We had been planning for this holiday for a while...we were determined to have Thanksgiving in Germany. There were a number of obstacles to overcome first...For example, there is no concept of pumpkin pie in Europe. In fact, there is no concept of our idea of "pie" at all. No canned pumpkin, no pie crust, no pie pans... When we tried to explain it to people, the closest thing they could think of was cake, and that's not close at all! We couldn't imagine Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie. As soon as I had learned how to make it from a real pumpkin, all of the pumpkins were gone from the grocery store (beginning of November). Luckily, we happened to find an international grocery store in Amsterdam that sold canned pumpkin :) So with a homemade crust in a casserole dish, European pumpkin pie was born! Our friends liked it a lot.
Cooking any traditional Thanksgiving food from a recipe is different here because of the metric conversions. So, we winged it. Thankfully, our traditional dinner turned out great. Our friends even did some research on Thanksgiving beforehand and brought apple pie and cranberry sauce.
It was hard to be away from family on Thanksgiving. When you are far away from America, you think more about the meaning of American traditions, and they matter to you more than they did before. But, it was special for us to celebrate over here, and bring an international aspect to our tradition. We are thankful for our friends over here, and for the friendly relationship between Germany and America. We wish the best for both countries.
We hope all of you back home ate too much turkey and enjoyed your much warmer weather!
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