Being an expat at Thanksgiving

I just posted this over on the http://www.wineloverspage.ning.com site (come over and join!) and wanted to cross-post it here....

Thanksgiving is the time of the year when I most miss being back with family and friends in the US. It's hard being an expat then - no one else here (except my husband) has a feeling for what the holiday means or is, and everyone works on the Thursday so any feast has to be moved over to the weekend. Which means it just doesn't feel the same. It's one of the times I most feel like the product of another culture and like a foreigner. Any of you other expats have the same experience at times such as at Thanksgiving?

In any case, all that doesn't stop me from having a great time planning and cooking a Thanksgiving feast! This year, it's going to be for my husband and I and my best friend (who's British) and his girlfriend (who's Dutch), on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Here's the menu:

Appetizers: smoked salmon pate with crackers and almonds, with Champagne

1st course: Coquilles St. Jacques, with a white Pessac-Leognan

2nd course: Red and green Belgian endive with Stilton, walnuts and fresh herbs, and a mustardy dressing, with just water to drink

Main course: Roasted turkey with thyme-cream-cognac gravy, bubble and squeak cakes, braised red cabbage, and glazed carrots with cider, and an aged Bordeaux to drink

Dessert: Pumpkin pie cooked like a cheesecake with a gingersnap crust, with a Madeira to sip

cheers! Bonnie

Sounds yummy Bonnie, especially the thyme-cognac-cream gravy and the pumpkin pie cheesecake.
Just out of intrerest, what is your "bubble and squeak"?. It evokes a memory of left over potatoes and cabbage made into a cake and fried. But I'm wondering why you would have this as well as red cabbage. Or is that something to do with being in Holland?

Cheers,
Sue

[Jenise]

Great menu, Bonnie. I remember trying to make a Thanksgiving dinner in Holland--the biggest challenge was finding a turkey. They existed, but they were really really tiny birds. All very understandable given the typical sizes of European appliances and different European sensibilities, but a 6-7 lb bird, the largest I could find, just didn't say "feast". Have you had trouble finding a bird?

Can I fly over t Belgium to join you for Thanksgiving dinner?

Great menu, Bonnie.

-Paul W.

Sue, the bubble and squeak cakes are potato (1 kilo) and finely shredded Brussel sprouts (500 gms), instead of the usual cabbage. It's a Gordon Ramsay recipe, so I wanted to try it - plus the recipe says it can be made ahead and frozen. I wanted to try freezing a few things beforehand this year to make the dinner prep easier. We'll see how it goes!
cheers, Bonnie

Hee hee, good one, Jenise! It's a little easier to find a larger critter now, but we're only talking 4 kilos instead of the usual 2 kilos. A big turkey like in the US is virtually unknown still in Holland. For the first time, this year I will be buying the turkey at the restaurant wholesaler, so there may be hope for a little larger turkey. We'll see. One time, a few years ago, I ordered turkey at the poultry shop, saying how many kilos I needed (can't remember now, but probably it was around 6 kilos) with the assumption that meant one whole bird. But When I went to pick up the order, it turned out to be two turkeys! cheers, Bonnie

Bonnie, would you please post the Gordon Ramsay recipe?

What a beautiful menu ! Best wishes for your celebration.

Bonnie, would you please post the Gordon Ramsay recipe?

Second that- I've had an irresistible urge to do a Brussels sprouts dish this weekend and had been thinking along the lines of shredded and stir-fried. Doing it with potatoes in a cake really sounds appealing.

Bonnie, your menu sounds delicicous. I'm sure it will be a festive evening despite where you'll be. I've never been in your situation, but one year I had to travel for business in Paris during the holiday. My future husband flew over with me for the long weekend so we could be together, but it felt a little sad and uneventful being over there "celebrating" alone. We did the best we could. Had dinner in a wonderful and traditional French restaurant (pardon the redundancy.) I ordered the duck.

Bubble and Squeak Cakes
from Gordon Ramsay (BBC Good Food magazine, 12/06)

Ingredients:
1 kg floury potatoes, quartered (GR uses King Edward)
40g butter
500g Brussels sprouts, trimmed
50g plain flour , seasoned with salt and pepper
olive oil , for frying

Boil the potatoes for 12-15 mins or until tender, then drain and return to the pan over a low heat for 1-2 mins to dry out. Add the butter and mash well. Meanwhile, boil the sprouts for 3-5 mins until just tender. Drain and cool quickly under cold running water. Shake dry, then shred as finely as you can.
Mix the sprouts with the potatoes and season to taste. Leave until cool enough to handle, then shape into 8 round cakes. Tip the flour onto a plate, then coat the cakes, tapping off the excess.
Heat a 5mm depth of oil in a large frying pan and shallow-fry the cakes in 2 batches for 2 mins each side, turning carefully. Drain on kitchen paper and transfer to a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Cool, cover and chill or freeze. Will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days or freeze for up to a month.
Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5 (or if you've roasted the ham, leave the oven on while it rests) and reheat the cakes for 15 mins until hot through and crisp on the outside.

If you do a Google search on Gordon Ramsay bubble and squeak cakes, you will come directly to the link to the recipe on the BBC Good Food website, with a photo.

Many thanks! That's in the queue for Sunday.

...Thanksgiving is the time of the year when I most miss being back with family and friends in the US...

A couple of days ago, my son, Tim, called me from Iraq. He's been there since October of '06 and won't return to the States until January, but he's already planning next year's Thanksgiving at home, as he's missed two in a row. He wants an old-fashioned Pilgim one, with turkey, lobster, corn-on-the-cob and all that goes with it. I promised it to him. I'll have to remember to freeze corn next summer.

Howie, I can guarantee you that I will be thinking of your son sitting down at the table on Thanksgiving next year. cheers, Bonnie

I tried several variants of the Ramsey recipe yesterday while searching through the Internet for a Ravens-logo paper bag to put over my head. The original was excellent, but missing something. Before giving my opinion on the "something," a few notes:

You really want the sprouts just barely tenderized, with some texture to them. Maybe a minute blanching for the little ones I love so much, fresh cut off the branch. Otherwise, the dish is just too monotonous.

You want REALLY floury potatoes- the first ones I tried fell apart under frying (I was NOT going to add flour and egg!). Switching varieties saved the next batch.

The flour breading is OK, and I tried a few other things. My favorite was seasoned rice flour. Panko/egg wash was also excellent, but in retrospect, it made things a bit too TGIF.

OK, the missing "something": a half teaspoon of freshly ground or crushed caraway seed; it should be not quite enough to be able to taste distinctly, so start low and adjust as necessary. The effect is to punch up the Brussels sprout flavor and harmonize it to the potato (if that makes any sense).

Interesting, Stuart. I may need to make the original version and your tweaked version and have a side-by-side taste comparison. What kind of potatoes did you use?

Bonnie, thanks for posting the recipe!

What kind of potatoes did you use?

There were two kinds of baking potatoes at the produce stand, both in unlabeled bins. I tried each, and the type with a rough, papery brownish skin worked better than the one with the pebbled brownish skin. If the ones you get aren't floury enough, you could always cheat and add some potato starch- I probably would have done that with my first batch if I'd actually had some on hand.

Thanks, Stuart. That's um... marginally helpful.

Well, all you have to do is go to Larry's Produce in Fairfield and all will be clear. See? That was easy.

I'll take a picture when I'm there this weekend.

You have none of the appropriate kind left of which to take a photo?

It has changed form beyond recognition.