EuroLife: Day 58

Success! We had a lovely American Thanksgiving here in Jena. Laura, Michael and I arrived at about 3:30, and somehow dinner was on the table at about 7:10. Thanksgiving dinner is significantly less difficult when you have 3 additional people willing to chop, peel, or do whatever is necessary. It also helps to have somebody deliver a hot, cooked turkey.

We made an enormous vat of stuffing with sourdough bread from a local bakery, which you can see in the first picture. It was great, we didn't have quite enough onions and we needed some sage so our host, Waldene, ran out to the garden and grabbed some of each! I thought that was very cool.

We did hit one snag. The lovely pie crust that Michael had made last night somehow didn't make it into our backpack full of supplies. He quickly made another one, absent any recipe, and then wrestled with the lack-of-a-pie-pan problem. I guess they don't really make pies here. They make lovely tortes and cakes, but not pies like the ones we make. In the end, he pressed the crust into a springform pan. Walden set it on the steps in the entryway to cool, next to what look to be some apples from a tree in their yard. I thought that made for a nice scene.

When we sat down to eat, there was a great deal of murmuring about the sweet potatoes. I'm not sure if any of the German's had ever eaten sweet potatoes before! (Many said they had not, though I didn't exactly quiz everyone.) Let's just say the general attitude towards these so-called "sweet potatoes" ranged from politely tentative to deeply suspicious. To be fair, if you begin by imagining potatoes, and then imagine them as sweet, you can understand why these things might not sound so appetizing.

Well, before long, they were in high demand! We ran out very quickly; it was fun to see the looks of genuine surprise and delight on people's faces as they tried them.

There were 13 people at the dinner table, and we had a wonderful time. I would write more about the various guests and conversations, but it's now after midnight and I am full of turkey. (Good turkey, too! It was delivered hot, fresh, and not too dry!)

After dinner, we all went upstairs into the living room for a respite between dinner and desert. We played a super fun card game (Dutch Blitz--it's apparently an American game), and then Laura played the piano for us all. I played a few songs on the guitar, Rici (Walden and Thomas' daughter) sang a number of songs, and it was all really very nice!

Then we all went back to the table, which Robert (Waldene and Thomas' son) had cleaned and set for desert. I made some whipped cream and we served the pumpkin pie! (They were at least as suspicious of the pumpkin pie as they were the sweet potatoes, though I think we mostly won them over in the end :) The pie turned out pretty well! The crust was not very crispy, not really having been exposed to the heat directly, but on the whole I liked it very much. Robert took one bite and said "Oh! It tastes like Christmas!" They all agreed. I thought that was a great description.