Stardate: 11/25/2007 Ukrainian Thanksgiving

Patrick and I thought that it would be a great idea to do nothing for Thanksgiving and sit around and relax! We thought that that sounded like a wonderful treat. However, A had other plans for us. She realized it was Thanksgiving on the morning of and diligently set about creating a Thanksgiving feast for us. Isn’t that nice? She called us about 1pm and said that she’d like to have us down for dinner. We protested, of course, because we didn’t want her to go to a lot of trouble, but she refused our protests. We asked to bring some things, but what with our busy day’s schedule here and the lack of proper ingredients, it was not to be. We all settled on having us bring wine and dessert.

We arrived about 8pm for our Thanksgiving feast and immediately had several toasts of red wine. This was followed by Ukrainian hors d’oeuvres, which are essentially comprised of homemade pickles and smoked salmon. Cheese is not on the typical table here. They eat it a lot but usually on sandwiches. We then had the main course, which was roasted chicken with mushrooms, cold peas from the jar, and baked apples. It was really very good (with the exception of the peas!), because A and V are great cooks. The roasted chicken was so juicy and we found out that is due to their technique of covering it in mayo prior to cooking! We shared with them the American tradition of brining the bird. A says that she may try it sometime. I will definitely try the mayo trick.

Anyway, we chatting and ate. Patrick had 3 helpings just to make it feel like a real Thanksgiving. We even all shared things we are thankful for, but somehow it fell short of the ‘feeling’ of Thanksgiving back home. The streets don’t have much traffic, there’s a football game on the TV, women are running around the kitchen in a semi-state of panic, and people are lounging with wine and beers and shooting the breeze. Then, of course, the feast that must include turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing!, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie for dessert, etc. All this is followed by the semi-comatose, turkey-induced, post-feast lazing about.

All in all it was nice. Actually, it was grand of the Badans to do it, to care, you know? But it wasn’t like Thanksgiving. To some degree I’m glad it didn’t bring up home feelings, because I would rather not miss home on Thanksgiving. :-)