An American Holiday in a Third World Country

Thanksgiving. A totally American holiday. It is one of my favorite holidays. It is a time to for family, friends, food and football.

Karen and I decided we wanted to fix an American Thanksgiving for the kids, our staff, and, of course, ourselves. We planned a menu as close to traditional as possible. Friday, when I went to the fruit market, I bought extra potatoes, celery, onions, and bananas. The saddest, smallest celery I have ever seen. Saturday I went back to town to do the rest of the grocery shopping. Even though a lot of Americans live in Tegucigalpa and, because of that, a lot of American items are imported, this is Honduras. In my mind, I prepared to make some substitutions or possibly drop something from our menu.

Since I have no Wal-Mart, I headed to PriceSmart first, vowing to not go back to town on Saturday until after Christmas. I was fairly successful finding the items I needed. I was just a little over confident, making my next stop La Colonia which was on the way home to Santa Ana. That was pretty much a bust and I then had to back track.

After finding most of what I needed, or suitable substitutions, I stopped a couple more places looking for Durkee's french fried onions for green bean casserole. I stopped at all the places that have American food and still could not find the Durkee's. I was so tired. I finally grabbed two bags of Funyums. I like to cook and am a pretty good cook. However, I am not a creative cook. I follow recipes exactly and do not make substitutions. Substituting Funyums for Durkee's french fried onions is way out of my comfort zone. Believe it or not, it wasn't half bad. Not as good as Durkee's, but not too bad either.

I came home needing just a few fresh items which I thought I would buy Tuesday or Wednesday.

I started cooking yesterday. Started cooking in my little kitchen with no counter space. None.
I set up a table so I would have work space. I was doing all kinds of things, but when I finally got ready to cook that first time, I found my propane tank was completely empty. I sort of acted like a helpless female and gave Milton some money and my car keys and asked him to go get the propane for me. I go get propane all time. That was the first of many challenges. I definitely felt the welcome to Honduras thing. A couple of things with which I am use to having are knowing the temperature of my stove and having one of those little buzzers to tell me when to take something out of the oven. Also, the electricity was flashing on and off, on and off. Not that you need electricity to cook with propane, but eyes my age need the lights on to read the recipes.

I just kept plugging along and getting more frustrated by the minute. After I finished all my bread, I happened to think about all the places I have lived and realized I had never baked at 4000 feet elevation.

I was constantly adjusting the temperature, some things looking not so done and some looking a little too done. I was convinced nothing would be edible.

Marc showed up last night with the last few items I needed and pizza. Yay! I sure didn't want to cook or make any more of a mess in my house. Pizza. Just what I needed. After I ate, I settled down and got many more things accomplished.

This morning, as is my tradition, I started bright and early. Things went much smoother today. Other than peeling the sweet potatoes and discovering they are white in Honduras, things went well. Karen was busy in her kitchen and we had kids running back and forth, hauling stuff from her house to mine and my house to hers.

At one point, I looked around at the food and thought " I may be cooking more food today than Ginger Freeman." No way. I am pretty sure I didn't cook that much.

With things going smoothly, I began to have the kind of fun I usually have cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

As food was finished, Marc and Tracy were running it up to the kitchen in Casa. Someone should have a video camera of all the activity.

With all the food in the kitchen, it was time to eat. Our kids were so excited. But each one had to tell what they were thankful for. We chose to honor our staff and let them go first. They went through the line, filled their plates, ate, and jumped up and went right back to work. That isn't really what we had in mind.

The kids ate and ate. And ate some more. Their little bellies looked like they had eaten watermelons. There was about 40 of us. We had fun. We will be eating off of this food for the rest of the weekend.

And there is not much football here. We may get the game tonight. And we may not. It is what it is.

While my mother and Karen's mother were not here, their presence was felt in a great big way as they provided the funds for us to provide the meal. Thanks to both of you.

Terri