Thanksgiving Planning

I'm not sure how many people Cindy has invited to join us for Thanksgiving Dinner, but I know it's more people than we have chairs.  The embassy sent around a request for people to host Peace Corps volunteers from around the country, and we're hosting four.  I think some of them are spending the night.  

Chelsi will be here -- she's in charge of making the dressing, something I've never made.  She hasn't either, her father always has, but he sent her his directions.  

We have a young Coast Guard lieutenant who just arrived at post.  She is in charge of something called EXBS, which is something about Customs and Border Security.  She's coming.

We have a Canadian couple who live here in Tirana coming also.  He works for a big Austrian bank here.  I'm not sure how the structure is; he's one of three directors here, but it seems to be more like the president than our directors.

We may have a lady who has dual citizenship, US and Irish.  She is a lawyer who works with a European Union organization.  One has to be a citizen of an EU country to hold the job, so her Irish grandmother has helped her out.

I'm sure we'll have more by Thursday.

So I've been trying to plan a menu.  Turkeys are not available here until around New Year's.  That's the traditional New Year's Day dinner.  Someone at the embassy arranged for us to buy turkeys from Macedonia -- not sure how-- but I ordered two, and Tuesday someone drove to Macedonia and picked up boxes of frozen turkeys from North Carolina.  I got two 14 pound ones, the smallest available.  There must have been a couple hundred turkeys being distributed.  So we'll have turkey after all.

Elisabeth sent me some cranberries and sweet potatoes that arrived today in good shape.  Neither of those are available here.  The only corn available here is canned or frozen corn, so I'm thinking about getting a couple cans and seeing if I can turn them into creamed corn for a pudding.

In Bethesda I had some jello and blueberry pie filling that was shipped over here, enough to make a jello dish.  It calls for a can of crushed pineapple, but the rings are all we can get here, so I'll have to process it.  

Sour cream is not available here, so I'm going to make some with ricotta and lemon juice.  The buttermilk here is imported from Greece, and it's not like what we have.  It is not as thick, and you have to shake it up good first to mix the liquid and the solids together.  But it works good to cook with.

So the menu, at least, is coming together.  It's a little short on vegetables.  Veggies, as in green veggies, are pretty limited.  We get good broccoli sometimes, and green broad beans.  I have not seen asparagus yet.  If they have asparagus the season would have been over when we got here, so maybe next year.  They import pineapples, but not asparagus, so it may not ever be available.  I've seen some artichokes from time to time.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Thanksgiving starts a five-day holiday for us.  The embassy is closed for American and Albanian holidays.  Friday is Independence Day for Albania, Nov. 28, 1912, which is when they finally got out from under Ottoman rule, which lasted 400 years.  Monday is Liberation Day, Nov. 29, 1944, when the Germans/Italians were finally driven out of Albania by the Greeks, Brits, Albanian partisans, and probably some more.

So thank you, Elisabeth!  Looking forward to cranberry relish and sweet potato casserole.