Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. Boy, we had a great day. Now keep in mind that we did miss our family and friends something awful, but God supplied and we had Thanksgiving with some great friends, that might as well be family! My stove was cooking up a storm today! Let me tell you, with only 3 pots, two pans and one bowl I managed to have stewed cabbage ala fat back, mashed butter with taters (yes, that is in the correct order), green beans cooked ever so delicately with bacon and onion, whole kernal corn with just a PINCH of butter, mac’n'cheese topped with a crunchy cracker crust, honey-glazed carrots, basil roasted chicken, pineapple-adorned baked ham, carmel pie with homemade cookie crust topped with HAND whipped cream and, oh, yes sweetened ICE tea! Paula Dean hush yo’ mouth!!! Where are the Foodnetwork people when you need them? It might have taken all day long to get the oven hot enough to boil water, but it was worth every ounce of time! There was one glitch in the day’s activities. As I approached the point in the meal preparation where all stove eyes were operational along with the oven, well, I flipped the breaker in the apartment. Yes, everything went dark! I went into panic mode! I began to have a stroke! Jerry called Sergey who in turn called the guy we are renting the apartment from to notify him of my catastrophe. Do you know this guy sent word back that he might send someone over in half and hour or so!! Can you believe this. We are paying more for ONE WEEK in this 4 room apartment that we pay per MONTH for our entire HOME! No lie, not joking here! I went into the whole, “If he thinks I am paying him anything for this place well he is crazy, I’m not paying him anything, if a weeks worth of groceries goes bad on this stove he better think twice about getting his money, oh no, he won’t be getting anything but a piece of my mind – Jerry call this man on the phone.” Jerry responds, “Jan he doesn’t speak English.” I respond, “Well, he WILL know what I intend to tell him, what I have to say will cross international boundaries!” Then the phone rang and Sergey said the guys just couldn’t make it before 45 minutes. By that time Sam & Ella (you know the chicken germs) would have set up in my bird and the meal shot. So Jerry asked Sergey where the switch was, of course it was behind a locked cabinet on the wall. Let’s just say the cabinet ain’t locked anymore, nor will it ever be locked again using that lock. It is amazing what you can do with a spoon when you need to. The stove, she heated right back up and the oven got all toasty again and the meal was ready in prefect time. Then the door bell rang and it was Sergey. Jerry had just left to meet Yana. And guess what – the door wouldn’t work! Poor Sergey had to stand in the cold hall until Jerry got back. It was only a few minutes, but I still felt terrible. Anyway, along with Yana and Sergey were our friends from Birmingham, the Underwoods. Oh, I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to see some friends from home! I plan on being nicer to some of you when I get back. I said some of you. Too much change might not be a good thing. It was so great to see them and they were celebrating today as their second adopted child signed the paperwork and the adoption process begins for them. They have 4 kids back home waiting on their newest sister. The daughter they are adopting was at the same orphanage as Jake and they know each other! She has grown up and is so beautiful! We laughed, talked, visited, joked, ate, and ate some more. Sergey and Yana tried different things and we ate good ole soul food. Oh how I really wish the miles would melt between us. There are so very many people here that we love and care for deeply and miss them so very much when we go home. The food was great, but truly the company was the very best! Tomorrow we head to Vasilivik to visit Jake. Monday is the day!! It is fast approaching! We can’t wait. Let me tell you this one story and then I must go. Sergey was telling us that the judge wanted Jake and Katya to be in court because she had some questions for them both and she might ask Jon some questions. Jon’s eyes got big and he looked at Sergey and asked, “Will she ask me anything about the multiplication tables?” Sergey laughed and said “No, why?” Jon replied “Well, I have a little trouble with my 7’s and 8’s!” Isn’t he too sweet!! We just all hooted! So even Jon is ready as long as she doesn’t ask him what 7 x 9 is. Well, this cooking miracle worker is tried. I plan to snuggle in my bed and sleep until about 11. There are a few leftovers so the boys can eat something for breakfast. We had a great Thanksgiving and hope that you all are stuffed to the gills and ready to sit back, stretch out, and in the immortal words of Jerry Clower “let yo’ belly flop around.”
It’s a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving November 27, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving
One of my all time favorite cartoons is Charlie Brown. Every holiday when I was a kid there would always be a Charlie Brown special that came of TV. I couldn’t wait until I watched the special because that marked the holiday for me. Well, anyway, when the Charlie Brown and all the gang got together to share their Thanksgiving meal, they had, shall we say, some minor problems getting everything perfect and ended up with a menu of popcorn, toast and ice cream. Let’s just say that after shopping today at the grocery store we picked up some microwave popcorn just in case! Law the people at the grocery store didn’t even know what a turkey was much less have one! So tomorrow I plan on roasting the Thanksgiving Chicken complete with liver and gizzard. If you don’t know what a gizzard is, don’t ask because it is something you experience not explain! Well I say I am going to roast a chicken, that is if the oven will get hot enough. We tried it out tonight and it got “toasty” I may start on the chicken tonight and hope it gets done by supper tomorrow. We also have a ham. You know if you are from the south you must have at LEAST 2 meats on the table our you should be embarrassed. Now for the veggies. We will, of course, be dining on some mashed taters. Everything in Ukraine is accompanied by potatoes. Even potatoes are accompanied by potatoes. The American Heart Association will NOT be approving of the potatoes I plan to serve. As a special treat I grabbed some frozen green beans. I HOPE to make the green beans wrapped in bacon and cooked in vinegar and brown sugar. Vinegar, no problem. Brown sugar—well, I got a package of something brown that looks like sugar. The only thing is that it is not soft, it is as hard as a brick. For all I know it may be a brick. We will test tomorrow and see. There will be buttery corn and sweet baby carrots. I am going to attempt to make macaroni and cheese. I have the noodles, but the cheese is another story. Did you know there ain’t a single slice of Velveeta in the whole of Ukraine much less a pound of the cheesy goodness in a box! How do these people LIVE. Velveeta makes anything edible. What do they smother broccoli with? How do they stomach steamed cauliflower? What about nachos? And law what about pimento and cheese sandwiches. People from the south, I beg you, rise up and deliver some cheese culture over here! Jerry, bless him, he was trying today. He did find a squirt bottle with a picture of cheese on the front and he was so proud until Sergey told him is was cheese flavored mayonnaise. Somebody contact the Velveeta company and get them to ship some over quick! Sergey did try to help me find some cheese for the mac’n’cheese. Now ladies do you take your husband on shopping trips to prepare for big family meals—NO. And why—they know nothing about shopping for such an occasion. Well imagine shopping with one guy that speaks English and can’t read the labels who is loading the buggy with cheese flavored mayo and another that speaks Russian and English and can read the labels but doesn’t know what the products are for. I asked for something like graham crackers and the BOTH of them were looking in the saltine section of the bakery. Needless to say, Sergey isn’t knowledgeable on the various kinds of cheese in Ukraine and when I asked about cheese that would melt easy he asked “Why do you want it to melt?” Somebody Fed-Ex me some cheese dip from Mi Toro. The mac’n’cheese will be my greatest challenge to date. I ended up with sliced cheese that looked like American, Gouda, some kind of Dutch cheese that at least felt soft and some other kind of cheese that looked pretty. Tomorrow, operation Mac’n’Cheeses will go into effect. I am planning on making a caramel pie like the kind you get at O’Charlie’s. Ukraine has plenty of sweetened condensed milk and I found whipping cream. The only thing I didn’t find was an electric mixer so Jerry gets the whisk tomorrow. Oh and law they don’t have ready made graham cracker crusts. They don’t have crusts period. So I improvised. I did find some very nice vanilla cookies that should make a great crust. I really hope it works. Don’t ask about sweet potatoes. Oh, I am soooo disappointed. Ukraine has 500 varieties of potatoes and not one of them is a sweet potato. I can live without my sweet potatoes as long as I have my corn. So the menu is set as long as the oven works and that brown stuff is sugar and the cheese doesn’t taste like feet. The final item on the menu and the one that we are most pleased to have is SWEET TEA. Yes praise the Lord! I have emptied out a large, I mean LARGE water bottle and have it ready to receive the sweet goodness. We have eaten enough cookies to have enough ice trays to have the tea over ice! Having sweet tea is enough reason in and of itself to declare Thanksgiving! The boys are so excited and salivating already. Jon saw the buggy and he knows that one entire stick of butter for the corn alone. Oh, we are also going to have cooked (or stewed as my grandmother called it) cabbage. The cabbages here are as big a watermelons and I wanted to have something I could count on just in case the other things flopped. The house is clean, I just got up from scrubbing the bathroom floor. Why do we always do this—clean our houses like we are prepping for surgery. But it has to be done or I am just not happy and we all know the results of that situation. Tomorrow I will finish cleaning the house up and start my cooking. We plan to eat this as the supper meal because the Jerry and Sergey had to travel to the end of the Earth again tomorrow morning. Jon and I are totally on our own in getting things ready. For some reason I am just waiting for Snoopy to come skipping in my kitchen tomorrow! We are all excited and missing everyone so much. We hope that your Thanksgiving is wonderful and that you are reminded of the many reasons that our nation celebrates this holiday. We hope that you reflect back on God’s goodness and overwhelming love for you and your family. If you can’t think of anything to be thankful for, well just go to the grocery store and locate a box of Velveeta! It’s a good starting place. Happy Thanksgiving! We love you, miss you and hope to be home soon. Eat some turkey for us!
