Thanksgiving in Australia!!

Dont get me wrong, Im loving being in Australia, however, there are a few little "American" things that I miss... for one, being able to plug in any appliance without a converter, but also granola bars, our peanut butter, new jersey produce, but most importantly I will be missing Thanksgiving with my family this year, one of my most favorite holidays. So the three Americans decided that we needed to bring Thanksgiving and all its most amazing food and traditions to Australia. We planned for our faux Thanksgiving to fall on the fourth Sunday of November, which happened to be on our day off after we beat a good Melbourne side ( which by the way put us into the playoffs and first place!) As any self respecting Thanksgiving chef would know, careful planning is a must for this chaotic day of cooking, we would need a menu, a list of what needed pots, pans, the oven, what needed to go in at what times, refrigerator space, the list goes on. We even had to plan for the fact that in Australia pumpkin is basically non existent, it was a good thing that Kendall had four cans mailed from America so that we would be able to make the staple Pumpkin Pie. We thought we had planned for everything, we were going to make turkey, stuffing, corn bread, pumpkin pie, cheesecake, mashed potatoes, sweet potato fries, and vegetables, all this would make for a great thanksgiving we thought, however, we ran into some problems when we found that Australia doesn't have most of the ingredients we would need to make all this food. It was devestating.

So it was our faux Thanksgiving Day and there we are in the super market, with our recipes, searching through the aisles for ingredients that didn't even exist. How could you make cornbread without cornmeal? They dont have whole turkeys in Australia? No squash? No pie crusts? No cranberries? What were we going to do? We did what any American would do in this situation...we cancelled Thanksgiving, hah just kidding, we improvised. We bought a whole bunch of substitutes for our missing food, crossed our fingers, and hoped that it would work when we threw it all together.

We finally got back to the house at 1 pm and started to cook. ( For all of those back in America wincing at the mention of a 1 pm start time, its totally do-able.) So Lydia and I started on the pumpkin pies when we returned, they needed the longest time in the oven and in my opinion are the most important. After the mess of trying to convert cups and teaspoons and ounces and grams, finally the pies were in the oven and we were onto the next food. Next, I made little cheesecake cupcakes with a fake graham cracker crust while Lydia made the first ever cornmeal-less cornbread and Kendall was busy with her sweet potato fries, green beans, and stuffing.

Hours later, it finally appeared that actual food was being formed out of all these random ingredients. Next it was time for our "turkey"; earlier that day we had bought four little birds, four little chickens that is. We had to reheat them in to the oven for twenty minutes and then finally it was time to serve everyone. After about four hours of slaving in a kitchen that was about 100 degree it was finally time to eat!!

We all gathered around the kitchen table crowded with food, held hands, blessed the food and then dug in. It was so exciting; this was the first Thanksgiving that the three of us were in charge of cooking and feeding everyone. Our mothers would be extremely proud in our cooking skills, improvisation, and hosting abilities.

We all sat down in the living room, watched a NFL football game, and scarfed down our food. To my surprise the food was actually sooooo goood! We were so proud. After we all settled down, plates licked cleaned, and pants unbuttoned, we all went around and talked about what we were thankful for and how blessed each of us are.

Then it was dessert time! My favorite time. We got out the pies, cut them up, and distributed each of them with heaps of whipped cream on them. You cant have a successful Turkey Day feast without pumpkin pie.

The night ended with the grand final of Australian Idol, go Stan. The night couldn't be complete without Kendall doing her rendition of a Pink song sprawled out on the floor dancing. What a great way to end such a great day =]

Central Coast vs. Adelaide

Well we just played our first tv game against Adelaide, a team we previously were victorious over. Adelaide is southwest of Sydney and really far to drive so we had to fly. They didnt find it intelligent to leave the day before the game so we left the day of the game! Let me just give you a little insight into game day ...which was one of the longest days of my time in australia! Our flight left at 8am so we were up and at it at 530am! We rushed out of the house at 545 because we always seem to be running behind and making everyone late to arrive at the airport around 645. Meanwhile game time is 3pm. Just to let you know. So everyone is relaxing at the airport, with their highly efficient skins on, which are these really cool compression tights that they make in australia to keep your muscles from building up lactic acid or swelling, due to the flight. They actually keep my cankles down, imagine! Anyway, we are highly informed waiting for our flight to depart that it will be about 38 degrees which is about 100F. It isnt that humid here which is good but its still HOT! We eventually board and our flight last about 2 and a half hours. We arrive at our hotel which is in a really cool little downtown area and have an hour to rest before pregame meal. That cant come sooner because we're always hungry, especially Kendall. Lunch was a let down. It was lasagna and little finger sandwiches. However it had to suffice. We left for the game and arrived at a really cool stadium. All the stadiums we have played in are soccer specific stadiums, meaning they are not heaps big like ones in the states. They fit maybe 20,000 people. Since it was a TV game, Michelle, our leading goal scorer (and shes leading the league too) was getting interviewed. We prepared for the game while are coach talked to us about how no one believes we are good (no one has seen us play up until this point and last year the team finished second to last). So as some reporter wrote about us and our coach quoted, "Are we pretenders or contenders?" I laugh, like thats going to rile me up. Anyway, we go out into the unbearable heat and smack them around 6-0. Michelle scored three, Kendall hit a beautiful free kick BOMB and i finished with a toe poke with my right foot. And Jill tripped ...go figure! Good thing they were bad because it was so hot. Our ref subbed herself at half time due to heat exhaustion and was sickly ill. We had water breaks in between the halves because it was soooo hot. I've never played in that hot, minus humidity weather. It was such a long day!

Here is the game report as well:
http://www.ccmariners.com.au/default.aspx?s=wleague_newsdisplay&id=30713