Did We Mention There'd Be Monkeys?: An Indian Thanksgiving

We didn't have any Pilgrims to celebrate Thanksgiving with, but we had plenty of Indians. Since Thanksgiving obviously isn't celebrated in India, we had to postpone our Thanksgiving dinner until the next night when we didn't have any College commitments. I collaborated with my fellow Americans, Jeff and Tera, to host a Thanksgiving dinner for our friends at my place. We even managed to scrap together most of what you'd need for a traditional Thanksgiving...turkeys (fresh from the market), stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams, and even green bean casserole. We had to cook up three turkeys to have enough food for everyone. Unfortunately, Indian turkeys aren't really designed to feed a big group of people. Think big chickens... Anyway, we roasted two of the turkeys in the oven as back-ups. The main event, though, was a deep fryer that Jeff had a local craftsman build for us to deep fry the biggest of the three turkeys. All of our friends were fascinated by this most American of cooking innovations, deep frying a turkey. All in all, we had a great turnout and it turned into a wonderful cultural experience as we introduced our friends from all over the world to the American tradition of Thanksgiving. Although we couldn't share Thanksgiving with our families this year, we were truly blessed to be able to share the holiday with the great people we've become close with during our first six months in India.