Thanksgiving Dinner

We have immersed ourselves in a flurry of activity beginning Wednesday after school. The end of the school day was a signal for "Let the Cooking Begin!" Liz and I went home and began small tasks about the house. Then I set out to procure the turkey from a British butcher in Prague. It is an easy trip on the 11 Tram to Robertson's Butchery. About 6:00 PM I was returning with the bird (actually 3.26 kg of the bird's breast) in hand. I got off the 11 Tram at our JZP stop and saw Rebekah and her friend Ann get off the tram car just ahead of m. They were heading to our place with lots of good stuff for the Thursday TG feast at our house. Ann is a student at Charles University whom we had not met before. We set off together - I with my turkey and R and A with Rebekah's two wheeled shopping cart full of goodies.

Getting from point A to point B is not a straight line in the CR. We went down the steps at the JZP metro stop, walked under the busy Vinohradska street and emerged in the square between the metro stop and the monumental Catholic Church of that is one of our landmarks telling us we are home. We chattered about the upcoming holiday eventss as we perambulated the 4 or 5 blocks home. Upon arrival we unpacked the shopping cart and the women planned what to cook and in what order. Rachel arrived shortly and the kitchen festivity began in earnest. There were sweet potatoes to peel, apples to peel, and an array of other tasks. I was of course in charge of keeping the kitchen relatively tidy while the whirlwind of mixing, stirring, cooking, opening cans, seasoning, etc. was in progress. I was at the kitchen sink madly washing the same bowls and utensils over and over. I washed our small blue mixing bowl nearly a dozen times as it was used and reused for various tasks. I am sure I washed our one good knife at least that many times.

My greatest joy was watching the two pumpkin pies progress. As I had mentioned in a previous blog I had through great stealth secured the last two cans of pumpkin in Prague. The fruits of my labor were being manifested before my eyes. Rebekah was in charge of the pies, but I kept a keen, but surrepticious eye on the entire process. Cooking in our kitchen is always interesting as it is quite small and when you have five people in there you better be best of friends and quite forgiving. We succeeded on both counts. Other differences in cooking in Prague at our place in clude the paucity of normal kitchen apparati such as a rolling pin, proper cooking pans, good knives, room in a refrigerator to keep the stuff you have just bought and cooked, et al.

However the night was a success. The pies turned out well sans rolling pin. All the lushious foods found a spot in the fridge for overnight keeping. And blood was drawn only twice. I maintain that both Rebekah and Ann intentionally nicked themselves so they could feign off wahsing dishes, but Liz had more sympathy for them. Rachel did not comment on the situation.

Anyway we were well on our way to the feast the followng day. Thursday we awoke around 7:00 AM - very late for us. The cooking was planned to start around 11:00 with Rebekah and Viola arriving early to finish what was not done Wednesday night. Liz and I decided to take a walk around 9:00 and headed downtown to Tesco to do pick up a couple last minute items and look for some school supplies. It was a fairly nice day and we were enjoying the walking and the beauty of Prague. After getting a few food items at Tesco, we started looking for craft sticks for Liz's next project at school. We went to several places, but never found them downtown. So we decided to walk back through the Namesti Miru area and go to Liz's favorite paper (potential school supply) store. Again, no luck finding them. On the way from downtown to Namesti Miru we took a route that we had never been on before and I managed to convince Liz to go along some streets that were leading us away from our target area. She kept telling me that she was sure we were headed too far east, but I was insistent that we could get there my way.

In the end we were both sort of right, she probably being more right than I. We at least were able to browse the Christmas stalls in front of the Namesti Miru church and walk back home and then browse the few stalls at JZP near our apartment. By this time it was nearing noon. While we were a block from home Rebekah called to say she would abe late. About ten minutes after we got home Rebekah and Viola arrived. Rachel was nowhere to be found, but probably out shopping. Viola is also studying at Charles University. She in studying political schience and is a very interest person whose family is from Hamburg. She speaks English perfectly and was a delight to get to know.

So we squeezed the turkey into our largest baking pan, combined the ingredients for the green bean dish - including those little onion things you normally sprinkle on top, peeled all the white potatoes, put the apple crisp together, kept the oven and mulitple top burners busy continually and other odd concocting rituals that I have forgotten. Planning what needed to go in the oven when took great engineering skills - Liz more or less managed that task. The oven is so small that the turkey took up its entire volume. So, then how do you get the sweet potatoes, the apple crisp, the green beans, etc. cooked and keep them warm when the oven was not available? Some out Liz worked her magic and all things were brought forth in a warm and timely manner. We just barely got the large sweet potatoe casserole done in time and had to crank the oven up to near max to accomplish that.

In the meantime the other guests had been arriving. I forget the order, but the case of characters included: the three K-State exchange students; Anna, Brian (husband and wife) and Sam (master storyteller and life of any party); Ann arrived fresh from last night's cooking gala; and finally Mike called to say, "exactly where do you live?" Mike is a cool guy we also met at church. He lives just down the street a couple buildings. It is usually hard for people to find us as our name is not on the list of those living in our building, just our landlord's name that we can never remember when someone asks us - Zavadilik. I went to the door and saw Mike at the corner and hustled him in out of the cold.

So we had our group all together now. Rebekah and Rachel from CISP, their two friends (Ann and Viola), the K-State threesome and Mike. Mike has a really interesting background. His mother is Czech and his father is Ethiopian. He lived in Ethiopia most of his life where his mother taught in an International School which he attended. The school was an English language school, so he speaks perfect English, Czech and Amharic. He is studying media production or some such field. I think Mike was unsure of what he was getting into and initially said he could not stay long, but then got into the festivities and had a great time. We ended up the evening playing Farkle - we had brought along the Wildcat version of this game, so it was very fitting for the evening.

The food was fantastic, the fellowship was outstanding, the conversation was convivial, the friendship grew as the evening progressed. We felt really blessed to be able to host this group of young people - most of whom were far from home and family. We went around the group and told what we were all thankful for. Several answered to the affect we are thankful for family, but we are also thankful for the way God provides family when we are not with our real family.

I will post pictures of the days events later, but right now Liz and I are taking another honeymoon outing and are at Cesky Krumlov staying in a nice hotel. We left home at 6:00 AM Friday to catch a bus here. I will add pictures and tell about our CK adventure another time.