Over the years, I’ve been to every type of expat Thanksgiving imaginable. The potluck with other expats. The ‘American’ restaurant. The Italian-restaurant-tries-to-make-turkey. The expat housewife extravaganza. The potluck-with-mostly-Europeans-who-bring-shit-like-cole-slaw. But never did I expect to see the day where I’d spend Thanksgiving at the Hard Rock Cafe.
The venue was chosen because of its promises of 1) Thanksgiving-like food and 2) American football shown live on eleventy-billion screens. Personally I would have rather watched the Macy’s parade. I hear there was a Smurf balloon… But I digress.
I skipped the dinner part (I had an art class, and restaurants tend to have no idea what to do with a vegetarian for Thanksgiving), but the reviews of the meal ranged from “at least the turkey wasn’t dry” to “the cornbread had less texture than the pumpkin pie”. Ah, the pumpkin pie, the one part of the meal I actually did sample. This pumpkin pie was amazing… in all the wrong ways. While it managed to look somewhat like pumpkin pie, at least from the top, it had the texture of rice pudding and the flavor of key lime pie. I don’t believe it contained any pumpkin at all. How gloriously fucked up is that?
How was your Thanksgiving?
Too funny: I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like that. The Hard Rock is also offering feasts in Amsterdam and Koln, but I didn’t make the drive out to find them. The local cafe offered a Thanksgiving Feast for 8 euro, but I’m afraid I didn’t go see what that was about (actually, I was just ‘afraid’…)
So, it was a turkey breast from the Albert Heijn and some green beans whilst calling relatives.
Oh goodness, my thought was “why even bother”….
Very quiet here. Excellent sweet potatoes to off set the saltiness of the country ham and a fabulous-made-from-scratch-including-the-frosting-four-layer-chocolate-cake.
The great thing is there are enough leftovers I won’t need to do much cooking for a couple of days – off to the studio!
Well, I hope at least the beer was good! 😉
Dave – you were right to be afraid. An 8 euro Thanksgiving feast just can’t be good.
Deborah – Mmmmm chocolate cake sounds awesome. Not particularly like Thanksgiving, but awesome nonetheless.
CS – Oh yes. One thing you can always count on in Munich!
Our turkey day was pretty good — Griffy cried just because he is a toddler, and my mom didn’t walk out and drive back to Denver. Since I can’t eat gluten or wheat, I go all out on Thanksgiving, cooking everything myself to ensure I get a feast. My pie crusts rocked, the turkey (I cannot forgo meat, otherwise there will be nothing left for me to eat) came out well, and the wine bottle was polished off. And then we played “Rock Band” — sweet…
No Thanksgiving is complete without a little Rock Band. 🙂