Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends and family.  Hopefully you are not in a food coma at this moment.  Besides giving thanks and gorging ourselves with food, there is also the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.  They have giant character balloons, marching bands and various floats.  I saw the parade in person when I was in New York in 1998.  It was raining and we had boy band 98 Degrees and Kenny Rodgers.  The mix of celebrities on floats in the parade this year was an interesting one, and included Jessica Simpson, Kylie Minogue, and Kanye West.  I have no idea why Kanye chose to perform in the parade, but here he is singing a bit of "Lost in the World."

Sarah Vowell on Thanksgiving

In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I would share this audio clip of Sarah Vowell, one of my favorite authors due to her mixing of American history and pop culture.  This was taken from a 2007 live tour for NPR's This American Life where Sarah spoke on the topic "What I Learned From Television."

Part One:


Part Two:

Thanksgiving Dinner

Tonight I hosted my second Thanksgiving dinner here in Australia.  Even though I am now an Aussie I was instructed that this would be one American tradition that I need to maintain.  For the past few days I have been busy cleaning my place, shopping for food, and last night I baked a pumpkin pie.

Unfortunately a few people who were invited couldn't make it, but that was okay in the end because it meant that everyone fit at the table.  Also, those who came contributed a dish to the evening, which was nice.  Chantal brought some cheese and dips for appetizers, Ruth and Danny the salad (and a couple chairs to fill out the table), and Clinton and Kevin brought a homemade apple pie.  I was responsible for the main dishes, which were turkey, stuffing, green beans, and mashed potatoes.  The stuffing in particular came out quite well.

After digesting dinner we each had a slice of both the pumpkin and apple pies, and were then all completely full.  It was quite a fun evening filled with of lots of conversation, and time flew by because when I looked at the clock it was after 11 pm all of a sudden.  Thanks to everyone for coming and hopefully we'll do it again next year.  Good luck to all my American friends and family who are cooking and celebrating for the real date this Thursday.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving, which is probably my favorite American holiday and the one I miss the most being in Australia. I would always have fantastic dinners with my family and it's just nice to gather around the table together and be thankful for another year. Last year I hosted my first Thanksgiving dinner here with friends, but this year I'm not going to get around to it due to having things on nearly every weekend until I fly to the States. As is tradition, President Obama pardoned a turkey at the White House. My parents will be having a Mexican fiesta Thanksgiving up at my brother and his wife's place this year- so jealous!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Tonight I held my first Thanksgiving dinner in Australia at the suggestion of my Aussie friends who decided it would be good for me to start a new tradition here. Since I held it at my place it was a small gathering with Tash, Michelle, Ruth and Danny. I spent the majority of the day cooking away in the kitchen. The various dishes that I served were:
- Salad of mixed greens with pear and sugared walnuts
- Herb roasted turkey breast
- Dressing
- Mashed potatoes with buttermilk
- Green beans with glazed shallots and lemon
- Pumpkin pie
- Shortbread cookies

Considering this was the first full dinner I have done by myself it came out pretty well. All the dishes were cooked from scratch and my Mom was very helpful in hunting down some recipes for me. Overall everyone seemed to enjoy the food although I cooked so much that I have a lot of left overs that I will be eating throughout the week. The pumpkin pie was a big hit as that is a bit of a rarity here.

Fake Thanksgiving

One of my requests while I am home was to have Thanksgiving dinner since I will once again miss it at the end of November. Tonight we celebrated "Fake Thanksgiving" with my parents, James and Simi, and Lynne and Jeremy. We started off with appetizers and mulled cider and then headed to the dining room table for the main meal:
- Jello Salad
- Bread Rolls
- Turkey with gravy
- Cornbread Stuffing with Roasted Vegetables
- Scalloped Potatoes
- Pumpkin Pie

It was very delicious and just like a normal Thanksgiving dinner since we had the good china and silverware. I baked the pumpkin pie, which came out well. All in all it was a great night and I got to eat all my favorite dishes.