Monday, December 1, 2008

Thanksgiving Alcañiz

He´s 4.7 kilos, a little over 10 pounds

Pilgrims crossing the river to settle in Alcañiz

The feast

Valentina and I decided to prepare a thanksgiving dinner. I went to a butcher´s shop the week before thanksgiving and asked for a whole turkey. The lady there told me to come back by on Wednesday and they would have a whole turkey for me. I was a little nervous about this word of mouth arrangement, never having set foot in this butcher shop before, but sure enough the following Wednesday I went back and my turkey was on it´s way (it arrived Wednesday afternoon).
Tuesday night I printed up some apple pie recipes and showed up at Valentina´s apartment with apple pie ingredients. (I don´t have an oven at my apartment so we did most of the cooking at her place and carried the food down to my place to eat.) The apple pies were delicious.
Thursday, I skipped my typical rock climbing excursion and we cooked the turkey. I made the stuffing seperate and we did the turkey for about 3 1/2 hours. We finished off the legs in the micro because they weren´t quite done. The turkey barely fit in the oven, we had to let the legs go sideways to get it in. We also made mashed potatoes (no gravy though because I didn´t get any juices from the turky), sweet potatos with brown sugar, corn and people brought some things as well (Spanish potato omelette, russian salad, wine, and quince desert).
We had my roomates, a couple rockclimbers and their girlfriends, some professors/students, and Valentina. I gave a thanksgiving day prayer in Spanish. All in all it was a good time and everyone was stuffed and impressed with the American feast.
Also, in rockclimbing news, there is a new boulder problem in Alcañiz named Accion de Gracias (Thanksgiving).

4 comments:

Phillip and Amy said...

accion de gracias. . . was that given by you or one of your friends that was at the feast?
Amy

Phillip and Amy said...

I was inviting them as we were climbing and Maki who didn´t end of coming because he was out climbing somewhere for the week named it that.

Anonymous said...

bravo phil - nice feast! my thanksgiving accomplishment, while not nearly as grand as yours, was carving up my first turkey...think it was about an 18 pounder, donated by the kids' school, and cooked by ian and sarah because our oven doesn't work. very tasty!

J. Koonce said...

That turkey looks a lot different than your typical American butterball... Much leaner, like a real wild turkey, like the one Benjamin Franklin wanted for the national bird.

Most turkeys here in the US are bred to be walking 20lb slabs of breast meat.

I'm not saying I don't love them, though. Just commenting on the visible difference.