Nearly There

The turkey dilemma seems to have been solved - mostly. We have an Irish friend with an oven and a 17 lb. bird we named Tallulah (bought frozen, currently thawing at said friend's house). Now comes the most difficult part - cooking the turkey. No one here has done it. Somehow, I am the one signed up... But it's a challenge I can meet. I hope.

It is so strange to go to the grocery store and not have the things you need available in one neat and tidy "Thanksgiving" section. Instead, it's been a mad dash around TWO separate supermarkets, looking for cranberries, yams, turkey, a meat thermometer, kitchen string... In fact, cranberries were the most difficult to find. I had seen them fresh at Morrison's last week, but yesterday they were gone. And no one seemed to know when they were scheduled to get more. At Sainsbury's, good luck! They didn't even have fresh cranberries yet, citing that it wasn't yet "that season."

Finally, in a moment of desperation, someone suggested we look in the frozen aisle. And voila! They had frozen cranberries - a new item for that parcticular store, even, and just in time for the Americans to reminisce about the holiday back home. It made cooking them a little different, but not by much. In fact, the kitchen still smells like absolute November heaven - oranges, cranberries, and cinnamon just wafting around and teasing our noses.

I'm excited for tomorrow (we're having Thanksgiving a day early for scheduling reasons), but nervous about the turkey... Wish me luck!