Thanksgiving was not exactly the evening gather around the table event this year that it was the last year. I invited everyone I could think of in the villas to come and was afraid I would have way too many people. That and it is the beginning of Eid here and everyone is going to have to rush off to the airports and vacation to all parts of the world. I was busy all day and didn't have time to put on a nicer shirt and slacks like I prefer for thanksgiving but having done it rather last minute and during the day like this it seemed more appropriate anyway. I'm really not able to exactly recreate the American family Thanksgiving completely anyway. Sand, fair weather and sunshine, palm trees instead of dead trees and a chill in the air, smoke coming from chimneys. I was pretty much the only American there and so I'm the only one who really knows what it is to celebrate Thanksgiving. I had to tell several people about Pilgrims, Indians and the hard first year that they faced at Plymouth. There was one other American who came to Thanksgiving and she had to come late after everyone left to get some food and leave.
I did manage Turkey, but I searched everywhere for pumpkin pulp. But it seems to be almost completely unknown here. To top it off most of the hundreds of boys who stock the shelves in the supermarkets here speak very poor English:
"Do you have pumpkin pulp?"
Blank look. Okay, I think, pulp might be a stretch.
"You know Libby's canned pumpkin?" Libby's is known to them and they ought to know canned. Still I get a blank look."
I simply repeat. "Pumpkin. Pumpkin pulp. In a can."
"Pumpkin? Yes, yes, pumpkin" he smiles and says as if finally recalling the word. I follow him and get hopeful until he leads me down to the snack isle and starts to point at something. I finally get close to see what it is.
"No, no, not pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pulp, in a can."
He looks puzzled and a little frustrated, perhaps even disappointed. A lot of the Indian workers here have taken on a role of subservience that has always bothered me. They address you as "sir" not like American workers do, but in a way that is obligatory to rich noblemen. I swear you could ask one on a street to shine your shoes for you and they would be likely to do it for you. I didn't grow up with a cast system. I grew up with the idea that all men are created equal. He takes me to someone in the store who is slightly better at English and he, in turn, leads me to the canned pie filling which is neither near the canned fruit, nor the canned vegetables. There is canned blueberry filling, canned peach filling, canned apple filling, canned everything except pumpkin pulp.
I thanked him politely and settled on pecan pie.
The pecans were expensive A cupful or so was about twenty-Dirhams and they weren't easy to find either.
Then there is the problem of my two temperature oven. The two temperatures are off and hotter-than-hell. I have to light the oven because the pilot doesn't work and then I have to visually turn it down to the lowest possible point before it goes out and leave it there. Still it burned the outside of my pecan pie and left the inside like fluid. I wrapped it up again and managed to get the insides to cook to an acceptable solid.
The stuffing worked out and was pretty good. I had a turkey and two butterball turkey breast packets. The packets were great, but the turkey meat was chewier than I would have liked. Still it was all pretty good. People brought wine, chocolates, deserts, salads, and Maureen, bless her heart, brought a sweet potato dish which was perfect for Thanksgiving.
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