Thanksgiving Japan Style

Before I start, the picture on the left is a picture of the president pardoning a turkey. This is a Thanksgiving tradition. Every year, the president will "pardon" a turkey from being butchered for the Thanksgiving feast. This turkey will go on to live while all of his buddies end up on tables throughout the USA. The sad thing is these pardoned turkies will not live to see the next Thanksgiving. You see, these Thanksgiving turkies are engineered to be extremely "meaty". Their bones usually can't hold the weight of their muscle or fat for a whole year. OK, on with the Thanksgiving rehash:

To date, this is our second Thankgiving in Japan, leaving us just one more before we have one back home. Once I get home I will definitely be thankful for a BIG kitchen. Most poeple reading this or who have lived in Japan can attest that it is virtually impossible to cook a Thanksgiving dinner in a Japanese kitchen. Thank goodness for the giant deep fryers that they sell on base!!! That's right, this was the first year ever that we attempted to deep fry a turkey. Now, before everyone starts rolling their eyes thinking, 'How AMERICAN', I have 3 words: get over it. After all, Thanksgiving is purely an American holiday. Deep frying a turkey is not as bad for the heart as everyone is led to believe.

Long time readers might remember that last year around this time we had just moved into our home and the JCOM cable guys were over installing our cable. This apparently was an all day ordeal, so in typical Thanksgiving tradition, we invited those folks into our home to share our feast. In a matter of minutes they returned downstairs with empty plates, rubbing their tummies and thanking us profusely. Now, whether they actually ate my cooking or threw it out the window remains a mystery, but I digress.

This year was a little different. We've had some time to make friends and with that comes shared responsibilities of cooking the Thanksgiving feast. Our friends, Julie, Mike and their 2 boys, Sean and Aidan opened up there home to us for Turkey day. Julie really went all out. She made almost all the side dishes and desserts. Mike brought over the deep fryer and the turkey and I made ice cream, appetizers, cranberry sauce, and corn. (Julie's) Mike was tired from working the night shift but seemed eager to help (my) Mike with the turkey and gravy. Come to find out that most years he is the King of Turkey.

While Julie, (Julie's) Mike, and I danced around the (what I think was about) 10ft x 3ft kitchen preparing last minute things, (my) Mike put together the deep fryer, Sean and Josh ran around under our legs, screaming and wrestling with each other and the dog anxiously paced while watching the action. Pretty soon he got tired just from watching and flopped down on the couch in exhaustion.

Both Mike's went outside and deep fried the bird. It came out beautifully, with a flavorful crisp crust around it holding in all the juices of the meat. It only took about an hour to cook a 15 lb. turkey too. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in trying it. (Julie's) Mike was the turkey carving expert so (my) Mike was more than happy to give up the responsibility of cutting. I think we ended up sitting down at around 4:00PM to enjoy the spread. Amongst all of the great sides that Julie made, I think that her potato rolls rocked the most.

The 2 toddlers, Josh and Sean, lasted about 30 seconds at the dinner table and were soon shrieking and running circles around the table while the grown-ups attempted a conversation. All and all it was the closest thing to a big family Thanksgiving that I've had in a while. The "organized chaos" just added to the nostalgia or... perhaps it was the wine?