Chinese Thanksgiving

There is no such holiday so named. But there is Thanksgiving IN China, when Americans decide to challenge themselves to create the authentic experience.

Here's Brett prepping his mom's famous Chinese Salad- traditional Peach Family Thanksgiving fare. It was QUITE tasty I must say- though the funniest part was that the "Chinese Noodles- or- Chow Mein"was unavailable here in China. Go figure.

Some of you know that I have a counter top toaster oven which is serving me quite well. I assumed though, that attempting a turkey would be tempting fate with the toaster oven gods...so, I looked to my local (30 minutes away) western grocery which reminds me of an expensive WholeFoods. As luck would have it, they offered fully cooked US grown turkeys for the Christmas season. What's better, they would give it to me HOT so I didn't have to solve the problem of reheating my whole turkey without a clue how I'd attempt it. Great. Now the problem was that the smallest turkey I could order was 13 pounds. We called on our American friends Sean, Matt and Jacqueline (Pictured below very happily seated at our makeshift thanksgiving table. Sorry you can only see part of Sean's head.) We could only invite three as 5 is the number of most things we have in terms of dishes in the kitchen.

Check out this package deal! The turkey came in a Styrofoam box to keep it hot, and came with some veggies and gravy and cranberry (which, frustratingly was better than my homemade whole berry version). YUM! All that was left was the potatoes, stuffing and pies!

I had a real blast prepping everything and I think our friends really enjoyed the gesture.

Pictured: Turkey, delicious, and still warm!

At the end of the night- here's Brett doing the hard work...stripping the bones of leftover turkey which would last us another 6 meals! Good thing we got creative with the meat. :) Good Job, Brett.

Jacqueline has a few more photos- some of me even! :) and I'll add those as soon as I can.

13 days until we are on our way home for Christmas. Gosh- there is SO much to be thankful for.