Big Bird 2021

A couple of weeks ago we had lunch with our friends, Kieran and Eileen. At lunch, we met Eileen’s sister Catherine who is from Edinburg, Scotland but lives part time in southern Spain. She observed that Americans and Brits living in Spain tend to call themselves “expats” when they move here. According to her, people of other nationalities refer to themselves as either citizens of the country that they left or as immigrants, or emigrants. Made me curious about why we call ourselves expats.

According to Websters, immigrants are people who move to a foreign country with the goal of remaining there. Whereas, emigrants are people who leave their country to live in another country, not necessarily forever. An expat or an expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of the person’s upbringing. By these definitions, Rocky and I could be considered expats, or emigrants. I’m not quite ready to declare Spain my forever home, although Rocky has said more than once that he’s here to stay.

While we’ve been really happy with our decision to emigrate to Spain, I admit that I wanted more than ever to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. Whether it was the siren call of a holiday I’ve always loved, a deep need to feel connected to home or just a desire for some stuffing and cranberry relish, I’m not sure. At any rate, as soon as we came up with the idea, I invited a few local friends: our Spanish teacher Cristina and her husband Chema, and Kieran and Eileen. Since they had all lived in the U.S. at least for a while, we thought they might enjoy feasting with us.

We quickly found out that key Thanksgiving ingredients like whole turkey, fresh cranberries, fresh sage, canned pumpkin and Crisco were not available in Asturias. Many of these could be found in Madrid and southern Spain where there are more Americans but no one was willing to ship them to us in Gijon.

Just when it looked like we would have to serve chicken and gooseberries instead, Rocky found a local farm willing to sell us a fresh turkey. And a generous Spanish friend living in London brought me some Ocean Spray Cranberry Relish when she came to town. While I continued the search for fresh sage, Rocky calculated how we could actually bake everything in what we think of as our “Easy Bake Oven.”

Since Thanksgiving Day was a regular work day in Spain, we decided to host our feast on the Sunday before. With any luck, the 16 pound fresh turkey we ordered would arrive as promised on the Friday before and we would find a way to squeeze it into our small refrigerator until Sunday.

The turkey couldn’t wait though. Like a baby in a hurry to meet the world, it arrived on our doorstep on Wednesday, two days ahead of schedule! Instead of 16 pounds it was a whopping 26 pound Big Bird, twice the size of our dog, Wilma!  When we shoved it into the fridge, it looked suspiciously like we were storing a body bag. Now our roasting would have to start on Friday because the turkey would not last till Sunday iif we didn’t.

Undeterred, I tackled the next item on our list: pumpkin! I searched the farmer’s market for of a fresh pumpkin that we could roast and puree to make pie. No luck finding a pumpkin but I found some very orange squash. Squash pie anyone? My friend Leah told me she heard all canned pumpkin was actually canned squash anyway. Not sure how the FDA got away with that for all of these years but it kept me from worrying too much about the substitution.

I finally had to give up on fresh sage but was lucky to find some dried sage that a spice vendor was selling in the market. Thankfully, the Granny Smith apples, called Smits in our farmer’s market, were easy to find. We would have plenty of pie!

Between my grandma, my aunt and my mom, we’ve made a thousand pies with Crisco in our lives. I have no illusions that it is a health food but it does make a flaky crust. With no Crisco in Gijon, though, I reached for the butter. Lots of butter! My Dad told me to add vodka to the pie crust, the latest Cooks Illustrated recommendation, he said. If we had any vodka on hand, I might have drunk a shot of it to calm my pie-anxiety but we didn’t. So it was full speed ahead with the butter and flour.

The pies were delicious in spite of the alternative ingredients. After all, if you add enough sugar and spices to anything, you can make it yummy, right? Not surprisingly, it tasted like there was a pat of butter in every bite. As my friend, Dr. Dhaval Dhru, an Ayurvedic practitioner always says, “You have to challenge your system every once in a while!” We definitely met the challenge, Dr. Dhru!

Two days before our dinner, Kieran got sick and he and Eileen had to cancel. By this time, we had perfected the art of substitution so we tried not to panic. There would be way too much food for just the four of us though! We called our Cuban-American friends who moved to Spain just a couple weeks after we did and now live in Oviedo, a short train ride away from us. Like us, they are trying to master the art of being spontaneous after years of over planning. Without hesitation, they said yes to our last-minute invitation.

On the day before the feast, we had sliced turkey, homemade gravy, cranberry relish, a pumpkin pie and an apple pie ready to go. In fact, we had to eat out all week because there wasn’t one spare inch of space in our fridge for non-feast related items. Beer and wine and other non-essential items were now living on our terrace because it was almost as cold as the refrigerator out there.

The morning of our celebration was unusually calm. I made the stuffing and Rocky roasted the veggies, made the mashed potatoes and baked his famous bourbon sweet potatoes. There were no parades, football or any other distractions. Maybe this was the secret to a stress-free holiday?  Our “Barbie” kitchen appliances and our big early bird had forced us to do more prep in advance and it had paid off.

To make sure the turkey would be moist and delicious, Rocky basted each slice with sage butter before reheating it in the oven. The result according to all the turkey lovers was a moist and delicious bird.

Chema helped complete the traditional Thanksgiving feast when he found a Spanish vintner called Valdemar Estates, who started a winery in Walla Walla, WA. He ordered both red and white wine from them…a perfect representation of both of our countries. When he gifted us with those bottles two weeks in advance of our feast, we knew all would be well. If the food didn’t turn out as we hoped, at least the wine would be great!

As we gathered around the table with our friends last Sunday, we felt so grateful for our first international Thanksgiving, a Cuban-Spanish-American celebration. Not bad for a couple of emigrants wanting to recreate some American traditions on their first year in their new country.

A while ago, Cristina taught us an important Spanish phrase, “Allá donde fueres, haz lo que vieres.”  A loose translation in English would be, “When you visit a new place, do what the locals do.” Or more literally, “Do when you visit, that which you see.” Although our Thanksgiving meal was delicious, Rocky and I decided we should probably celebrate Spanish-style in the future. No need to do a weeks-long scavenger hunt for products that are virtually unavailable in northern Spain. Next year maybe we will serve paella instead!

By Thanksgiving Thursday, we had eaten all of our left overs. Not ready to return to cooking yet, we decided to go out for ramen. While we were at WabiSabi Ramen,  we overheard a woman speaking on the phone in English about eating ramen on Thanksgiving Day. We introduced ourselves to her after she finished her call and had a laugh about the crazy coincidence of three Americans having ramen for Thanksgiving in Gijon. There are worse ways to celebrate!

Next up? Christmas and New Year’s. We are determined to embrace the local Spanish customs this time, doing what the locals do. Some traditions will be easy like eating Turron, a popular nougat confection that tastes like peanut butter fudge, or eating twelve grapes on New Year’s Eve. Others may take some getting used to. Apparently tradition dictates that we have to wear red underwear on New Year’s Eve. Pretty sure that the red underwear Rocky has in mind are not the red long johns or even red granny panties I’m picturing!

When in Spain though….

An Emigrant’s Thanksgiving to Remember

Notes from the author:

Washington friends: please consider supporting Valdemar Estates. We not only recommend their wine but love their story. Tell them your friends in Gijon, Spain sent you! https://valdemarestates.com/our-family

Want to know more about Christmas in Spain?  https://spanishsabores.com/spanish-christmas-traditions/

Happy New You: Want to start the new year feeling healthy and balanced? Please join me for a yoga brunch on January 2, 2022 at Hierbas Dulces, a vegan/vegetarian restaurant on Playa San Lorenzo in Gijon. 10-11:30am yoga (in English) 11:45-1:00pm brunch 35 euros for both or 25 for brunch only. Reservations are required. Contact me through this website.