Day 31: Thanksgiving in New Zealand

One of my favorite holidays is Thanksgiving.  The ridiculousness of its ostensible origin story aside (and the quite correct arguments of the anti-Thanksgiving, a.k.a. Genocide Day), I appreciate that it is the only holiday in the US that, at least for most people, is celebrated with 2 days off, and because it's always before the weekend, it's the only 4 day weekend in the US calendar.  

I also appreciate harvest festivals, and opportunities to cook massive quantities of food.  Since Molly and I have been together, we have always celebrated Thanksgiving at her parents house, and her mother and I have usually tried our best to go overboard when it comes to preparing the meal.  

My thing has always been making pies.  Lots of Pies.  All of the Pies, if you will.  My record was 9 full size pies one year.  The pie craziness has leveled off at around 7 or so since then, which is usually enough for our stomachs, if not my ego.

This year, I topped that number, at least in spirit, since these are all cupcake sized.

They are Buttermilk Pies, which as Molly correctly points out every Thanksgiving, are not really a fall pie, but rather a spring/summer pie.  In New Zealand, November is Spring, so these were pretty appropriate for once.  At this size, they are very much like the Pastel de Nata you can get throughout Portugal.  And they were tasty, indeed.

And here is the woman who made the crust for then, because she has some pie of her own:

Way to go, Sarah.  The apple pie was amazing.

Molly made Corn Rusk, as is her tradition.  We laugh that at Thanksgiving, it is the only thing that comes straight from packaging, but is always the first thing to disappear.  We couldn't find corn bread mix in Takaka, so we simply made it from scratch this year.  A little different in consistency, but tasty nonetheless.

Here is our spread, and some of our illustrious guests.  The man with the sunglasses is Brendon, from Ireland.  Next to him is Adrienne and across is Shayna, both from Canada.  The man with the sandles is Jake, from Alaska.

It was a bit too windy, so we ditched the umbrellas.  You'll also note that there is a chicken, rather than a turkey.  Turkeys run about $5-10 a pound, so our host, Tina (who owns Kiwiana) bought us three chickens instead.  Stuffing is not a thing here, at least not box stuffing, so Molly and I made some from scratch.  Butter, bread, onions and apricots.  Hard not to go wrong.

A hearty cheers to all.  Imagine if every Thanksgiving could be eaten outside, in the sun.

Next to Molly, with the baseball hat, is Maddie, and across from her is Sage.  They're both from Seattle.

Standing here is Ilva.

It is another tradition at Molly's parent's house, that after dinner and before dessert, you go for a walk.  It feels good to use a little energy, particularly since we start eating/drinking/cooking around 9 in the morning and don't actually sit down for the meal until 4 or 5PM--meaning you've been consuming food and drink for 8 hours straight.

In Boston, this means going for a walk in the dark, but here, the sun doesn't even start to set until 9PM.  Our walk took us by these adorable calves.

Takaka is quickly becoming a dairy area, rather than a sheep area, which has a few ups, but most people in the valley who aren't dairy farmers are not particularly thrilled.  Cows use more land, create more pollution, and really aren't quite as "New Zealand-y" as sheep.  But they are everywhere.

Back at the hostel, several more glasses of wine in, along with some pie, and the full moon starts to rise.

Good times had by all, and full stomachs.  

Of course, the clouds immediately set in, and tomorrow it will rain a bit, but for the time being, our first Thanksgiving not in New England, and it was a rousing success.