Trajectories

After I left the nest for college 12 years ago (I cannot believe it’s been that long) Thanksgiving has been a contested holiday for me. Seven of those Thanksgivings I was in college or grad school, making the timing of Thanksgiving right before final exams every fall semester. I would drive home in a half-daze and spend most of the trip thinking about the fact that I had to leave my home–where the presence of my family gave me comfort and support–and go back to school to spend days and nights toiling over final projects and tests. It made for a bittersweet Thanksgiving experience. Christmas was always the better holiday because I knew I had more than two days to spend with family.

This year, however, I firmly duct-taped my rose-colored glasses onto my head and became a Thanksgiving freak. I have never wanted to celebrate the holiday with so much fervor. I suppose being so far from the poeple and the things that are familiar to me made me nostalgic for the turkey, sweet potatoes and pie. Luckily for me, nobody here in Budapest has any Thanksgiving baggage to sour the concept of the holiday, so our new friends were nothing but excited to learn how the Pilgrims in Jamestown were saved that first winter by their new Native American neighbors.

You can imagine the slightly confused looks on our Hungarian friends’ faces after we told them that story. “But…didn’t the new English immigrants sorta, you know, treat the natives in America ‘badly’?”

“Well, yes, but at least they waited until after they thanked them and gave them a national holiday!”

Okay, sorry about that. I just had to say it. Back to the gorging on massive amounts of food in front of near strangers:

We had about 15 people come from my office and from KIBU. Plus, we were hosting three artist friends from Minnesota, so we made LOTS of food.

Because there was no way Chris and I could cook for everyone, we made it potluck style. It was a highly multicultural Thanksgiving. Here’s a sample list of what we had:

A 7-pound turkey breast the size of my head, sweet potatoes, lamb, beef tongue, quacamole dip, pickled cabbage, stir-fried shitake mushrooms, hungarian poppyseed cakes, and apple crisp. It was awe-inspiring.

We ran short on plates and silverware, so people were eating out of whatever they could find.

It was also a very interactive meal. Because of the length of the table, you had to get up and force you way through to some of the dishes.

One dish in particular seemed to cause a frenzy. My mother's sweet potato recipe was so popular, it was half-eaten in the two minutes between putting it on the table and grabbing my camera to take a photo of it. I made one change, though. Many of you Americans probably see this dish with pecans, but Hungarians don't seem to have a stop on the old pecan-importing train. So I used hazelnuts, which were really delicious.

The fabulous meal was made complete by a number of delicious wines brought by our friends. Here we have some of my co-workers enjoying fancy wine in Ikea mugs. Because if Chris and I are anything, we are classy.

A full stomach and a happy head.

Everyone seemed to have a great time, illustrated by our friend Atilla who said as he was leaving, “Thanks for the giving.”