Thanksgiving Virgins

Before I begin to tell you about my first Thanksgiving in Israel, let me apologize for not blogging the past few weeks.  It's my own fault and I am sorry to keep you all in dark about what's going on with me here.  Yesterday I was reading a friends blog and she was reflecting on the past 6 months of blogging while writing her 50th post (congrats Shirmz) and she said "that when something happens that inspires me to write a post, I should do it as soon as possible."  Alas, here I am telling you about Thanksgiving 2 weeks late...

I have always enjoyed Thanksgiving, but my family was never one to host this holiday.  We went to various family friends each year and my mom would buy a ready made turkey dinner from Gelson's so we could enjoy the leftovers.  This year I felt a strong desire to host Thanksgiving dinner and was excited to share this delicious holiday with a bunch of Thanksgiving virgins.

About two weeks before Thanksgiving I told Tom I wanted to do this.  I sent a Hebrew text all by myself (mostly) to our friends inviting them.  We asked Tom's dad where we could find a turkey and he made some calls.  He was turned down by one butcher who claimed turkey was not in season, but found another who had a few birds reserved for the Americans.  With the help of my dear friend and recipe consultant Rachel, I found some simple but delicious recipes and began preparing for Thanksgiving 2011.

A few days before, Tom and I went to the market and I attempted to cross everything off my list.  It was impossible due to the lack of American ingredients, but I made some modifications that worked pretty well.  We picked up our 7.2 kilo (almost 16 pound) turkey on Wednesday evening and I stuffed her on Thursday afternoon.

                

There were 16 people around the table that night and none of them besides Tom had ever had a Thanksgiving dinner.  I made the mistake of mentioning turducken to everyone, and now they're all expecting one next year.

Here is the menu...feel free to ask me for any recipes.

- Turkey with a pomegranate molasses glaze
- Stuffing
- Butternut squash and chickpea salad
- Sautéed green beans
- Sage and butternut squash soup
- Cranberry pecan pie
- Mashed potatoes
- Cranberry sauce
- Gravy

Not to toot my own horn anything, but I had no help mostly because I insisted on doing everything by myself.  It was one of the least stressful cooking experiences I have ever had.  If someone hadn't like something, worst case I would have just said, well this is how it tastes in America...