Thanksgiving

🦃Preparing a Thanksgiving meal on an island that doesn't recognize the holiday is like a treasure hunt. Your have to go to store after store to see what they have.  The American expats share their finds and ideas for locating needed supplies to make a Thanksgiving dinner.  This was the first year Rick and I were cooking a Thanksgiving dinner. Here is how it went...

A friend gave me a can of pumpkin that has been in her panty for a year. I found the Cool Whip at a Chinese market in Hato (a community in the north part of the island). Pie crusts were located at an old grocery store in town.  The evaporated milk was found at our regular grocery store.

Pumpkin Pie ✔

There is one store that carried turkey's. It caters to the restaurants on the island.  A scout had told us that the store was going the stock them on the Monday before Thanksgiving.  I showed up Monday afternoon and got the last turkey breast on the shelf.

Turkey ✔

I looked at 10 stores for cranberries.  There were no fresh cranberries on the island.  I ran into the Editor of the newspaper, who was also looking for supplies, and she told me that the expensive speciality store had a big bag of cranberries. 

Our grocery store had cranberries in a jar that looked cooked and mashed. I found dried cranberries everywhere.  I was still looking for fresh. The Editor and I met up at three subsequent stores look for our supplies.

I located a can of cranberry jelly (which is Rick"s favorite) at the oldest store on the island in downtown Kralendijk. It cost $1.00. What a deal! I snatched it up and hurried home.  This was the last specialty item I needed to make the dinner complete. 

Cranberries ✔

I had to go to two stores to get potatoes.  I had to grind my own cloves because they they didn't have clove powder, and I actually found french cut green beans at our grocery. 

This was one of the best Thanksgiving dinners we have had in a long time. It took weeks to gather the supplies, 2 hours to cook it and 10 minutes to eat.  

Thanksgiving Dinner ✔