Turkey Day

There is no holiday more American and more universally celebrated than Thanksgiving. It is also a term synonymous with the idea of a big family meal. With that in mind, it is therefore no surprise that there was much talk amongst the American participants of my group in the weeks leading up to this great holiday as to how best to celebrate this day. While many of the Year Coursers in my section opted for a communal meal to be held at the building we take classes in, my apartment decided that this was an occassion for family so we planned a relatively small Thanksgiving for our "family" here in Israel. Me and three of my roommates (Tal, Melanie and Ilana) along with our friend Diana prepared an entire Thanksgiving meal for ourselves. Each of us tackled one or two dishes and there was nonstop cooking in our kitchen the 3 days prior to Thanksgiving.

The end result: turrkey and stuffing (courtesy of Ilana Beller), cornbread and string beans (prepared by Tal Shtulsaft), sweetpotatoes (made by Melanie Rice), roast potatoes (from Diana Blatt) and pumpking pie and cranberry sauce (done by yours truly). Suffice to say we were extraordinarily proud of ourselves.

Not only did we cook a fantastic meal, but we did a spontaneous yet vigorous cleaning of the apartment, dressed in nicer clothing, and Mel and Ilana even made turkey hands as place cards.

To round out a pretty spectacular evening, we all ended up falling asleep on the couch after the meal watching Friends Thanksgiving episodes.