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Friday, November 30, 2012

I am thankful for…

The beautiful dinner spread....delicious!


Thanksgiving is a big deal over here. For us, it was a collection of stereotypes that we’d accumulated over 25 years of watching American television.
There was a Turkey,  some sort of parade, men watching sport of tv (assume a football game somewhere as it’s winter), cranberries seemed to be essential as were many many pumpkins.

I guess what’s been established since we arrived here is that  it’s a lot more than turkeys and cranberry sauce. It’s really about spending time with family and being thankful for all that you have. In typical American-style as well it’s also about acknowledging that you are thankful and why you are thankful.

My thanksgiving started at the school where I volunteer a couple of times a week. That second-grade class had its own thanksgiving feast. We moved the tables into one big row. Students bought in food and drink and they all sat and ate to together. The critical part was that before the meal everyone recounted what they were thankful for; the sun, trees, fresh air, teachers and of course family. There were plenty of family there to watch as well which was lovely, parents and siblings joining in.

We’ve made quite a few expat friends over-here, Aussies that have left our land girt by sea and travelled to a much colder part of the world. It was with them that we were lucky enough to spend thanksgiving.

Perhaps I should be upset that it was left to the wives to plan the menu but I prefer to think of it as the experts sticking to what they are good at!

My friend Nat and I, self-confessed dessert addicts, were given the task of cooking dessert.  The only request being to keep some traditional elements in the mix. Traditional thanksgiving desserts include

·      Pecan pie
·      Pumpkin pie
·      Anything with cinnamon and nutmeg
·      Lots of cranberries
·      Apple something or rather

I forgot to mention that of the people we have met here we’ve made friends with a lot of intolerances. Our menu had to therefore be Gluten free, wheat free, apple free, high-fructose corn syrup free but of course tasty.

After my school thanksgiving feast Nat and I settled down for four hours of cooking. The second oven finally got a work-out, and not just for the hell of it.

We made

·      Sweet potato cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese icing
·      Mini- pumpkin cheesecakes with a ginger pecan crust
·      Pecan pie with a sour cream crust (Donna Hay style, the Americans put way too much corn-syrup in everything)
·      Pavlova (Nat’s specialty) with whipped cream and a cranberry sauce
Pecan pie
·      Upside-down apple cake


Mini-cheesecakes (pumpkin)


We all headed to Simon and Gill’s on Thanksgiving day, around 1ish. We wanted to help with the cooking and also help with the set-up.

The table was set-up beautifully and Gill had bought all the ladies an apron each. I got a frilly one. (wonder why?).

We nibbled on cheese and Gill’s famous bacon and date rolls.



The turkey was a 22 pounder. Terrifying in it’s sheer size. I suspect that the ovens here are so big to partially accommodate the turkey’s alone. Stuffed with herbs and onions it smelled amazing coming out. Carved up and served with William Sonoma’s famous turkey gravy it was delicious.

In pursuit of the famous turkey gravy


Having only ever had turkey once in Australia, for Nuwan, Jill and I’s orphan Christmas I’d been turned off turkey. In Australia the turkey had been quite flavor-less and by the time we’d eaten 3 kilos of it in various incarnations we were well and truly sick of it.  This bird was truly tasty. We’ve come to the theory that they must save the best turkeys for the Americans and ship the left overs to Australia, the opposite of what happens with lamb.



We had a multitude of sides to go with the delicious turkey   mashed-potato, stuffing, cranberry sauce, roast vegetables and greens.  Of course we also had the typical American dish of sweet-potatoes with marshmallows on top.


Our first thanksgiving was a huge success; fun, happy and full of laughter.


Can’t wait to see what next thanksgiving will bring!
The beautiful dinner table


The turkey

Sweet potato cupcakes with cinnamon icing

Oh....and what am I thankful for. I'm thankful that even though we've only been here 5 months, we've made such lovely friends that we can be thankful for :)






Sunday, November 4, 2012

Tearing up the Windy City

October turned into our travel month - a rushed day trip to San Jose, Chath coming back from Sydney, and a couple of weekend trips to explore the US of A. First up - a trip to the Windy City to catch up with some old friends. Shish and Sandeep being in the US at the same time was too much of a coincidence to let pass by, so we jumped on a plane one late Friday night and winged our way to Chicago.

After we'd all convened from our various inbound flights at a cafe near Bloomingdales, we set out to explore Chicago. Then it started raining. Typical, we leave a state with a reputation for some of the highest rainfall in the US in the middle of a record dry spell, and it rains on holiday. Undaunted, we tackled the Field Museum, making friends with Sue the T-Rex, proudly sponsored by McDonald's, as well as some extreme mammals in one of their special exhibits, courtesy of evolutionary theory (the creationists would have had a heart attack!) Despite the rain, we wandered our way through the city, exploring the weird and wonderful art at Millenium Park, got rained on some more (I sense a theme for the weekend coming on), before closing out an unsuccessful attempt to use public transport by jumping in a taxi... after being rained on some more.

Our attempt to view the Chicago skyline by night was foiled by the zero-visibility situation at the top of the John Hancock observation deck, so we settled instead with visiting a jazz club in a slightly seedier part of the city. Apparently we managed to snag the booth that Al Capone would always sit in when he frequented the Green Mill, to enjoy the funky, soulful sounds of Cyrille Aimee. Check out the clip of a similar performance in NY here - she was actually a lot better when we saw her live! Being the old codgers that we are, we quit after the second of three sets to hunt down some dinner. The Ethiopian restaurant across the road obliged, provided my first experience of authentic African food - Shish assured me that it was the real deal, and he's more than qualified to know what's what!

The next day saw yet more rain (we're really getting used to this), but we took a punt and took went up to the John Hancock observation deck. We got our timing just right, and got the only window of visibility of the day, before the rains rolled in yet again and reduced visibility to zero. Once they eased up, more wandering through the city, admiring the old-new architectural styles that are dotted throughout the city. Our meanderings took us down to the Navy Pier to check out the McDonald's Dessert Centre of the Future (I'm not kidding!) and the various tourist traps on offer. Before long, our time was up - our quick weekend away was over, and we had to say goodbye to old friends before heading to the airport and flying our separate ways.

Things we learnt on this trip:
  • Shish reads our blog - Sandeep doesn't!
  • Shish has an unhealthy obsession with the Cheesecake Factory
  • Chicago feels quite windy, but isn't necessarily windier than any other US city. It was also burnt to the ground in 1871 (by a cow kicking over a kerosene lamp, as the story goes), which triggered the rebuild of one of the most economically significant cities in the US
  • Pizza is great when it's done deep-dish
  • United is a budget airline at full-service prices. I will rant no more
  • Visiting Chicago returned Shish back to his Sim City metropolis-building days; walking around the city was like transporting him back to this wonderful game
Last but not least, pizza! Chicago deep dish pizza has made its way to such luminary pizza establishments as Pizza Hut and Crust in Sydney, so when in Chicago... :) we tried two well-known pizzeria chains to sample their deep dish offerings:

  • Giordanos - more of the stuffed pizza variety than deep dish, these pizzas were very cheesy, and quite delicious, although between the four of us we couldn't quite finish off the two pizzas we ordered. Possibly a little too cheesy...
  • Lou Malnati's Pizzeria - more traditional deep dish pizza. The crust wasn't too heavy, despite there being lots of it, and the toppings were well matched and flavoursome. We ordered four pizzas and polished them off with ease, with dessert to boot. A great example (for tourists at least) of the deep-dish variety
So now there's nothing left to do except put up photos!

John Hancock Tower 
Sue the t-rex





Funky artwork at Millenium Park

The Bean!





We had great hopes for this McDonald's store, alas...