Sunday, December 20, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
A Spanish Thanksgiving
Not only was it the first Thanksgiving that I’ve spent away from home, but it was also the first birthday that I’ve been away from my family and friends. The night before I lay in bed unable to think about anything except how much I was dreading the next day, how lonely I would feel waking up without my best friends making me pancakes, without my dad’s fresh squeezed pomegranate juice and without the love and intimacy that I was always so lucky to have on my birthday. When I woke up and pulled open the curtain on my window, I saw a dark and overcast sky and raindrops pecking at the window. The second rainy day since I’ve been in Malaga had to be on my birthday.
The first pleasant surprise came as I was riding in the car with my coworker and my cell phone rang a familiar tune. My aunt Dina surprised me with a wonderful birthday wish and so started the kind wishes I received all throughout the day. I didn’t want to tell anyone it was my birthday, I wanted to just celebrate Thanksgiving and pretend like it wasn’t a personally special day as well. My plan was foiled completely because from the moment I set foot in the school teacher after teacher started coming up to me, kissing me on both cheeks and wishing me “felicidades” on my special day. After my presentation about Thanksgiving traditions the kids surprised me with a big birthday song during which I burst into tears for absolutely no reason other than the fact that a spell was cast on me when I was a child that ensures that I cry on my birthday. During recess the teachers surprised me with two little cakes with candles in them and sang the by-now familiar Spanish birthday song. I fled the school at around noon to catch the train from Alora to Malaga in order to embark upon the task of cooking a giant Thanksgiving turkey. As I was sitting in the little dive bar next to the train station, drinking a café con leche, watching the bartender chop onions while drinking a large Cruzcampo, Tracy Chapman’s haunting voice came on the radio singing “Baby Can I Hold You Tonight” and the second stream of tears came pouring out of my eyes. They certainly weren’t tears of sadness because I felt completely content to be sitting in this little Spanish bar, waiting for a train that would take me through the most breathtakingly beautiful valleys and mountains, back to the city that was now my home. They were just tears of astonishment, when life feels so surreal, so inexplicable, for some reason tears pour out of my eyes.
It was amazing how fulfilled and complete I was able to feel on this day, so far away from everyone I love, and it was all thanks to the beautiful emails, letters, phone calls and wishes I received throughout the entire day from all corners of the world. The power of words is something incredible.
As soon as I got home I peeked in the fridge at the massive, sixteen-pound turkey, that took up half of our fridge. I’d had a nightmare about it the night before, that it was still alive. The white feathers stuck out of the bag and it still resembled the bird that it once was. I quickly shut the door and started working on the stuffing instead of touching the bird. The onion, celery and bread stuffing was done rather quickly and I left it on the side to wait for its bird to be prepared. The night before my roommate and I made a pasta salad with olives, tomatoes and feta cheese, a Moroccan chickpea salad with green apples, red peppers and lemon and a sweet potato and carrot puree. We finally tackled the turkey. I did it with my eyes closed and my lips pursed. It may have been one of the hardest things I’ve done, after having been a vegetarian for so long, there I was picking feathers of a big turkey. We finally had it prepared enough to put in the oven and the epic five-hour cooking of the turkey began. In the meantime we made a Caesar salad, mashed potatoes and gravy.
The hours passed quickly and before we knew it, the hour was 9 and our guests were ringing the doorbell. First it was Herminia, my lovely 22-year-old conversation partner who’s from a nearby village but is living in Malaga and studying tourism. She came at the tail end of the preparation and helped us finish the dishes that had yet to be finished. The turkey was a golden brown in the oven and we finally pulled it out. With the next ring came Flores from Alora and Jose Angel, a teacher that works with us at the school. They brought wine and cheesecake. Next came Clare, my French roommate, with her French friend Elodie with champagne and red wine. Two rings later Eva and Patri, two 22-year-olds from Malaga that I met through my “intercambio” ads carrying several bottles of Lambrusco, a cheap but delicious sparkling red wine. And finally our last two guests, Juan Diego and Manolo, arrived from Alora with a beautiful red Christmas plant and more bottles of champagne and wine. The smells from the kitchen were intoxicating and everyone hovered over the dishes asking what they were, how we made them, what the traditional ones were. None of our guests had ever had a Thanksgiving meal before and they were all quite interested in our stories about typical American Thanksgivings. It felt so poetically appropriate to be having a Thanksgiving in a foreign country with the people that were still somewhat unknown but that had found themselves open to helping us adjust to our lives here in Spain, that offered their companionships so graciously, their language help, their travel suggestions and their food offerings.
We filled our plates to the brim, put the turkey on the dining room table, turned on the Beatles on my computer, poured ourselves little plastic cups of wine and all toasted each other for Thanksgiving. We each said something we’re thankful for and then embraced the delicious food. It was some kind of miracle sent from the heavens that all of the food came out so great, that we didn’t burn anything, or mess up a single recipe even though it was both of our first times cooking a Thanksgiving meal. The conversation was great, the wine accompanied the food nicely, and everyone reached for seconds, and thirds, and fourths. After a few courses, a few of our guests and Elena bustled around in the kitchen doing something secretive and suddenly they turned out the lights and brought out a birthday cake with candles. I was incredibly surprised and pink-cheeked but I managed to blow out all the candles and make a strong birthday wish in my head.
After desert everyone chanted for me to play my guitar so I serenaded our guests with my old classical guitar songs. Everyone was full, pink-cheeked from the wine, and content to have spent their first Thanksgiving in Spain. This was certainly a birthday that I will never forget – from the turkey, to the rain, to the people, to the cake.
The first pleasant surprise came as I was riding in the car with my coworker and my cell phone rang a familiar tune. My aunt Dina surprised me with a wonderful birthday wish and so started the kind wishes I received all throughout the day. I didn’t want to tell anyone it was my birthday, I wanted to just celebrate Thanksgiving and pretend like it wasn’t a personally special day as well. My plan was foiled completely because from the moment I set foot in the school teacher after teacher started coming up to me, kissing me on both cheeks and wishing me “felicidades” on my special day. After my presentation about Thanksgiving traditions the kids surprised me with a big birthday song during which I burst into tears for absolutely no reason other than the fact that a spell was cast on me when I was a child that ensures that I cry on my birthday. During recess the teachers surprised me with two little cakes with candles in them and sang the by-now familiar Spanish birthday song. I fled the school at around noon to catch the train from Alora to Malaga in order to embark upon the task of cooking a giant Thanksgiving turkey. As I was sitting in the little dive bar next to the train station, drinking a café con leche, watching the bartender chop onions while drinking a large Cruzcampo, Tracy Chapman’s haunting voice came on the radio singing “Baby Can I Hold You Tonight” and the second stream of tears came pouring out of my eyes. They certainly weren’t tears of sadness because I felt completely content to be sitting in this little Spanish bar, waiting for a train that would take me through the most breathtakingly beautiful valleys and mountains, back to the city that was now my home. They were just tears of astonishment, when life feels so surreal, so inexplicable, for some reason tears pour out of my eyes.
It was amazing how fulfilled and complete I was able to feel on this day, so far away from everyone I love, and it was all thanks to the beautiful emails, letters, phone calls and wishes I received throughout the entire day from all corners of the world. The power of words is something incredible.
As soon as I got home I peeked in the fridge at the massive, sixteen-pound turkey, that took up half of our fridge. I’d had a nightmare about it the night before, that it was still alive. The white feathers stuck out of the bag and it still resembled the bird that it once was. I quickly shut the door and started working on the stuffing instead of touching the bird. The onion, celery and bread stuffing was done rather quickly and I left it on the side to wait for its bird to be prepared. The night before my roommate and I made a pasta salad with olives, tomatoes and feta cheese, a Moroccan chickpea salad with green apples, red peppers and lemon and a sweet potato and carrot puree. We finally tackled the turkey. I did it with my eyes closed and my lips pursed. It may have been one of the hardest things I’ve done, after having been a vegetarian for so long, there I was picking feathers of a big turkey. We finally had it prepared enough to put in the oven and the epic five-hour cooking of the turkey began. In the meantime we made a Caesar salad, mashed potatoes and gravy.
The hours passed quickly and before we knew it, the hour was 9 and our guests were ringing the doorbell. First it was Herminia, my lovely 22-year-old conversation partner who’s from a nearby village but is living in Malaga and studying tourism. She came at the tail end of the preparation and helped us finish the dishes that had yet to be finished. The turkey was a golden brown in the oven and we finally pulled it out. With the next ring came Flores from Alora and Jose Angel, a teacher that works with us at the school. They brought wine and cheesecake. Next came Clare, my French roommate, with her French friend Elodie with champagne and red wine. Two rings later Eva and Patri, two 22-year-olds from Malaga that I met through my “intercambio” ads carrying several bottles of Lambrusco, a cheap but delicious sparkling red wine. And finally our last two guests, Juan Diego and Manolo, arrived from Alora with a beautiful red Christmas plant and more bottles of champagne and wine. The smells from the kitchen were intoxicating and everyone hovered over the dishes asking what they were, how we made them, what the traditional ones were. None of our guests had ever had a Thanksgiving meal before and they were all quite interested in our stories about typical American Thanksgivings. It felt so poetically appropriate to be having a Thanksgiving in a foreign country with the people that were still somewhat unknown but that had found themselves open to helping us adjust to our lives here in Spain, that offered their companionships so graciously, their language help, their travel suggestions and their food offerings.
We filled our plates to the brim, put the turkey on the dining room table, turned on the Beatles on my computer, poured ourselves little plastic cups of wine and all toasted each other for Thanksgiving. We each said something we’re thankful for and then embraced the delicious food. It was some kind of miracle sent from the heavens that all of the food came out so great, that we didn’t burn anything, or mess up a single recipe even though it was both of our first times cooking a Thanksgiving meal. The conversation was great, the wine accompanied the food nicely, and everyone reached for seconds, and thirds, and fourths. After a few courses, a few of our guests and Elena bustled around in the kitchen doing something secretive and suddenly they turned out the lights and brought out a birthday cake with candles. I was incredibly surprised and pink-cheeked but I managed to blow out all the candles and make a strong birthday wish in my head.
After desert everyone chanted for me to play my guitar so I serenaded our guests with my old classical guitar songs. Everyone was full, pink-cheeked from the wine, and content to have spent their first Thanksgiving in Spain. This was certainly a birthday that I will never forget – from the turkey, to the rain, to the people, to the cake.
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