Thanksgiving in Brussels

It's Thanksgiving in Brussels, and all around the world (actually, just in Canada) families are coming together, and squabbling and making up, and cooking lots and lots of food. What can I say, I have a soft spot for family life, or maybe I just love to eat (cf. Heren und Herring) so, in the absence of my real family (enjoying a turkey in Washington DC), I assembled a ragtag bunch of misfits (aka my fellow exchange students) for a typical, traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

Apparently, most people don't have the warm memories and Thanksgiving cheer that I do, because among those friends who could attend, none ever celebrated Thanksgiving. Apparently, it's an Anglo thing. But at least they humored me (especially since I was making most of the grub) and we managed to create a decent Thanksgiving meal regardless (of course, this was achieved by liberal consumption of wine).

In addition to 4 students from Quebec, there were three Scottish exchange students, a Japanese exchange student, my roommate, his girlfriend and me. Preparing the food took me three hours, and that was with the very amiable help of my two assistant chefs, Amelie and Cinthia, who cracked walnuts while I sliced in diced. I couldn't find a turkey, so instead, I prepared three chickens. Our meal thus consisted of three chickens, stuffing (which I'm still eating, one week after the fact), cranberry sauce, two types of salad, potatoes and apple crumble. Plus the wine. There was lots and lots of wine. Not that I'm complaining, as it made my chickens seem a lot better than they were.

So, that's it for Thanksgiving. I still haven't planned what to do for Christmas, but you can bet it will be big, bold, and will not involve cooking for three hours and then cleaning up for three hours. I'm thinking of waterskiing.