Thanksgiving Weekend

I managed to squeeze a little turkey and football into Thanksgiving weekend. As you might guess, neither was the variety you think of in the United States, but when surrounded by foreigners you have to make do with what you have.

First things first: I could not secure any cranberry sauce. None of the grocery stores here seemed to stock it, leaving my Thanksgiving dinner devoid of color. Deb and I had to make do with turkey breast steaks, potatoes and a chicken gravy mix.

Whole birds actually did replace ice cream in the freezers of Somerfield the week before the big turkey roast, but I doubt our little oven would have done well with a whole fowl. Therefore we stuck to our dutiful little portions of white meat, which certainly didn’t give enough fat to fill even a miniature gravy boat. Thus, it was on to store-bought gravy, which was not pre-made. Just like tea, you just had to add boiling water. There was also no turkey gravy, so the chicken variety had to stand in as a substitute. At least we didn’t have to turn to duck gravy.

As far as potatoes went … well, they’re still going. The big bag was on sale at Somerfield this week, and spuddenly we only have eyes for tatties – 1.8 kilos of them. Since we had no shortage, I made myself a thanksgiving dinner baked potato while Deb insisted on mashed.

Mashing the potatoes was a bit of an unorthodox event, since we don’t have a mixer, blender or potato masher. We ended up boiling the spuds until they had practically mashed themselves before chopping them with large spoons. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but actually netted some very tasty mashed potatoes. I’ve had lumpier that were made with a blender.

With the big day out of the way, we went to Windsor Castle on Friday. The castle is the favorite residence of the Royal family, though the queen wasn’t there when we visited. As you can imagine, the real estate was rather exclusive, so we didn’t do much Black Friday shopping there.

Unsurprisingly it’s a rather large castle, and once you’re inside it doesn’t really look like a castle at all. If you could breed a castle and a palace, you’d get Windsor Castle. Well, you might want to throw in a cathedral as a grandfather, because the grounds contained quite the impressive chapel, which was done in the parallel English gothic style. In other words, it had a wide, flat ceiling that looked like it should have fallen in because nothing appeared to be supporting the heavy stone roof. Quite impressive.

In Windsor we also walked to the adjacent Eaton, which is home to a quite prestigious private school. Prince Harry and Prince William went there, so you know it is pretty swishy. Having said that, it really isn’t much to visit. The Swans in the River Thames, which you have to cross to get to Eaton from Windsor, were much more interesting. Apparently the Queen owns them.

Saturday was the football part of the weekend. Sadly I’m not talking about big men in tights and helmets running into each other. I’m talking about skinny men in shorts kicking a ball up and down a field. Whether you call it America’s name of soccer or the rest of the world’s name of football, the sport is incredibly popular here. We went to a Queens Park Rangers, or QPR game. They played Sheffield Wednesday at home, and the stadium is only about a 50 minute walk from Edgware Road.

Now, don’t ask me to explain the entire history of QPR as it was described to me. In their sordid past, they used to be in the aptly named premier league, but seemed to have forgotten some skills and dropped down into the next-most prestigious league. Apparently soccer clubs here can be dropped down or called up to different leagues much like players in Major League Baseball. I don’t really understand it. I also don’t understand why Sheffield had a day of the week in their name.

The game was lots of fun, even though it was a 0-0 tie. I don’t know how many shots hit the bar of the goal, and there seemed to be a lot of action, for a soccer game. Honestly, the sport is a bit mind-numbing, even compared to baseball, but fans do enough to keep themselves entertained. They chant, sing and generally have a good time. Oddly enough, the Sheffield fans were out singing the QPR fans by a lot despite the fact that they only had one end of the stands to fill. They made up for their lack of numbers with volume, though.

As we were leaving, I was put off to find out that the stadium held over 15,000 people, and it was nearly full. That’s for a minor league game. The place did not look that big.

Sunday we went on a charity fun run, which was followed by a Thanksgiving dinner at the volunteer coordinator’s house. The fun run was, well, fun, and I even managed to come in first out of the runners. That says something about the competition, and the fact that we had to keep stopping so someone could point out the correct route. But, it was fun, not a competition.

The dinner was marvelous. Mashed potatoes, turkey, pumpkin pie, it was all there in copious amounts. It was a proper turkey, too. Roast as an entire bird, not as a silly portion of breast meat. I also tried a parsnip, which is apparently traditional Christmas fare in England. It honestly didn’t taste like much except a slightly sweet piece of baked wood. Not unpleasant, but nothing to write in your blog about, other than to brag that you at a parsnip.

And that about wraps it up. I’ll still be on the lookout for cranberry sauce in the coming weeks, but I don’t hold out much hope. I’ll just have to wait for Christmas to have a proper feast.