Chaos Countdown

11:15 - I found cranberries!  Whoohoo!  Nice fresh ones.  Thank you Globus!

12:10 - the owner of my favourite boutique is googling turkey roasting instructions while I try on clothes.  Perhaps an unnecessary event to do today - but alas I am a stressed woman and I do not need to make sense.

13:00 - two new rsvp's for dinner.  Kein problem, I have 7 kilos of turkey.

13:15 - full on anxiety attack.  I have not enough plates.

13:17 - I don't have enough chair either.

13:19 - texted for back up support.  (Although I believe the offer to assist was more gratuitous than anything...)

13:45 - pumpkin pie is in - now time to tackle the turkey.  Feeling immense gratitude for the rooster timer I was given last night.

13:58 - watching Gordon Ramsey YouTube video on how to cook a turkey.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I93nany8nQI

13:59 - received whatsup up message from a friend - they decided to bring a nuessli-rucola salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and mozzarella pearls.  Yum.  I am off the hook for making a salad.

14:00 - rooster timer just crowed and scared the bloody hell out of me.  May need a prosecco to help calm me down.

15:15 - pumpkin pie is finished and turkey is in!

15:51 - maybe it is time to go buy groceries.

Thanksgiving Dinner Chaos

This dinner has taken on a life of its own.  The guys in the office have been willingly enduring my lunchtime turkey saga updates and offering second hand roasting tips.  My friend, the turkey procurement facilitator is experiencing similar support at her workplace.

We even named the darn turkey.  His name is Henry, Henry the VIII.  Sure go ahead and challenge me on the name selection, but remember when you are doing so that we are arguing over the namesake of a 7 kilo bird that is going into my 9 kilo capacity oven.  

But last night is when things became really interesting.  My friends proudly escorted the now infamous Henry VIII to my flat at 19:00.  But they also had all my favourite treats, prosecco and even a couple of gifts.

You see, I had mentioned that I was going to brine the turkey last night.  My friends however are so excited about this turkey that they became concerned - and this of course was further fuelled by their uncertainty over my culinary abilities.  So, they posed an intervention.  Distracting me from my intended task.  Of course I only realized this as they left at 1am and one said with a laugh "yeah, too bad you get to do that brine thing..."

And now I have to run - I just did a quick head count followed by a quick plate count - there seems to be a considerable discrepancy... 

Thanksgiving Countdown

It is just few sleeps away from Thanksgiving dinner.  However, instead of going through all the Thanksgiving explanations I invited my friends to a 'Fall Feast'.  It seems to be requiring a team effort this dinner of mine.  One friend helped procure the necessary pumpkin, however I remained a bit bamboozled on where to get the turkey and was in fact a few steps away from substituting chicken when my best gal pal decided to get involved.  

Let me first explain, getting a turkey is not an easy feat over here.  There are normally a few available for American thanksgiving, however for the Canadian one, you have to find a butcher who will bring you in a specially ordered turkey.  Since my cooking is pretty much limited to yogurt and salad, I have no 'relationship' with a butcher from whom I could make this request.

So last night my gal pal offered to take charge of turkey procurement.  At lunch I received I text.  "I have the turkey.  It is a Swiss one from the farm of .... , and it will be slaughtered on Thursday.  I pick it up on Saturday.  It will cost 120 SF."  

I had to release an awkward laugh.  For the first time in my life I am directly responsible for turkey being slaughtered.  And I will no longer listen to my Canadian friends complain about spending $30 on a turkey.

But the best part of the text was yet to come.  The turkey is 7-8 kilos, and the kind butcher even offered to loan some dishes to roast it in as well. As I glance down and take in the size of my cute oven I am uttering a silent prayer that it will even fit.  If it does, certainly nothing else will.

I had planned to supplement the turkey dinner with honey roasted glazed vegetables and other comfort foods.  Oh well - who needs veggies when you have protein?

In the end I have to smile at how things are unfolding.  My friend a few doors away has also offered me his oven so that I can cook some things there too.  Funny.  And my gal pal will be finishing her work day on Saturday only to stop at the butcher and carry home on the train one massive, freshly slaughtered turkey.  Too funny.

I just hope I will have enough time to cook the darn thing!  Perhaps we will do a reverse dinner - start with pumpkin pie and finish with turkey for desert.

I have to admit I am utterly warmed by the effort my friends have all made to make my Thanksgiving a success.  I feel immense gratitude for their friendship.  Even though I am missing my homeland this fall, it seems I do not have to be back in Canada to experience the spirit of Thanksgiving...

And it is ON!

Oh yeah.  I have a pumpkin and I know what to do with it.

Thanksgiving is on!  Woot!

I have been babbling about hosting a Thanksgiving party for ages now.  After four years of missing it - I am keen on not letting this one slip me by. My close friends are a perfect mix of German, Swiss, French and Italian folk who have no idea what it all means.  The day after I after I proudly procured a pumpkin (and I will have you know, this is not such an easy feat when you live in downtown Zurich) I texted my pals - "the Harvest Feast is on! We will even have pumpkin pie," I shared excitedly, for everyone knows that it is not thanksgiving if there is not pumpkin pie.

"Uhm, you make pie out of pumpkins?" said one friend rather sceptically.  "You sure you don't mean soup?"  

Funny how you assume some things. Such as everyone must  know that pumpkin pie is a must-do fall sort of thing.  But they do not.  

But the real cool thing is that they do not have turkey much over here either.  In fact, I have yet to find a place where I can preorder it just for this dinner, but I will.  However, that means my friends have no idea what a 'turkey coma' is either.  I cannot help but giggle a little at that thought alone...

Fall Gratitude

It is by far my most favourite season.  Snuggling with a special someone, long dinners with friends, the sound of leaves crunching as I walk. I love fall.

A Perfect Sunday Morning

This morning I woke from a long, deep sleep.  Because it is Sunday I allowed myself the luxury of remaining all snuggled in bed while slowly waking for the day. When I was ready I rolled over to check my phone to see if anything traumatic had occurred during my slumber. A text from my BFF awaited me.  "Isn't it wonderful to wake alone and be free of drama?  To slowly begin the day and drink too many coffees and have no where you have to be?" 

I had to agree.  As I write this I am sipping my second coffee of the morning.  A half eaten oatmeal cookie made by my Grossmutter lay near by.  A couple of hours of work followed by a concert with a good friend awaits later in the day.  

A colleague of mine has a habit of saying "Dawn, you have the perfect life."  To be honest, this annoys me.  I have days, weeks and even months that seem to test me in every possible way - but I do my best to fight through them.  Just like everyone.  However, in moments like these, I cannot help but agree.  

Damn it feels good to be me...

Shedding an Inhibition

My friend and I have started a once per week wellness evening.  It is our effort to replenish our bodies from the ill effects of a rather fun filled summer.  

A few weeks in and I am completely hooked.  This is a rather European thing to do - sauna evenings I mean.  I am shocked as to why we do not do more of this in Canada.  It seems like sort of a Canadian thing to do.

At first I was rather tentative.  Particularly because the whole sauna thing requires one to be comfortable with nudity.  At one point and time in my life I would have have refused absolutely to entertain the notion of shedding my clothes.  However, as the years melt into each other, I find myself adopting more and more of the European ways.  I have learned to enjoy a minimalist lifestyle, I spend money differently than I did back in Canada, I have completely embraced the social routines associated with Swiss life and now I have joined the countless others who head on down to the sauna and shed their attire for a few hours of self indulgence.

As a Canadian, I am filled with the inhibitions that come with our society.  I simply didn't get the whole naked sauna thing.  My friends here could not understand why I was so uptight .  But, as the years pass, my learned Canadian inhibitions become less prevalent.  And then the day came when I was ready to give it a whirl.

I tried to explain to my friend after how the experience moved me.  For her it is a normal thing to do.  But for me, I had to accept myself as I was.  There was no where to hide.  As I sat in the scorching heat of the sauna I felt free.  No one cared about how I looked.  Nor did I them.  We were there for something else.  We were there to enjoy the quiet, the heat, and the pleasure of self indulgence.  And the losing the clothes thing?  Not such a big deal after all...