Thanksgiving Goat

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving (and Thanksgiving break for those in school)!  It was a little weird not being there.  This was my first holiday to be away from everyone because even when traveling for Alpha Sigma Alpha I was home for Thanksgiving, my birthday and Christmas.  Thursday didn’t even feel like Thanksgiving with all the students being in classes.  To avoid any homesickness Jade and I hosted a Thanksgiving potluck at our house Friday night for the other couples living in our neighborhood.  We filled every seat in the house and had a total of thirteen, which included one baby. 

The food rivaled any Thanksgiving I could have had in the States.  Jade and I wanted to do traditional turkey, but it would have cost us about $50USD and probably would have been much more difficult to cook.  We instead bought two whole chickens, although my family thinks we captured and cooked a Mont Toute goat because that’s what Jade keeps telling them.  But really, we had chicken.  I know I’ve griped about my oven enough that you don’t need to hear it again, but with my crazy oven I was really afraid of ruining the main part of the meal so I asked my friend Emily to cook the second chicken.  I have the oven space to cook two at a time, but if I ruined a chicken at least there would be one other one.  So backing up a little bit, I asked Jade to go with me to buy the Thanksgiving meat because I didn’t know how much would be needed.  Once we settled on chickens, Jade picked two out.  He said the innards looked like they were bagged and stuffed inside, which is exactly what I told Emily.  Emily is a five year vegetarian, but she cooks meat for her husband and just recently started eating a little meat because they want to have a child next year.  So Friday afternoon we start preparing to cook our chicken and Jade discovers there is no bag; all the guts, including its disgusting feet, are inside the body.  I never even touched the thing.  Within minutes of our discovery my cell phone rings and of course it’s Emily, horrified.  Her husband would be home too late to get the chicken cooking at that time, so I sent Jade down to rescue her.  He brought back all her chicken’s insides and gave it to our landlords to give to Vodka, the dog.  It was pure carnage. 

I used the nifty oven thermometer my parents’ sent and managed to not melt the roasting bag.  We triple checked for doneness and the USDA recommended temperature of the inside of the bird and (to my knowledge) we didn’t give anybody food poisoning.  I think that’s a success for it being the first meal we’ve ever hosted.  Jessica and Daniel brought great homemade stuffing and awesome baklava.  Sarah and David brought homemade rolls and homemade cranberry sauce, which completely changed my opinion of cranberry sauce.  The last time I ate real cranberry sauce was at my Great Aunt Grace’s when I was a child.  My immature taste buds hated it and I have eaten the Ocean Spray jellied kind ever since.  Well not anymore.  I’m bringing cranberry sauce to the next Thanksgiving!  Marieke and Ryan brought killer mashed potatoes with the skin still on and two pumpkin cream cheese pies that practically melted in your mouth.  Sayeh and Hamed brought a delicious corn casserole, juice and (thank goodness) extra silverware.  Emily and Jonathan cooked our other chicken and made a fantastic green bean casserole. 

Stuffing

Baklava

Corn Casserole

Cranberry Sauce

Green Bean Casserole

Jade carving chickens

We could not have had a better evening!  The house had festive fall flare courtesy of Emily, Marieke and Jessica’s decorations.  It was hot from using the oven earlier, but not sweltering like it could have been.  All the girls ended up sitting together in the dining room while all the guys sat in the living room.  There were endless laughs, some really hilarious impressions of Jade’s southern accent when he tried to teach all the girls about NASCAR (thank you Emily) and the most adorable You Tube video you’ll ever see.  I think everyone pretty well stuffed themselves to the brim and it actually felt like a true Thanksgiving.  We may not have been with our families, but we definitely had great company and great food.  Oh and what Thanksgiving in Grenada would be complete without the ants mysteriously appearing and feasting on our leftovers?  I’m immensely grateful for the girls’ help in packing away food and washing dishes since basically every dish in my house was dirty.  I’m lucky to have thoughtful friends.  The evening wrapped up about five hours later and I’m sure everyone went home to a food coma.  It was perfect.  Same time next year gang?

Jonathan, Marieke, Sayeh (with Lilia) and Hamed

Me, Jessica, Sarah and Marieke

Hamed, Ryan, Jonathan (behind Ryan), Jade, David and Daniel

We also had big plans Saturday as it was the end of term social for the SO organization.  They had a buffet lunch at Ali Baba’s Bar & Grill with usage of their pool.  They also rented a boat and water toys for a few hours.  Jade went on the tube twice and got flipped off of it twice- it was pretty funny.  It rained a couple times while we were there, which made it chilly on the beach.  The food was delicious though and it was a good time!