Thursday, October 22, 2009

Is it too early?

I have already made my Thanksgiving menu...

Turkey (made the traditional way!)
Turkey gravy (made from the actual turkey drippings!)
Homemade sweet yeast rolls
Stuffing (sadly from a box!)
Grandma Miller's Creamed Corn
Sweet Glazed Yams
Mashed Potatoes
Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin Roll

I know I am missing plenty of items most people deem as Thanksgiving "musts", but Fredrik's family, who I will be celebrating with, already thinks this is WAY TOO MUCH FOOD! But I'm cooking it anyway! I have to! We will be celebrating the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and there will be 8 of us. Funny that my first time making a whole Thanksgiving meal will be in Sweden for a Swedish family. If I mess up, they might not even know! ;) I think the turkey makes me the most nervous, all the rest is pretty simple. But a whole entire bird! Yikes!

On a more, time relevant note, next week the girls have fall break. SO I get to spend the whole week with them. Sheesh. So I have some nice Halloween activities planned. Here in Sweden Halloween is really not celebrated at all. Younger people might dress up and have a party amongst themselves, but really, no kids are out trick-or-treating and such. So we will carve a pumpkin, make some pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting (thank you Sarah for the pumpkin mix and Halloween muffin cups!) and Mireille was so kind to buy me the movie "Hocus Pocus" which will always be my favorite Halloween movie, and one of my best memories of my grandmother. And Sweden being the "out of date" country it is, we will see "Upp" in the theater, since it just came out a few weeks ago! So hopefully it won't be totally unbearable! Plus, my birthday is Friday! So I think Mireille has taken that day off so we can do some fun things all together! And Friday afternoon Fredrik and I go to Copenhagen for the weekend! I love this time of year! So much to do, so much cooking to do, so much to plan! I miss home, but it's really fun to introduce the American way of celebrating, and learning the Swedish way as well!

The Swedish word of the day is "meny" which means "menu" and looks like it sounds. Only the "y" in Swedish is sort of special, you have to purse your lips, like you are trying to hold a pen between your lips and your nose. It's a REALLY hard sound to masture for a non-Swedish speaker!

5 comments:

  1. with only 90,000 people?!? omg! in the US starbucks is everywere! Is it really that great? because in Paris i didn´t think it was something speciell, but i dont drink cafeé.. Now when it´s coming to sweden i dont even wanna know how many starbucks there´s gonna be!

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  2. You're welcome! I was hoping it would translate into something fun for you to do with the girls that would take up a half hour!

    I'm impressed with all the cooking you're doing for the Swedish people in your life, but what about all those people in Switzerland? Don't they deserve a Thanksgiving meal from you, too?!

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  3. The turkey is the easiest part. It takes about 10 minutes to prepare it for the oven, if that, and then you don't really have to think about it while it is baking. Just make sure you use a meat thermometer, or a turkey with the pop up thing in it, and that the meat temperature reaches 165 degrees so that you know it is done. Your menu sounds great. I have already started planning our menu as well. There may even be a few things you can make ahead of time so you are not crunched for time. Don't worry. Everything will be delicious. Besides, part of the celebration is about being with friends and loved ones, and having FUN! It has taken a lot of years for me to realize that the preparation with everyone gathering around and visiting near the kitchen is the most memorable part. Although the food is important and good, it does not have to be perfect. --Leslie ;)

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  4. Remember to take the "bags" out of the turkey -both ends :) We will certainly be missing your rolls this year at all our meals. They are wonderful! You could also cook the seeds from the pumpkins once you carve them. Have a great week!

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  5. Why isn't your blog updating in my blog list? Any ideas?

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