Sunday, October 2, 2011

Peacock Thanksgiving

image from canflag.com
It is Thanksgiving next weekend (the real one) and we have a tradition here of having a 'harvest festival' meal with some of our Canadian friends.  We will celebrate on Friday evening instead of Monday (no long weekend and for us the middle of the week), which gives us the day to cook and for Marius to recover from the working week.  And Saturday for everybody to recover from Friday night before going back to work on Sunday.



I have found a turkey, which must be a relief to the peacocks, as I am sure I could adapt a recipe for cooking swan to cooking peacock, and we have plenty of the birds to hand:



The turkey is squatting in the bottom of the fridge, thawing and taking up far too much room.  I will make my famous wild rice stuffing, and spiced red cabbage.  Marius will be in charge of the roast potatoes and veggies and will be standing by to help with the bird-lifting.

Our friends will bring the starter and the dessert - since Janet, the pumpkin pie chef, moved to Hong Kong last year - and we will all eat and drink far too much.

It is like a dry run for Christmas and an excuse to eat things we normally deny ourselves (mostly through laziness). 


I am sure they are giving thanks:




There are lovely displays of ENORMOUS pumpkins in some of the supermarkets, ready for making jack o' lanterns.  They are exorbitantly expensive - about a week's groceries for a small family of ten or so - and having been flown in especially, I am sure they have equally impressive carbon footprints.  Which does make an interesting image, don't you think?  I have a couple of ceramic pumpkins which I will prepare for the festivities.

Ah!  I need a name for the turkey.  Suggestions welcome.

x

4 comments:

37paddington said...

no name for the turkey, but so glad your wounds are healing nicely.

jabblog said...

Theodore/Theodora is a good name for a turkey, I think;-)
Whatever you call him - or her - I wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Anonymous said...

We always called ours "Turk Lurk", something along the lines of "Chicken Licken".
In a diferent lifetime we celebrated this Thanksgiving, then the American one, then Christmas, then Chinese New Year - which is why I actually looked forward to depriving myself for the six weeks of Lent!

Jenny Woolf said...

I don't think I want to give a name to something I'm going to eat, reminds me a bit of the part in "Through the Looking Glass" when Alice is introduced to that horrible leg of mutton.