Thanksgiving

Saturday we had our first actual Thanksgiving in a home since 2004. We had a turkey dinner at church last year, but no turkey at home. This year, we remedied that. We spent Friday night at our friend's and then went over early Saturday morning and put the turkey in our other friend's oven. The other four people we were having Thanksgiving with all live within a block or two of each other so it meant we had easy access to everyone's apartments.

Turkeys are rare in Korea - most people have never eaten one. Suffice it to say that three foreigners walking down the street (which is enough of an attention getter) carrying a huge stuffed turkey in a pan (we washed and prepared it before transporting it) caused many people to stop in their tracks and stare as we went by. One lady in the elevator muttered something about "That doesn't look delicious..."

Anyway, it was in the oven at about 9:00 AM, and then we went back to the first apartment and just relaxed, watched a movie and hung out until about 1:00 or so. We went back to the turkey apartment only to discover that the oven had gone out! We had no idea when it would have gone out, so we relit the oven and tried again. About 45 minutes later, we checked the oven again - still on. 45 minutes later - turned off. We lit it again and decided it had one more chance. About 30 minutes later, it had gone out again.

So here we are - it's about 3:00 (we were planning on eating at 4:00) and the turkey is at least 3 hours behind schedule. Since we had no idea when the oven went out the first time, we had no idea how much longer we needed to cook the turkey. We had no meat thermometer as Koreans tend not to cook large chunks of meat at home. We were hungry, we were tired and we just wanted to eat some turkey. There was a vote at the end - salmonella or safety. Some of us didn't care whether the turkey was done or not while others reasoned that dry turkey was better than group sickness. However, majority and hunger prevailed and the turkey was pulled out around 7:30.

To cut a long story short, the turkey was done and we were finally ready to eat at around 8:30. We had the works - mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, turkey (obviously), homemade buns and apple pie. We ate quickly, we ate muchly and it was fantastic. I'd be willing to wager that a grander feast was never seen in that Korean apartment.

After dinner, we sat around and played some Bond on the N64, then some spoons (card game) and hung out for a bit. It was a really good time and there were (and still are) plenty of leftovers, which is the second best part of Thanksgiving dinner. It was a grand ol' time, had by one and all, and I was thankful that we were able to do what we did with the people we could.

(We have some pictures which we will post soon. Maybe.)