Turkey Day!!

Sorry we didn't post about this sooner.  I know many of you heard our woes of trying to find cranberries in Isreal or buying the organic, free range, kosher, home-delivery bird killed only hours before going on the grill. In the end...HUGE Success!!!

The star of Thanksgiving was the turkey and the cranberry sauce (ehh..both made by the most attravtive chef in I've ever seen!).  We'll save them for the end.

Lets start with us bringing our big plastic picnic table inside and borrowing a full set of dishes from our friends, moving the bookshelf and the couches to make room for an ambitious 16 guests! 

Then, only a few days before, the pot luck thing seemed to be going down the drain when 2 guests replied that they would bring cake.  So we bought massive amounts of mushrooms, potatoes and onions, and pre-made buscuits.  In the end, they all brought more food than we thought and we had TONS!

While I would have loved to have sent my friends home with armloads of turkey and cranberry sauce and stuffing - I couldn't.  The stuffing was pretty much gone (and it is one of my favorites). And the turkey and cranberries...well that was my food budget for a month.  So today, like yesterday and almost every day since then, we've had potatoes and turkey for dinner. (Sweet and sour turkey, turkey pot pie, turkey sandwhiches - I'm not complaining, they are delicious).

We ordered 11 kilos of turkey (a safe bet according to the turkey experts online)(we ended up with a 25lb bird!).  Well, they don't really eat turkeys here so the market (demand and supply) is pretty small.  We couldn't really be picky.  Then on the cranberries.  You know those oceanspray commercials where they are standing in a pond with berries floating around them.  Well this is the desert and we're in a dry spell.  We bought frozen cranberries from Russia by the ounce! 

Paul cut the legs off of the turkey and pushed him down to make him fit on the grill.  After seven hours we had a delicious and juicy bird with a slight grilled flavor!  The cranberries...what can I say...it was almost like being at Aunt Patsy's! 

The whole event was a huge success and everyone very much appreciated us hosting.  Lessons learned:  1. Order less turkey.  2.  Confirm that guests are bringing sides. 3.  The pilgrims and indians ate those foods because they were local - so maybe next year we'll do a "local Thanksgiving" keeping with the spirit of the holiday.  4. Invite lots of friends and eat turkey for a month - it is worth it!