An American Thanksgiving in Korea

I’ve never been away from home during the holidays before. That makes me one of the luckiest people on the planet, but it also made this first separation kind of difficult for me. It’s been a week full of mopey-ness (that’s definitely a word).

So the other American teachers and I decided to do our own Thanksgiving dinner. What like it’s hard?

Yes, yes it is.

We didn’t have the foresight to order a turkey, so we decided to make two chickens instead. Except that none of us had ever roasted a chicken on our own before. There were a lot of questions like- “wait what is that piece?”s and “do you think I can put that there?”s and a lot of -“fuck if I know”s

“it’s like holding a small child…kinda…”

Even though we had no idea what we were doing, everything turned out remarkably well.

I hadn’t realized how much Thanksgiving relies on functional ovens.  Most Korean food is cooked on a stove, so ovens are not necessarily standard, and neither is bakeware.  We used whatever we could find in the school kitchen, a somewhat random assortment of baking odds and ends.

My apple pie- I’m domestic AF

My apple pie was my pride and joy, because I made the entire thing by hand. I couldn’t find any pre-made crusts so even the crust was handmade.  And I’m not going to lie- it was pretty damn good.

I also made stuffing-

One of the American teachers brought the traditional nacho cheese-

just like my grandma used to make

And even though I’m a long way from home, cooking and drinking all afternoon brought me back a little bit. It was incredibly comforting.

note the left hand corner

The wine probably had something to do with that.

3 girls, 4 hours, 3 bottles

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