thanksgiving

Some of you have asked if there is a holiday similar to Thanksgiving celebrated in the UK. Unfortunately, there is not. In fact, as mentioned before, there is a lack of stat holidays here in the latter part of the year. However, this is counteracted by the number of holiday weeks you are given in your work contract but this, of course, requires you to have a job.

While cooking a whole pheasant, or any other bird for that matter, for Thanksgiving dinner was tempting, the thought of cleaning, stuffing, and trussing a fowl made the temptation short-lived. Instead we made a turkey lasgana and two pumpkin-based desserts -- Are you that surprised? It's me, afterall -- and invited a couple of people over.

We took it for granted that pumpkin pies could be readily purchased, and for cheap, at the supermarkets back home as they are non-existent here. So I spent yesterday morning, hand-pressing dough into a tart pan and making the filling with pureed pumpkin-imported-from-Canada. The end result was great, as was the chocolate pumpkin cake, and even our pumpkin pie virgin guests thought so too and gladly accepted doggie bags containing desserts to take home.

Happy Thanksgiving!