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 However, having to explain the slightly outdated tradition to a group of students (and teachers, South Africans, Canadians and Australians) in an understandable way was a little trying.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.

Two years and the best. dinner. ever.

Well, another week or two has passed since our last post and life continues on in the same fashion. New experiences, new frustrations, and getting a little more used to life here day by day. Corin and I celebrated two years of being "official" on November 15th and, since we didn't end up going out of town like we had once planned, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner. We had spotted a place down by the river called Iomante: Restaurant and Community a while back and thought that our anniversary was as good a time as any to try out the posh looking place. During the day on Tuesday we had judged an English speech contest (two of my students won!) so were already dressed nicely for dinner. We arrived, parked and realized that we were 30 minutes too early for the restaurant to be open. So, we bundled up and wondered around downtown Kushiro to kill the time. We went into a few random shops and then, on our way back to the restaurant, stumbled into a little jewelry place by the name of Phantom Suction [the Japanese have an amazing ability to take two perfectly normal English words and combine them into some fairly ridiculous proper nouns.] Anyway, the shop was full of little creations made by the owner. Corin had been putting off getting me a gift since I really didn't want anything, but once he spotted a ring with ornate delicate curves, we knew that my anniversary present had been found! We delighted the shop owner by purchasing it then and there, while he marveled at last year's anniversary present, my teaspoon ring. We're hoping the next time we visit he'll have tried his hand at that style. The ring is a perfect way to remember how our second year together was spent on the northern most island of Japan. 

Pretty things.

On to dinner. We arrived at the restaurant a few minutes after six and were immediately seated, as we were the only customers (and remained so for the rest of our meal). The waiter took our coats and offered us the drink menu. We decided initially on water and then Corin deciphered enough to discover Shirley Temples were also offered. Two, please! We toasted to two wonderful years of laughter and adventures and settled in to figure out what to have for dinner. The menu had three options, each of increasing price. We went for Menu A, the 3800Y option, as B & C, the 5000Y and 8000Y menus, seemed a little too steep for two kids fresh out of college. Menu A came with bread, an appetizer, a main, and dessert. The mains could either be fish, meat, or poultry. Corin went with the locally raised Shibecha beef, while I selected a chicken dish. It should be noted that the restaurant was primarily French themed, so I was gearing up for a post dinner stomach ache by what I knew would be a lot of dairy. Although my stomach is just now starting to settle itself--four days later--it was well worth it. Luckily, we were able to explain to the waiter my allergy to wheat, "komugiko no arerugī," and they were incredibly accommodating. So, on to the courses (note: some of these are guesses as they spoke very little English and many of the foods were unfamiliar to us).

The first course was a thick slice of chicken pate, topped with local vegetables (cucumber and lettuce), prosciutto  and a skewer of green olive, the plate dotted with aoli and a dollop of grainy mustard. It was delicious, although Corin and I both could have gone with the grisly parts of the pate. At this point, the chef came out to talk to the foreigners. He knew about the same amount of English as the waiter but was very friendly and asked if we were celebrating something. We replied that it was our non-marriage anniversary. After congratulating us, he went back to the kitchen and promptly returned with the tastiest french onion soup to "congratulate our memorial." An interesting translation but we'll take it! Our mains arrived and I inhaled the cream drenched chicken. 

So much yumminess, so much tummy ache.

It was carefully perched atop a purple potato slice and two carrot slivers. Everything was incredible. The chicken fell apart, the potatoes had the texture of La Renaissance's new potatoes, and the sauce, oh the sauce, was to die for. Cream, fresh shaved parmesan and probably lots of butter (I told you I was willing to deal with the consequences). Corin was a little jealous, even though his steak was delicious as well...just lacking the sauce factor. After the main, our first dessert came out. A small glass jar filled with shoyu spiked milk custard. I chose to avoid the double stomach ache and didn't eat this course.  Corin told the waiter I wasn't really supposed to have milk, as well as wheat. Without a worry, the chef altered my second dessert to be a heart shaped macaron filled with chocolate ganache, alongside fresh grapes and sliced persimmon, with candy spirals and strawberry sauce.

Nom!

 A good thing since the original dessert, which Corin got, was cream cheese atop ice cream, swimming in a fresh pour of espresso. I am a huge huge huge fan of macarons so I was in heaven. When our third dessert came out, we were nearly stuffed but made room for green tea caramels, chocolate short bread (Corin), local artichoke bread (Corin) and anther macaron for me. Although the meal was definitely pricey, it was so worth the cost. We thanked the chef profusely and sincerely told him he had the best food in Kushiro. Fantastic food and celebrating two wonderful years together are indeed a perfect pair. 

Token anniversary shot.

This post is mighty lengthy so I'll end it there. More to come!