A Very Happy Thanksgiving

First of all, I do realize that Thanksgiving was last week, and I apologize for writing so belatedly to wish happy food-eating to those who have not yet given up on reading this blog. Also, many apologies for the long hiatus between posts. Somehow I neglected to realize how many things I’ve forgotten to write about, which I will attempt to remedy soon. Anyway, despite being an ocean away from the US, I had a lovely Thanksgiving here in Denmark, which was particularly exciting because I had an American visitor, who came bringing happiness and light and also pumpkin and cranberries.

Michelle with our real made-in-Denmark pumpkin pie:

Also, for good measure, here is a picture of me with our pumpkin pie. Note the adjacent bowl of whipped cream and be sure to compare the relative volumes of the whipped cream and the pumpkin.

We didn’t have a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday (although we did make pumpkin soup, which felt rather celebratory to me), but on Friday, a collection of Americans (and one Norwegian woman who had lived in Texas for seventeen years) living in Vendsyssel-Thy gathered at the guesthouse to have a sort of haphazard potluck Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn’t exactly traditional, but we made mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and apple crisp and other people brought a rather large amount of other foods including a duck. We even talked about American politics, which I guess tends to happen on the few occasions when a group of Americans living abroad gather together. (I can only imagine the discussions here on the 4^th of July when the Americans gather to celebrate at a park in northern Denmark - northern Denmark holds the distinction of being the only place outside of the US to publicly celebrate America’s Independence Day).

We also managed to have a number of adventures outside the kitchen (although the cooking was a lot of fun too). These included spending an afternoon talking with one of the few inshore fishermen who has not left fishing under the new quota system in Denmark and who (mostly unsuccessfully) attempted to introduce us to a very strong Danish schnapps with wormwood (a “medicine”), learning a card trick from a very outgoing and excitable man on a train who introduced himself by comparing our rummy rules rather unfavorably with those he usually uses, and a successful expedition in the local timber production forest to meet some Danish sheep.

We were very excited about the sheep (this, for those of you unaware, because Michelle and I share a grand scheme for life that involves having our own sheep and goat farm).

There were also a number of other adventures, but these deserve posts of their own, so you can look for some more regular updates here coming soon!