Despite its problematic history, we love Thanksgiving. For Catja, it’s one of the rare times where all of her siblings get together and they eat two massive meals, one with each parent. For Zoe, it is THE big holiday of the year and is a reason to get together with all our friends, neighbors, family, and friends who have become family to enjoy a home-cooked meal. This is our first big holiday away from home, and the homesickness started to creep in. Luckily, we have made an incredible little family here in London and decided to share our traditions and recipes with our British besties.
Our Thanksgiving extravaganza began on Sunday the 19th at Lidl grocery store. Catja and I walked 1.5 miles to the big Lidl in Neasden to pick up a turkey and all our other Thanksgiving essentials. After going up and down the aisles collecting potatoes, pie crusts, and apples, we checked out and loaded up our bags. Zoe, who brought her big backpack that has seemingly infinite space, packed the turkey, two bags of potatoes, flour, sugar, and a whole host of other small things into the bag. As we made the journey back home, Zoe slowly tilted more and more forward in an attempt to carry the weight of the turkey (I think I was basically horizontal at one point). Despite the tough walk home, the turkey made it back in one piece.
After we unloaded everything strategically into our limited fridge and cabinet space, we made a game plan for all the cooking we were going to do this week. Wednesday: homemade Pillsbury crescent rolls. Thursday: pecan pie, apple pie, stuffing, and sweet potato casserole (with marshmallows on a small portion because that’s a very American thing even though Catja is strongly meh about it and prefers her mom’s corn flake-pecan crumble topping). Friday: mashed potatoes, green beans, turkey. We decided to host our big dinner on Friday night so it didn’t conflict with Zoe’s Thursday night class, which gave us an extra day of prep
Zoe was extremely passionate about her favorite crescent rolls. It is a family tradition in the Dubelier household to have Pillsbury crescent rolls at Thanksgiving dinner, and Zoe usually eats at least five because they are simply that good. With no Pillsbury rolls here in the UK, Zoe was on a mission to recreate her beloved crescent rolls from scratch. After finally finding the perfect recipe, Wednesday rolled around, and it was time to see if they would be a success. Zoe spent the morning carefully stirring the dough and patiently waiting for it to rise and rise again. Finally, the moment of truth came when we put them in the oven. Zoe sat and watched as the crescents turned golden brown. Hot out of the oven, we taste-tested to make sure they resembled the familiar rolls from home. Although they were not exactly like the buttery Pillsbury classic, they tasted delicious and would be perfect for dinner!
Catja doesn’t have class on Thursdays, so we were able to get an early start on our pies. We used pre-made pastry dough which saved a lot of time. We started chopping pecans, peeling and dicing apples, rolling dough with a wine bottle, and dancing to Kelsea Ballerini as we baked. Our oven tried its hardest to mess up our pies by randomly getting really really hot, but we saved them from getting too toasty! Next, Catja started baking her sweet potatoes to prep for mashing and Zoe started cutting veggies for the stuffing. For some reason, the onions were very intense, and we both had tears streaming down our faces for at least an hour. Even with the window open and the fan on, our eyes were burning! We had never experienced anything like it, but they made the stuffing taste delicious, so it was worth it. We finished all of our cooking by 1pm and were feeling great.
The big day finally arrived! We woke up early to make sure everything was ready to transport down to Harlesden, where Luke and Ethan graciously offered their much bigger and cozier living room and kitchen for us to use. Our oven also takes ages to preheat and is notoriously inaccurate with the temperature, so our turkey would be much safer in their oven. We started the morning by making the mashed potatoes and turkey. Zoe boiled the potatoes and painstakingly mashed them through a sieve as we did not have any sort of masher or ricer. It was definitely worth it though because the mashed potatoes turned out perfectly creamy. Catja chopped rosemary and thyme and mixed them into soft butter to slather the turkey in. She was determined to make it perfect, especially since this was the first time she didn’t have her parents around to make sure she didn’t forget anything. She carefully chopped another onion to put in the roasting tin. Luckily, there were significantly fewer tears! After adding the stuffing to the cavity and carefully wrapping the turkey in foil, she studied Martha Stewart’s baking instructions and got increasingly more nervous but excited.
At around 12:30pm, we headed off to Harlesden to put the turkey in the oven and drop off the rest of the food for the evening. Catja said goodbye to her beloved turkey and we turned back around to get dressed up for dinner as the dress code had been set as fuzzy formal aka formal wear and fuzzy socks. We quickly got dressed up and headed back to Harlesden right in time to baste the turkey with the wine we had forgotten at home (in true Catja style, we had to forget one thing).
With the turkey well on its way to perfection, Hebe and Ethan went to the store to pick up some cheese and other bits and bobs to tide us over until the meal was ready. In the meantime, Zoe, Catja, and Luke watched Thanksgiving episodes of our favorite sitcoms and chatted about our favorite Thanksgiving traditions and memories.
Hebe and Ethan eventually returned with crackers, cheese, grapes, chili jam, and apple juice to mull on the stove. We continued to watch New Girl Thanksgiving episodes until it was finally time to take the turkey out! To Catja’s relief, the turkey was perfect and tasted even better than she hoped. It was showtime. Zoe started to carve the turkey, but Luke eventually took over since he was more experienced in the art of poultry carving. Catja reheated the side dishes in the oven, Zoe cooked the green beans on the stove, and Hebe and Ethan set the table, lit candles, and took photos of the festivities.
We finally sat down, and Catja began a small toast to say thank you to everyone for helping us feel at home here. Then, we recited the pledge of allegiance in unison to trick Ethan and Luke into thinking this was a normal, pre-dinner tradition. Hebe was in on the joke because she witnessed us practicing and giggling the whole week. We ended the pledge with “Amen, Shabbat Shalom, rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub!” and clinked our glasses before digging in.
The meal felt like Thanksgiving in the best way. Everyone ate until they were stuffed, and we had debates about politics, video games, troublesome travel stories, and coups (if you know you know…). We took lots of pictures to send to our families from afar, and we drank lots of red wine and water as the dinner went on. As we were getting ready for pie, Ethan taught us a trick involving slapping whipped cream off of your hand, into the air, and catching the glob in your mouth. He demonstrated and got whipped cream on the ceiling. Catja tried and ended up with a white, fluffy nose. Zoe gave it her all but forgot to catch the whipped cream when it finally flew up in the air. Luke landed it perfectly, but no one was filming (sorry Luke!!). Hebe also successfully landed the trick after a few failed launches.
After dinner, we cleaned up the kitchen and packed up all the leftovers while jamming out to some classic 2010s bops. As it was still fairly early in the evening, Ethan recommended we play a game and suggested Stop the Bus. He taught us the rules and we proceeded to play for the next three hours as it was that much fun. The game involved listing words that started with specific letters in certain categories, which inevitably started some debates, such as whether Uther Pendragon was a historical figure and if Indian Orange counted as starting with an “i” (shoutout to Prof. Ferhatovic for Catja’s Arthurian Legends senior seminar for helping her defend Uther!). Catja and Luke also kept accidentally saying the same obscure answers for random categories and cancelling each other out since everyone needed to have a unique answer, from Uther for historical figures, Nigella Lawson for authors, and Ozzy Osbourne for musicians. We laughed harder than we had in ages playing for hours.
We took a dance break and blasted classic American tunes, including “Party in the USA,” “Jolene,” “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” The Chicks, and Katy Perry. We consumed many mugs of tea, especially because Ethan felt uncomfortable if we said no. Luckily, we are big tea fans now since we’ve lived here almost 3 months! Then, he prepared another stunning cheese board for supper, and we felt even more stuffed with blue cheese, brie, and Yorkshire tea in our stomachs.
We all began to fade at around 12, which became very obvious when we sat staring at our painting and the walls and listening to Scottish Highland music and “exile” by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver. So, we grabbed our bags of leftovers and headed back home. We left behind our hand turkey decorations and Bald Eagle made of hands (we felt obligated to take home our American flag), hugged our beloved friends, and walked jollily back home in the crisp night air.
We are feeling very full of turkey and love for our friends. We’re significantly less grateful for the Spurs loss today…
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