New Zealand extravaganza!: What? No pilgrims?

You guys might not know this, and it came as a shock to me as well, but every country does not celebrate Thanksgiving. I would have thought that the pilgrims eating with the Indians would be a bit more pivotal to the world’s wellbeing but evidently it is not. Thanksgiving has also made me very aware that I don’t even know why we have Thanksgiving, as far as I am concerned it is a day that we get together, my mom makes too many pies, we eat too much, and then I am very very sick but very well fed for the next few days! The specifics have left my memory! I could never enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with anyone but my own family, here is why:

1. Does your dad make turkey in a garbage can?

2. Does your mom make too many mashed potatoes because you love them so much?

3. Does your grandma bring rice and entertain everyone with her technological curiosity?

4. Does your mom spend Thanksgiving eve just baking pies?

5. Does your grandpa fall asleep watching Football before and after dinner?

6. Does your mom care about appetizers as much as the actual meal?

7. Do your cousins catch you up on the latest movie quotes and song lyrics?

My guess is that you probably couldn’t answer yes to even one of these and this is why I love Thanksgiving with my family!

In honor of Thanksgiving I decided to take on the task of making punkin pie. I had seen my mom do it many times and had even helped so I thought it would be an easy task. Well as it turns out New Zealand does not sell Pumpkin in a can, only fresh sliced pumpkin in the produce section (which still does not look like any pumpkin I have seen). No one that I work with had ever had it so I thought it is my duty as an American to introduce them to the tantalizing dessert. I found a recipe that actually started with fresh pumpkin (who knew). I collected my ingredients after work and decided that in the name of giving thanks I would forgo the gym to make pie. It wouldn’t be done up Dawn style without something readymade, so I bought already prepared pastry ( I am not grandma Hiatt). Well Janine walked in just I was getting all my ingredients out and lining them up in the bench (countertop). She looked real confused so I took advantage or her disorientation and put her in charge of the pastry and making sure it doesn’t stick to the pie plate.

I felt like it was a flash back to Halloween where you have to clean all of those nasty punkin guts out, and usually my dad did that….he was nowhere to be found for this task! I steamed the pumpkin still it was mushy then I took out my week of stress out on the poor unsuspecting pumpkin. I am not going to lie, I am a pretty good masher! When I had mashed all the pumpkin I started getting second thoughts on how I really felt about pumpkin pie, it’s like catching a delicious trout then having to clean it before you eat it, it becomes not so delicious looking. The spices saved it however, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg smelled oh so good, and got rid of that yucky bright orange color and gave it a more baby poop color…mmmmm! After getting it placed in the beautiful pastry prepared by my lovely assistant Janine we were realizing we had a lot of extra. We had enough extra pastry and punkin junk to make mini pies in cupcake tins. As we were waiting for the pie to bake we started getting real hungry and decided since we were having pumpkin pie we should also have hot dogs (I am sure you can see the connection there). SO that night for dinner we had hot dogs and buns with ketchup and mustard (just Janine I hate mustard). Lucky everyone at work loved the pie (at least that is what they told me since I actually cleaned a pumpkin!

For the next day that was Thanksgiving in the states we had Chinese takeaways (which were yum) and pavlova (like angel food cake) with whip crème and strawberries. It wasn’t MY Thanksgiving but if I couldn’t have the traditional I was quite pleased with my kiwi-ized Thanksgiving!