Our First Thanksgiving Dinner

As far as Chris’ cooking skills are concerns, it involves the fine art of heating, boiling and spreading. And, he is very proud of it. Depending on his mood, his dinner could either be a bowl of cereal or peanut butter directly from a jar. For a down-to-earth individual like Chris, basic food provides him comfort. He once told me that he grew up in one of those typical Martha Stewart house-holds with each dinner, desert and napkins perfected to please human’s natural senses. I have been wondering how come his mom’s style never gets rubbed on him.

And, believe it or not, the person described above was going to be the chef for our first Thanksgiving dinner. He swore that he had previous experiences of cooking turkeys, but unfortunately his stories always ended with some unexpected turns into a disaster, or a mix of disaster and a comedy. So, of course, he did not give me much confidence at all.

How we survived the Thanksgiving dinner? I have no idea

The adventure started on the night before the Thanksgiving. We printed a shopping list sent by his mom and headed over to Safeway. Right after we got a shopping cart, we found out that neither of us had the shopping list on us.

Chris said “We are F’ed”. I kind of agreed.

Thank God, there was a technology called internet via your cell phone. So, we were not complete toasted at that point.

After running around in the store like two chicken with heads cut off for a while, we realized that there was such a thing called “poultry seasoning”, were educated by other shoppers on the subtle differences of crusts of various types, and almost got everything on the list.

Chris:” Coconut Head, let’s double check the list to make sure we are not screwed.”

Hearing his silly comment, I felt thoroughly embarrassed as we were surrounded by many experienced Thanksgiving-shoppers who apparently know what they were doing.

We made the stuffing at night. The bread seemed not be the right kind, but the taste was somehow similar to what we knew.

The next day, the 20 lb turkey was shoved into the oven and taken out to the dinner table without breaking the pan. The meshed potato looked green (too much green onion) but tasted alright to two hungry people.

Against all odds, we survived. The turkey was not bad.

funny stories, thanksgiving cross-culture relationship