Expat Thanksgiving – or, our first dinner party in the house

It's that time of year when every American starts thinking about turkey, stuffing, and football – though if my Facebook feed is anything to go by, it may not be in that order. Personally, I used to hate Thanksgiving: I didn't like starchy orange vegetables, I hated football, and with my small family the holiday felt like a cheap, orange version of Christmas with less decorations and no snow. Fast forward 15 years and I'm living in London where you pay out the nose for a can of Libby's Pumpkin (£1.39 a can!) and the butcher rolls his eyes when you ask for a turkey killed a month early. But creating my own Thanksgiving traditions is pretty amazing, especially as The Irishman has gotten into the Thanksgiving cooking spirit with me, and I'm really enjoying cooking and hosting expat Thanksgiving meals and introducing the holiday to curious Brits.

Last weekend I had a close friend visiting from Chicago so we decided to hold an expat Thanksgiving while she was in town. It was our first dinner party in our new house, so it was always going to be pretty special. I went all out with decorations and cooking, particularly in the purchase of this amazing platter from a thrift store:

We went to town with the table settings, using a cored butternut squash as a vase for some autumnal flowers. The Irishman found the idea on The Kitchn, and it looked great with two little squashes as a natural centerpiece. We left the table rustic, as I love my farmhouse table and didn't want to cover it, but I ordered those brass leaf candle holders on Ebay from a seller in the US to get some authentic harvest vibe going.

My friend helpfully made personalised name cards from a magazine, so each person got a different texture. It turned out really special and actually really appropriate for each person – they were a big hit.
 

I ventured out of my comfort zone to make my first pumpkin pie; it was a true collaboration as The Irishman made the shortcrust pastry and neither of us had actually ever made a pie before. So the crust isn't that great but overall it was very tasty.

Of course we had a bird – a 5.685kg turkey that took nearly 5 hours to roast. But it was worth every overpriced penny as the butchers had prepared it perfectly for us and it yielded one of the tastiest gravies I've ever had.

Our menu was pretty standard overall, with standard American recipes from my favorite cooking links:
Turkey
Chestnut stuffing
Mashed potatoes
Brussel sprouts and pancetta
Sweet potato biscuits (full disclosure: I am embarrassed to say I enjoyed a Paula Deen recipe)
Cranberry sauce

My American guests contributed acorn squash and pumpkin barley salad, which rounded out the meal and made it a really lovely potluck affair.

I'm doing another Thanksgiving meal next weekend for Brits, so I think I might change up the stuffing and the cranberry sauce. The New York Times is doing this brilliant Thanksgiving Help Line feature that's inspired me to try a few new things.

Tell me, expats: where will you celebrate Thanksgiving? What will you serve? Can you get turkeys easily? And Americans: what are your favorite recipes and traditions?

A week on the southern coast of Ireland

It would be my luck that in the midst of all of the moving stress, I've come down with a cold/terrible allergies; I can't tell which it is, but I'm feeling preeeeettyy crap. So I thought it might be soothing to revisit my week's holiday in County Cork with The Irishman and his family. Even though it's only been two weeks, it feels like a year ago already!

I've blogged before about my visits to a tiny corner of the Irish coast called Oysterhaven where The Irishman's family has been going every summer for over 20 years. It's one of the most idyllic, relaxing and wonderful places in the world. I never have mobile reception or Wifi so I truly shut down, and relish indulging in reading, chasing the sun, outdoor pursuits like walking and running, and having nice big meals with plenty of good wine. Really, what's not to enjoy?

But I also make The Irishman take me out for drives to see touristy things; this year we went to Blarney Castle and I kissed the famous Blarney Stone. 

 

 We also strolled the streets of Clonakilty, a postcard-perfect village west of Cork.

And of course, spent time on the golf course. Well, The Irishman and his family did – I don't golf, and have no interest in learning, so I just hung out in the sun on the porch of the clubhouse enjoying the view.

I also requested some time on a beach; Ireland has tons of beaches, being an island of course, however most of them lead into freezing cold Atlantic seas. So my beach day consisted of a walk to collect shells and feel the sun on my back. It was a good way to walk off the pizza lunch we had at Ballymaloe Cookery School – if you ever go to southern Ireland, make sure you stop in there as it is such a treat!

  

The nearest town to where we stay is Kinsale, and I always make The Irishman take in for a wander. It doesn't matter how many times I've strolled the streets, I still get excited looking at the colorful homes and flowers. It's such a cute little place!

Usually we start our trek back to London on a Sunday evening, but this year we took Monday off as well and headed into Cork City before going to the airport to visit The English Market. It's one of the biggest and oldest indoor markets in Europe and it's FABULOUS. We wandered around for at least an hour and helped The Irishman's mom pick up some food for the week before having lunch upstairs in the restaurant. All of the food served there is from the market (obviously) and locally grown/sourced. Such an amazing treat to cap off our lovely, wonderful week.

Please let me know if you go to Ireland; I love hearing other people's stories about their adventures there, and getting new tips and suggestions of places to visit!

Pizza on a roof

Friday night, The Irishman and I drowned our house sorrows in pizza and wine at one of London's newest pop-ups, Forza Win. I think I've mentioned before that The Irishman's two favorite things in life are pizza and ice cream, so when he heard about Forza Win he jumped right in and got us two seats. It's a good thing as tickets are sold out now.

 The concept is pretty simple: pizza on a rooftop in Shoreditch, straight out of a homemade brick oven.

Unfortunately, due to the recent weather, we didn't get to eat on the roof; instead we had tables set up in an alternate inside space inside the building. But no matter – it was still pizza!

The weather held off long enough for us to have our cocktails on the roof though, so we got to admire the view of the East London skyline, mingle and meet the other guests, and ask questions about the pizza oven. I was gutted that it was so wet I couldn't sit in the bumper car. It was literally filled with water.

Tickets to the event obviously include the pizza, but also a welcome cocktail – an Aperol spritz. This drink happens to be my favorite cocktail of the moment, perfect for a hot summers day (or a cloudy cold summers day if you want to fake it). 

As the sun started to set and the temperatures started to cool down, we headed inside for the main event: pizza. As it's a pop up supper club, you sit at communal tables and share the pizzas. We sat with a few couples and a group, and had a few vegetarians which meant more meat pizza for us! One of the main meat ingredients was a chorizo-type sausage called andouille (I think) – hot and spicy and amazing.

As the meal went on, though, the conversation started to turn slightly odd. One of the women sitting across from me started to heavily criticize America and Americans to the couple sitting beside her. Now. I am not a thin-skinned person, nor am I particularly gung-ho on the USA. As an American who lives abroad, I frequently criticize my homeland myself, find typical American habits to be grating and often apologize to my foreign colleagues for the blithely offensive actions of our New York office. But listening to someone else, a stranger, sound off about Americans right infront of me – definitely within earshot – got my hackles up bigtime.

When she finally addressed me and The Irishman, she made a few pointed remarks about the USA and proclaimed me to be acceptable when I told her where in the States I was from. I disengaged from the conversation pretty quickly at that point, and it sort of soured the rest of the evening for me.

Which is a shame, because we were also treated to a set from a band called Shields from Newcastle. They were set to open for Bruce Springsteen at Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park later in the weekend, and were really fantastic. As we were actually in the offices of a film production company, naturally the band's performance was being shot for a video.

I have to say that I've never really been that annoyed by someone America bashing, but something about the setting of this interaction saddened me. Maybe because pizza is such an American food, despite being cooked Neopolitan-style at Forza Win; I mean, we wouldn't be having pizza pop up restaurants if Americans hadn't normalized the idea of eating pizza. Maybe because I'm so quick to defend my decision to live abroad while being jealous of the 100°F heatwave hitting the East Coast yet hating the fact that I'm wearing the same outfit I wore in February only it's July. Maybe it's because the longer I live away, the more I realize that nationalistic segregations and stereotypes are barriers to truly understanding people. And maybe, finally, it's because hearing some lady punter verbalize opinions that are so close to my own actually reinforced for me the reality that the US has a lot of work to do to repair its image in the world; the work is far from over on that regard, and as much we Americans still want to believe we are somehow more evolved than other nationalities, it's simply just not true.

And actually, I have to say that one of her comments was very very apt: she was astounded that the US was exporting so many bright, articulate, and interesting people... and she wondered why the US wasn't doing enough to keep them. Which is a pretty fascinating comment – I mean, why isn't America doing more to keep its brainpower within its borders? I don't particularly want to move back, nor do many of my expat friends. So maybe the truth of it is that her comments hit far too close to home.

At any rate, if you can get there, check out Forza Win: the pizzas are great, the spritzes are authentic, the bands are fantastic, and the conversation is nothing less than stimulating.

Retroactive recap of Taste of London

I'm sitting here watching the rain out our window while The Irishman contendedly flicks back and forth between the British Grand Prix and the Wimbledon's men final, and I realized I never blogged about Taste of London. Since the crap weather is very similar to that which we enjoyed the night we went, I figured I'd use the opportunity to give you a retroactive recap.

We went to Taste of London for our 4-year anniversary, figuring it would be a great treat and fun food-related outing that we wouldn't necessarily have done without a special occasion to warrant it. Held in Regents Park, it bills itself as the world's greatest food fair.

In some ways, yes, it was a spectacular event of food, wine, beer and liquor, with some of the biggest chefs cooking highlights from their restaurants' menus. We went to around 10 different stands to try dishes from the likes Gordon Ramsay, Theo Randall, Michel Roux and Jamie Oliver. Our standout favorite dish was braised slow-cooked ox cheek from the Hinds Head Pub in Bray, owned by Heston Blumenthal.

Our worst dish/waste of time and money went to the crispy salt and pepper squid from Maze – I've had better versions of this Asian classic at the BYOB Vietnamese restaurants on Kingsland Road, and for a fraction of the price.

Runner up favorite went to the scallop served in tomato and caper sauce with lentils from Theo Randall at the Intercontinental, whose restaurant I wish to visit immediately. Their booth was awesome, frantic pace and amazing atmosphere; I mean look at these people trying to get the food out to the roaring crowds!

In terms of drinks, one of my favorites, Chapel Down Winery, had a booth serving all of their wines and oysters (yum!). There were also brewery stands, Grey Goose Vodka, and a few other bars and labels. We tried some French and Italian wines from two independent distributors, and also stopped by the Savoy Hotel stand. They had recreated their Art Deco style bar in their tent, and were serving specially themed cocktails for the occasion. One of their bartenders was wearing a customized dinner jacket that said "Drink My Encantador" and of course I had to ask; he is a finalist in Bacardi's Legacy Cocktail competition with his drink the Encantador. That's the cocktail I had, and I can vouch for its deliciousness.

Our final drink was a cucumber and rose petal granitas with Hendricks gin from Bocca di Lupo. Refreshing and fragrant. PS I also had pasta from Bocca di Lupo and it was out of this world.

But Taste of London wasn't all fun and delicious games. We went because we got half-price tickets on Groupon; full price would have set you back over £25 per person, and that doesn't include food. To eat, you have to purchase "crowns", the Taste of London currency. Two crowns equals £1, so you have to do some math every time you walk up to a booth and a dish is 4 crowns, 9 crowns, etc. Halfway through your night, you realize that you've spent all of your crowns, are still hungry, and want another glass of wine – and that's where the trouble starts. 

You buy the crowns in larger amounts (ie, 20 crowns for £10) and then go off on your merry eating way. But very quietly bars stop serving at 8:45, and you only really find that out when you're done with your food. So then you start running around trying to use up your crowns, but you've eaten too much and don't want any more food. But the crowns aren't good anywhere else so you don't want to waste any more money than you've already spent. In our case, we used the rest of our crowns (4 leftovers) to buy a Lindt chocolate bar.

And the layout of the fair leaves much to be desired. There are a few concentric rings of tents but it's really confusing; we had to use our map the whole night to figure out our route to and from specific food destinations. Which is fine, except that the map isn't very helpful. At all. 

Of course, the weather had a lot to do with it. We went on a cold damp Friday (well, which one this summer hasn't been like that?) and needed wellies because of the mud. Walkways were put down so you don't completely sink in mud, but because of the conditions there wasn't really anywhere to relax. Had the sun been out and it been dry, you could have plopped down on the grass and really enjoyed the evening. Instead, you scurried from booth to booth for food and huddled against the wind. I can't even remember how many times my glass of wine nearly flew through the air when I accidentally left it on a table for a minute.

So final verdict: a great experience, a great activity, but poorly executed and very expensive. We've always wanted to go, and are glad we did, but I don't think we'd rush back. To be honest, the best part about the event is that we now have a list of 5 restaurants we really want to try this year and they aren't the 5 we thought we'd love. I'd say that's the best part of Taste of London – trying a little bit of the best food in the city, and making a list of where to eat next.

Sunny summers day

Yesterday was an amazingly gorgeous day, sunny, bright and warm. So I went out for lunch (a big deal since our canteen is so good), and met The Irishman for a banh mi at Eat Street. Here are a few snaps I took on my walk there along the canal.

Learning About Bees

Last week, I tweeted about how was so excited to join my company's social enterprise centered around urban beekeeping. It's been going on for a while, with limited membership, and I finally got a chance to become a member. So last Wednesday, I finally got to don a beekeeping suit and learn about bees, beekeeping, and etc, at Beekeeping 101.

The first half of the session was devoted to learning about bees, how they make honey, their lifecycle, the hive, basically all of the basics. Then we got hands on: trying on the suits as well as harvesting some honey that was removed from the hive that morning. It doesn't get any fresher.

Above, I am peeling the wax seal off of the honeycomb: once the honey has been sealed in, you know it's ready to eat – if there isn't a seal, the honey-making process isn't complete.

Here, I'm tasting some honey that dripped onto my fingers. YUM. Because the honey is hyper-local, the flavor comes from flowers in the area that are in bloom. If you take honey from our hives next month, it will have a completely different color, flavor, and texture based on which plants are in bloom then – I love the changeability and the not-one-capture-is-the-same quality of honey as a food product. Honey bees will go up to 3 miles to find pollen, so if you have allergies you should get honey made from around where you live as it will contain the allergens that affect you and you can build up immunity.



Once the wax seals are released, you put the honeycomb trays into this modified bucket with a spinner (like a massive salad spinner) and you turn the handle to force the honey out of the wax comb. The bucket has a spigot on the bottom so you can access the honey in a controlled fashion.

Next steps were to filter the honey (get bits of wax and etc out) and then it's ready to eat! We all took little 50ml jars of honey home to enjoy – The Irishman used mine to make goats cheese and honey ice cream which was absolutely amazing.

After Wednesday's lesson, I am a big fan of bees in general and honey bees specifically. We all know they are in danger so I'm going to try even harder to promote happy and healthy bees however I can. The Irishman has agreed that when we finally buy a house, we can have bee-friendly plants in our garden which is a win-win: bee friendly plants = better pollination = better produce = happy Danielle and happy bees.