Two weeks ago, I wrote about how my 18-year-old daughter was planning to cook Thanksgiving dinner for her host family in Belgium. That in itself was pretty funny, but so many of you have commented on it that I feel I owe it to you to finish the story.
She took my advice and began to cook a bunch of the stuff ahead of time. She called me on the day she was making the dressing.
“So, where do I get crumbled cornbread?” she asked.
“You make cornbread, then crumble it,” I answered, trying not to laugh.
There was silence on the other end.
“So, how do you make cornbread?” she finally replied.
“Well, first you’ll need to buy some cornmeal. I can tell you how to make it from there,” I offered.
Silence again.
“So, where would I find cornmeal?” she wondered.
“Try looking at the grocery store next to the flour.” I answered.
“Okay. I’ll try to find it,” she resolved. Then she added, “Hey, we ordered a turkey! There’s this man who has live ones and he goes out and kills one for you when you order one.”
I worried that she would have to deal with defeathering it or even chopping off his legs. That happened to me once when I lived in France. I didn’t want to scare her, though.
“How big is it, honey?” I asked instead.
Over there everything is measured in kilos and grams, so she did some mental calculations and replied proudly, “About 6 or 7 pounds.”
This time I was the silent one. Then I mustered, “So, how many people are coming to dinner?”
“Twelve,” she said.
“I think you need two more turkeys.”
Well, it turns out that this one turkey was costing about $25.00, so she said everyone would have to just make do filling up with the other stuff she was cooking.
“What is a yam?” was her next question. “Nobody here knows what I’m talking about, so I need to know the translation if you can find it, and also, what does a fresh yam look like?” In her lifetime she had only seen canned yams. I was mildly embarrassed.
There were many more questions, and once again I was filled with dread that the dinner would be a disaster.
I needn’t have worried. I received an e-mail from her the day after Thanksgiving. The turkey (which came de-feathered and de-footed) was cooked perfectly. It was small, but everyone was impressed anyway, and did what she had predicted … filled up on all the other goodies.
She made a green bean casserole with shoe-string potatoes on top since Durkee’s onions aren’t exactly a staple over there. She couldn’t ever find the cornmeal, so she substituted a sweet bread she found at a bakery. It was absolutely delicious, she said. She found yams, and they were so good, the guests were all surprised they had never had them before.
She had to improvise on almost everything she cooked, and it all turned out great. “And I didn’t burn a single thing!” she boasted.
What a great success story. I am so proud of her!
