A Dubai Thanksgiving!

Happy Dubai Thanksgiving! This year we celebrated our second Thanksgiving in Dubai. Our first one was when Jared lived in Dubai before in November 2007. When we had our first Dubai Thanksgiving we didn't really have any friends here, and so did a small intimate Thanksgiving with just the two of us and Jared's roommate at the time Ananda. It was lovely, but I pretty much did everything on my own and then there were only the three of us to eat it (and Ananda is a vegetarian), so not quite as much fun or rewarding to make a huge meal for so few people.

So, this year we decided to host a big Thanksgiving with all our friends here. We invited about fifteen people and eleven people came! Because we were having such a big crowd we decided that we needed at least a 20 pound turkey. One of my student's parents had told me that there was a market that we could order a fresh turkey from, so the weekend before Thanksgiving we decided to check it out. Well, when we got there, they informed us that we could indeed order a fresh turkey to be picked up Thanksgiving morning, but that the biggest turkey we could get would be 10 pounds (not nearly big enough), so we started to panic a little and started looking for a frozen turkey that would be big enough. The market we were at (Spinney's) only carried 10 pound frozen birds and then we tried Carrefour, which also only had small turkeys. Finally, we turned to our old standby Safest Way (the Korean market, which coincidentally carries the largest variety of American products we've seen in Dubai). Luckily for us, Safest Way not only had a 21 pound Butterball frozen turkey, but also all the other American products we needed for our feast: Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, stuffing mix, Ritz crackers, Corn Flakes, Mott's apple sauce, Grand's Biscuits, Green Giant frozen corn, and French's fried onions.

We were so excited to find a big enough turkey that we didn't even consider what we were going to do with it until Thanksgiving. When we got it home we realized that it was waay too big to fit in our freezer (which is one of those little ones below our refrigerator that has drawers). In a panic I called my Grandmother in Florida at 7am her time. I had memories of going to the Plainville Turkey Farm the weekend before Thanksgiving every year as a child to pick up our fresh turkey. So, since I knew we bought a fresh turkey and kept it refrigerated for 4 days before Thanksgiving, I was hoping we could do the same with ours (if it would fit in the fridge!). My Grandma assured me that we could slowly defrost it in our fridge (which would take about 4 days given its size) and that it would be fine. She also advised me to check and make sure it would fit in our oven! Luckily it fit in both our oven and fridge (after some major rearranging).

So, when the big day came, our beautiful turkey was completely thawed and ready to go! Both Jared and I had the day off (coincidentally, the Muslim holiday Eid also fell on Thanksgiving..). We got up early and went for a run in Al Safa before beginning our day of cooking. We made our Apple Pie fresh that morning (complete with homemade crust, since you cannot buy store bought pie crust here) and then made our homemade stuffing (Jared's Mom's recipe) and put the bird in about 1:30 (my office was actually open on Thanksgiving, despite the holiday, so we planned to serve dinner around 8:30pm so that my work friends could arrive in time). Then after the bird was in, Jared went to town making the many side dishes that could be made in advance -- mashed potatoes (also Jared's Mom's recipe with melted cheddar, sour cream, and butter), squash, and sweet potatoes, while I ran out to the store for last minute items. And, as we were getting things ready, we were delighted to discover that we actually got the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and all the American football games for the day... Having them on in the background definitely increased the festive mood!

Preparing such a large meal is certainly a lot of work (and stress!), but we had a great time, and ultimately everything turned out perfectly and a great time was had by all!

Jared prepping the green beans... we intended to make green bean casserole, but the only ingredient we couldn't find was Cream of Mushroom Soup, so ended up just sauteing the green beans.

Our festive table settings and me moving the table to fit all our guests.

Our Patriotic butter that our friend Elizabeth so kindly sculpted for us... She thought it was appropriate for us to have the US flag in our butter to appropriately celebrate such a special American holiday.