ingredients for our curried pumpkin apple soup, the vegetarian stuffing and cranberry dressing. In between making the turkey, Clara boiled eggs, assembled the harvest grilled apples and kneaded the dough for the homemade apple cider biscuits. In the early afternoon, I began having a really bad headache and muscle (neck and back) aches. I ate some rice and drank some coffee, but it continued to get worse. Clara ran home to get a change of clothes for the dinner and brought me back some tylenol. I gratefully took the pills and headed out quickly to pick up some butter for our remaining dishes and to get the train tickets at HEMA (unlimited travel in all of Netherlands for one day for 15,50 euro!). The fresh air and tylenol combo helped. Shortly after I returned to Tafelstraat, I began to feel better and ready for the dinner.
Last minute preparations were soon underway. Friend filed in to help us in the kitchen. Our friends Alessandra and Antonia were especially helpful in assembling the deviled eggs and the macaroni and cheese. I must say, the last hour before dinner was served was super hectic! It is all a blur now. We broke out the extra electric oven to help reheat all the dishes to be warm for serving. Soon, everything was out on the table. Clara read a short synopsis of Thanksgiving, since we were serving quite an international crowd who might be unfamiliar with the tradition. Then I introduced the meal and explained the dishes.
Everyone was delighted by the meal! The dishes were quickly consumed. Clara and I spent the evening running back and forth, bringing out dishes as they heated and replenishing the supply of biscuits. Our only major blunder was the turkey, which was actually fine. Originally, it did not cook quite long enough, so we could only serve a bit, before we had to pop it back in the oven for awhile to cook some more. Eventually, it cooked all the way, but by that time everyone had eaten dessert. Also, if we had another oven or source for heating things, we could have presented all of the dishes simultaneously, which would have been nice. But, overall, everything turned out perfectly!
We presented the desserts - 11 delicious pies including pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate chess pie and mystery pecan pie. Although everyone was already stuffed, the desserts were mostly eaten, with a few leftovers.
Everyone was so gracious for the meal - we could not have asked for a nicer crowd - a nice reminder of why we embarked on this formidable feat! At the end of the dinner, everyone chipped in with the dishes, and we scrubbed the kitchen - fun, fun! As the evening came to a close, Clara and I began discussing post-Thanksgiving plans of a Christmas movie. We ran to the nearby Albert Heijn and grabbed a couple of bottles of wine to accompany the movie - well deserved after two days of cooking! We invited a couple of friends to join us and headed to my place to watch Elf, a funny Christmas movie. It was another late night, but so nice to relax and be done with the Thanksgiving escapade!
I'm still wondering how I will top this Thanksgiving next year...!
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