Grateful

This is what happens when a procrastinator does things like Sunday Scribblings. At least this is only three days late, unlike my three month late electricity bill. They finally sent me a bill - one detailing the three months that I just paid. Curious.

Anyway, I was busy on Sunday with friends - brunch, Hello Kitty with Martha, fondue for dinner, and then the usual quiz. My friends are absolutely one of the things I am most grateful for. My family is also at the top of that list, and I've been getting some hilarious emails from my youngest brother recently - apparently I am an "old chap". He's looking into a female version of chap he tells me. I notice that he didn't consider the old part something in need of change. Hrumph.

In addition to friends and family though, I have another thing that this week is high up on the list of gratitude and that thing, my friends, is a turkey dinner. With all the trimmings. As an expat, I am also grateful that I have come to celebrate American Thanksgiving. Here in Korea it is both hard to get turkeys and hard to cook them - ovens are not at all standard kitchen appliances here and, mysteriously, Koreans haven't gotten into turkey. This baffles me even more than the all-pervading love of kimchi. And the overuse of the construction let's.

What I say is, "Let's eat turkey!"

Around Canadian Thanksgiving the best one can hope to do is make the trimmings and have a roasted chicken, which can be easily procured from trucks on the street. They are indeed yummy. In fact, I eat myself a roast chicken for no special occasion at all, and quite regularly. Sometimes I can't even be arsed making anything resembling trimmings and just have the bird all on its own.

However, thanks to the American Army presence in Korea, for American Thanksgiving we can order a bird, some pumpkin pie and many other delicious foods off of the base. Assa! I've been invited to several Thanksgiving celebrations and intend to show up at two. I will wear my most comfortable pants, obviously.

Since I love Thanksgiving, I am also grateful to my expat life for starting me on the road to what will one day be a fabulous tradition - one of these days, after all, I will likely move back to Canada. When that day comes, I will not stop celebrating American Thanksgiving. Why would I? Who doesn't want one more turkey dinner? It makes total sense to me - October, November, December. Awesome!

Perhaps I'd better learn to start cooking it all. So far, I've never been required to do more than participate in a pie plate hunt (Thanksgiving in Scotland, where apparently people only cook tortes at home) and make some mashed potatoes for potlucks, when I am as likely to bleed into the potatoes as not.

My mouth is salivating just thinking about Saturday. And then brunch at Suji's on Sunday.

I am grateful for turkey, brunch, and all the lovely people who have shared, now share, and will share these meals with me. Love and food are two things that go together beautifully.