Thanksgiving in Zürich

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December 7th, 2009

Emily and I had a bunch of our friends over on the Sunday after Thanksgiving for a traditional American feast.  The menu:  turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans, and pumpkin muffins – plus Rich and Julia made a homemade lemon meringue pie for dessert.

It was a bit difficult to find all of the necessary ingredients in the Swiss grocery stores, but we managed to find just about everything.  We bought the only turkey they had at the Coop near our apartment.  It weighed a little over 8 kg, or about 18 pounds.  And turkeys are quite expensive in Switzerland too;  the price was CHF 120 but luckily happened to be 50% off.  The other big challenge was that the ovens are very small in Switzerland.  The turkey fit but it filled up the entire oven (it was on the lowest rack and the foil covering it touched the top).  So we had to cook the muffins the day before, the stuffing after we took out the turkey, and everything else on the stove.

All of the food came out perfectly, if I may say so myself.  Literally everything.  The turkey was nice and juicy, Emily’s famous stuffing was delicious, the buttermilk mashed potatoes were a big hit, and even the gravy was great (even though Emily had never made it before).

The group ended up being 10 people including us.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, but I think the biggest hit of the night was the turkey baster.  Apparently turkey basters are exotic and fascinating in Europe, who knew?  After dinner, everyone hung around our apartment and played Taboo.  We all had a great time, and it was fun for Emily and I to be able to share this American holiday with some of our European friends.