Expat Thanksgiving, another year

Dec 5

Dec 5 Expat Thanksgiving, another year

This is my fourth Thanksgiving in Spain, although only my third one which I've cooked for. My first Thanksgiving in Spain, I had just arrived in the country a few days before, and probably spent the day at work and then in my rented room by myself.

I'm lucky now that I have friends I can invite to Thanksgiving, and I've gotten the routine of cooking Thanksgiving with local ingredients and resources pretty down pat! A lot of my preparations carried over from my Thanksgiving blog post from last year, including going to the same butcher...

Just look at that bird! I ordered a turkey of 17.5-20 lbs, and got a 22 lb one! Gigantic!!

I like how in this stand they have that framed picture of dead fowl in the back. I think my butchers belong among those "accidental hipsters."

And look at the frame on the adjacent wall - it's framing a plastic bag, with a picture of the framed picture of the dead fowl on the bag. Trippy!!

And same as last year, I went to my trusty vegetable stand which seems to specialize in beans year-round.

Here I am dry-brining the turkey, which my butcher has cut up exactly how I wanted. Since Spanish people don't care about seeing the turkey whole, I confit the dark meat and roast the white meat separately.

And my Thanksgiving spread all done!

I especially like how the pumpkin pie turns out, using the roasted pumpkin which you can find in bakeries at this time of year. The pumpkin is roasted with honey, and gets all dark and caramelized already, so has a very deep flavor.

This year, Thanksgiving was a particular challenge, because I "hosted" Thanksgiving, but in someone else's house. And not only one Thanksgiving, but two Thanksgivings! This meant transporting ALL of the partially prepared food to the site, and then learning how to cook in a new kitchen.

For the second Thanksgiving dinner I prepared, I walked into the kitchen and asked, in a bit of panic, where is the oven? It turns out that the oven was outside on the patio! And there was no temperature control - the only settings were lower heat, upper heat, and off. Now THIS was new to me!

Thanks to my trusty Thermapen, the turkey came out okay. And here is another "Valencian" custom which I could take advantage of - cooking paellas outside as well, to keep the smoke and oil out of the house. Perfect for browning my confit turkey legs!