October: Halloween
The Iona costume party was on Thursday, but I didn't go because my Thursdays were busy from 8am 'til 7pm, not including fixing and eating dinner, and I just wasn't feeling up for going out. But the next night Kirstin hosted a traditional American Halloween in her apartment in Leeside. There were just a few of us there to start, so we turned off the lights and told scary stories. Not too scary, though! Nevertheless, when Laura came into the apartment, Emma let out a little scream, which we all instinctively echoed. The best part: everyone's initial thought on hearing the door was, oh, that'll be Laura, probably.
Having been sufficiently put into the mood, we switched to charades and such games and as more people turned up, we did a little apple-bobbing and at last broke out the kitchen knives to carve up some pumpkins. Candy and hard cider (you can't get actual apple cider) were consumed, fun was had, and beautiful jack-o-lanterns came to life. We also tried to watch 'The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'. We got through most of it, but it kept stopping to buffer, so as it was getting late we gave up.
November: Thanksgiving
Things to give thanks for:
- We have running water most of the time and the electricity/heat is on.
- We have safe, dry apartments.
- We are off classes.
- We could find all the ingredients we needed.
- Convection ovens cook things faster.
- Iona gave us a generous budget to plan/make Thanksgiving for them.
- We have amazing friends here and families back home that supported us coming here.
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Anna was involved with the planning meetings for Iona and so she volunteered to plan the November culture night which is traditionally given to the Americans to share the celebration of their own holiday with the Irish and the international crowd that comprises Iona society. We were given a pretty generous budget with which to buy food, drink, and any other supplies - such as paper and markers for a game of Pin the Gobble on the Turkey and a Happy Thanksgiving poster. The dinner was to be held on Wednesday evening since Thursday was the Charity Ball, so we spent the day shopping and cooking. Most of the work happened in Kirsten's kitchen - she was the one we most looked to in all matters culinary. As things needed to be cooked, they were taken to other ovens while Stanley the turkey roasted in Kirsten's oven. (Don't ask me how it got named, I wasn't there for that!) Irish ovens are convection, so things cook faster. This is quite handy when you have a whole fresh turkey to cook, not so much when baking. Corn and green beans were cooked on my stove and apple pies in my oven. While things cooked, we used my kitchen table to spread out the paper to trace and cut out gobbles for pinning.
At long last, everything was ready, including Stanely - roasted to absolute perfection. Danny was kind enough to drive down and we loaded up his car with stuffing, pies, squash, corn, cranberry, mashed potatoes, candied yams, rolls, and the turkey. Kirsten rode with him, holding onto one of the more precarious dishes. The rest of us set off on the walk to Iona. Kirsten struggled with carving the turkey, but by the time he living room area was filled with people, she had it under control. We said a prayer and served up the food. Everyone had plenty to eat and almost everything was devoured - even the turkey was picked clean. We had an entertaining game of Pin the Gobble on the Turkey. Lukasz won... something. I believe it was Christmas-related. But everyone won because they got some good, old-fashioned apple pie! We sang 'I've been Workin' on the Railroad' and another good American song that is currently slipping my mind to finish off the evening.
~~~
The next day, we did it all over again. More or less. I went to the English Market to get supplies for my own contributions: cranberry chutney and pumpkin bread, and to get some turkey for our dinner. Now the whole, fresh turkey cost 50 euro (there went a fourth of the Iona budget), but we didn't really have that kind of money to spend on ourselves. So I got four turkey legs. They were HUGE, all dark meat (my favorite), and they only cost 16 euro! There were even leftovers. Everyone had been telling me they couldn't get pumpkin anywhere, but as soon as I walked into the fruit and vegetable stand, I saw a whole shelf of them. I guess they meant canned, but let's be honest - cooking a pumpkin isn't really that hard, and it's worth it to be able to have fresh pumpkin in one's bread and pies. Kirsten got the turkey again and she made some more of her cranberry stuff, but since this Thanksgiving was potluck, everything else came from various kitchens in Leeside.
The endeavour of setting up a proper Thanksgiving table is a wonderful tale. Everyone was slowly bringing their food and a few people (myself included) lugged chairs up and down stairs and across the car park to Kirsten's top floor apartment. We needed another table, so Keavy - just downstairs, volunteered hers. Everything but the turkey was ready and we arranged the coffee table as a buffet with all the dishes as we waited for the arrival of the table. Unfortunately, this was delayed. They managed to get the table into the elevator with Joanne and Chris, the doors closed... and it didn't go up. And it wouldn't open up. It took a couple of phone calls and about half an hour before the table (and Joanne and Chris) were got free. And then they still had to carry it up a flight of stairs.
Finally, all was ready... except for the turkey legs. But we ate anyway and added turkey when it was done, about halfway through the meal. There were ten of us Americans around the table - a true family meal, with Amanda acting the part of the crazy old grandfather and trying to drink the rest of the bottle of wine after the meal. We tidied up some, but the Charity Ball was going on and some of us had tickets to the Afters, so we did our best, but we had to leave a lot to Anna and Kirsten to clean up so we could get ready and find a taxi to get to the hotel... but that, again, is a story for another post.
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December is Christmas and we had a lovely little Secret Santa exchange among us Americans, but I will save that for another post as well since most of my Christmastime in Ireland was actually quite Irish! Aren't you excited for all these stories yet to come?
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