Our First Thanksgiving Overseas

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!!

We celebrated Thanksgiving twice this year. Bill took Thursday off, and we puttered around the house & walked downtown to visit the Christmas Market (140 craft & food booths set up to sell Christmas presents and tasty food). On our way home, we stopped at the local butcher's shop to pick up something to make for the two of us as a Thanksgiving treat. We knew we were having turkey with all of the trimmings on Saturday, so instead of the usual fare, we picked up and roasted a Yorkshire pheasant. 

The pheasant was pleasant (ha!), but pheasant is all dark meat, so not my favorite. But it was okay and we will probably make it again sometime while we're here. At one point I noticed Bill working on a piece of meat, and I figured he had gotten a small bone along with his bite of meat. He spat out the offending bit, and low and behold - it was buckshot! A friend here tells us that it's good luck to find buckshot on your plate, so let's hope it's true!

Pheasant buckshot

On to the communal Thanksgiving Feast on Saturday...

Some friends of ours rent a gorgeous house that is owned by an official Lord & Lady. Their house is wonderful  for entertaining, which they love to do.  The dining room came with a long table that seats 20 or so people - and they had it decorated beautifully. The Thanksgiving group included Americans, Aussies, and Brits; I think there was a total of 36 hungry mouths in attendance. 

Dinning room

Bill and I brought four loaves of homemade bread, his Mom's scalloped oysters (but we couldn't find oysters, so he used live muscles and it mostly worked), and roast veg (carrots, parsnips, and cauliflower). Others brought all the other fixin's - two turkeys, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, two types of stuffing, many types of veg, several variations on cranberry sauce, and so on. 

Kitchen prep pre-feast

Minutes before we ate EVERYTHING IN SIGHT

And if we weren't stuffed enough, there were also plenty of items for dessert. One couple made seven pies (!!) and we also had fudge, three pans of sticky toffee pudding, toppings (ice cream, whipping cream, pouring cream, and toffee sauce), and various after dinner drinks.

And they shall eat pie (and fudge, custard, sticky toffee pudding...)

The sunset (at 4:15, as we get less than eight hours of sunlight this time of year) from their backyard was spectacular! It reminds me that, although times may be challenging, we still have a lot to be thankful for.  

"Thanksgiving" sunset