Thanksgiving in a land devoid of "pilgrims."

Thanksgiving. A given holiday in American society. However, having to explain the slightly outdated tradition to a group of students (and teachers, South Africans, Canadians and Australians) in an understandable way was a little trying. Putting it into simple English, while trying to stay politically correct was no easy task, and slightly diminished the joy of the holiday just a bit. Nonetheless, Corin and I both conquered the feat and had, thanks to the Japanese Labor Holiday, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off of work. Our friend Kari offered her house in Shibecha for festivities and Corey and Tom from Akkeshi agreed to drive up for the feast.

A month or so before, Corin had spotted a 2kg French baby turkey (sorry, had to!), small enough for the smallest oven, on the Meat Guy. We decided to splurge and buy the little sucker, along with other essentials (brussel sprouts, hot wing sauce, cayenne pepper and canned jalapenos). We arranged for the frozen turkey and other goods to arrive on the 19th, allowing plenty of time for thawing. This worked out well, although I did spaz a bit worrying that my non-refrigeration thawing method was going to kill those partaking. My stress-inducing method: in order to brine the turkey, and not fill our entire fridge in raw turkey goodness, I placed the little tike in a nice blue bucket filled with cold sugared and salted water. I then placed the whole thing in the "guest" room. We keep the door to that room closed at all times and I believe it stays around 14C pretty consistently. This was a good temperature for defrosting a turkey that would be used within 24 hours, but not so great for keeping a turkey at safe temperatures for a full 48 hours before cooking. Why start defrosting a 2 kg bird so soon? Let's just say I got a little anxious on the preparation front.

On Tuesday, after reading numerous accounts of the worst ways in which to thaw a turkey (read: the best ways to give your guests food poisoning), I was freaking out about my method. I was convinced that I would give everyone the worst Thanksgiving gift of all, food poisoning. I needed a professional opinion and, thanks to the wonders of Skype, I was able to call the non-refrigeration expert, Marina. She keeps and prepares food on her farm without a conventional method of refrigeration. Instead, her and Robert use a recycled fridge, ingeniously rigged with piping that runs ice cold spring water constantly throughout the walls of the ice box (they also have a large cellar). She told me to replace the brine water with clean water to make sure the bird wasn't becoming too salty, find a spot a bit colder (hello, 12C genkan) and to quit. freaking. out. As Robert agreed in the background, the water would smell off if any bad bacteria was multiplying within our Thanksgiving dinner and to only call the whole thing off if things smelled funky.

Come Wednesday morning, I took deep inhales of the turkey water, making Corin do the same, and we both concluded that nothing seemed amiss. I crossed my fingers, lathered up our baby turkey with olive oil and spices and placed the bird breast side down in the biggest pan we own. Then Corin and I held our breaths and prayed the bird would fit inside our tiny moven. With an inch to spare, the bird was ready to go. We set the timer and hoped for the best. I flipped the bird over about halfway through the cooking process, but wish I hadn't.

Sooooo, he's little ugly.

Unfortunately, our moven cooks incredibly unevenly and usually chars the top of most baked goods. With the bird being on the tall side, the end result was a little bit burned, a little bit dry, but a completely done, roast turkey. We were already late, so we loaded up the rest of the fixings--KFC (for Tom, mostly), pear and candied walnut salad, drippings for gravy, my favorite gf cornbread stuffing and pumpkin brownies--and tottled our way off to Kari's house. (Our car, affectionately named "Pip,"  does not zoom.)  We arrived and reheated most of our wares, along with helping get everything set for dinner.

Attempting to "un-can" the cranberry sauce. 

"Carving" the turkey...or shredding, whatever.

Tom provided some southern style mashed potatoes with more butter than he can remember putting in lots of butter and corn with bacon and more butter. 

He's from the south, look at that beard. Oh and the shirt, too.
And the copious amounts of butter.

Corey and Haruka brought drinks and empty stomachs, while Kari provided green beans, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce, along with beautiful table settings and Thanksgiving decorations.

So pretty!

We gathered around the table, said grace and dug in.

"Extended" family Thanksgiving dinner.

After dinner, we watched 007: Quantum of Solace per previously agreed upon tradition. It was a different sort of Thanksgiving but being surrounded by good food and good friends made the spirit of the holiday feel alive and well on this Japanese island. And no one died of salmonella. Double win.