A Thanksgiving to Remember

       This was our first Thanksgiving while on our mission.  We had planned to have Elder and Sister Moss and their three family members who were visiting from the States, our two Elders, the two Elders from the KaNyamazane Branch and two young men from our branch who have been going out with our Elders on teaching assignments.  We spent nearly all day Monday going from one store to another to find each needful thing for our Thanksgiving dinner.  We felt very fortunate that we were able to find a turkey for the big day.  Sister Moss found that Woolworth's had frozen turkeys.  They weren't large - 8 1/2 pounds - but we got two so we'd have enough for leftovers.  We found no fresh cranberries, but we did find canned  cranberries.    They had never heard of yams, but they had sweet potatoes - white sweet potatoes.  We hoped that we had everything we needed because we had been to 4 different stores and were ready to go home.  I got home and got all the things put away and started to cut up and dry the four loaves of bread for the stuffing.   I barely had enough pans to put it in to start drying.

     Tuesday I made my fudge so it was done and I could take it out of the pan and put it in a zip lock bag, so I could use my pan for other things.  Wednesday was to be the big day for all major preparations.  Knowing that the pies would take the longest, I started with them first.  Sister Moss's family had brought canned pumpkin from the states, so I didn't have to cook my own pumpkin, for which I was grateful!  During the course of my preparations, I discovered that I had no water!  Bummer!  No way to rinse things when I finished with them so they wouldn't get dried on while waiting to be washed.   I had my 3 pumpkin pies ready to go into my preheated oven.  Just then, my power went out!  Are you kidding me?  No power?  I need power today.  I thought to check the breaker.  It was tripped!  Well at least they aren't working on the lines and have the whole system out!  I flipped it back on, and hooray!  I had power.  I put 2 pies into the oven.  That's all that would fit into my small oven.  After  15 minutes, I turned it down like the recipe said, and set the timer for 40 minutes.  When the buzzer rang, the pies weren't quite done, so I set it for  10 more minutes.  I checked them again.  They seemed done, but the crusts weren't brown at all.  Oh well, they still looked good.

     I turned the oven up to 400 and decided to bake the four pie shells before doing the other pumpkin and apple pies.  I kept checking the oven to see if it was hot enough yet.  It seemed to take longer to heat, but I finally put the shells in.  I kept checking them every 10 minutes, but they weren't getting done.  After 30 minutes,  the inside of the crust still appeared doughy, I realized that my oven wasn't working.  When Elder Baxter came home from doing errands, I told him about my plight and he went out and bought an oven thermometer to check the temperature.  It definitely wasn't working!

      In late September after we had finished getting settled, our Landlady had stopped by to meet us and I told her that Elder Nichols had mentioned that the top burner wasn't working and that she had said she would get someone out to fix it.  I also told her that we had an American Holiday in November in which I would need the stove for baking and a lot of food preparation for this holiday.  She said she would have it checked.  When our flat was hit by lightning during a storm the stove breaker was tripped and when it was reset, it tripped the main breaker.  She sent a repairman out and he fixed a burned wire.  He also discovered a large burned hole about 12 inches in diameter on the platform where the drop-in oven sits. He was curious about that and said he had never seen anything like that before and was surprised it hadn't started a fire.  He recommended that the oven be replaced.  Our landlady didn't like that idea so she kept sending out different electricians to get another opinion.  They told her the same thing.  I kept reminding her that I needed my oven on Wednesday and Thursday and whatever repairs needed to be done had to be done Monday or Tuesday of that week.  We had heard nothing.  So here it is Wednesday,  I had four more pies waiting to be baked and no oven!  I also had two turkeys, dressing, green bean casserole, and 5 dozen rolls to be baked the next day, and NO OVEN!

     After making a phone call to her, in which she told me she was just leaving for Pretoria and she would call me next week, I gathered my pies and knocked on Sister Moss's door and said "Help!"
We made arrangements with her to use her oven on Thursday as well, even though they weren't going to be at home.  (Her family decided that they wanted to sight see instead of coming to Thanksgiving)  We also called our young Elders, who live two rows down from us, to see if we could use their oven tomorrow as well.  Arrangements were all made and I had the oven situation under control, even though it wasn't going to be convenient for my preparations.  Oh well, the food would still get cooked!

     Thursday morning, I arose early to make the rolls and finish the rest of the preparations.  Later in the  morning I had put my large pots of potatoes, sweet potatoes and giblets on to cook and went to get ready.  I came out a few minutes later to check them to be sure that they weren't boiling, and discovered that the stove was cold!  The  stove top wasn't working either!  So I gathered my pots one by one and walked to the Moss's to get them on to cook on her stove.  Then I went back a few minutes later to turn them down after they started boiling.  I spent the next hour and a half taking my rolls and dressing to my two borrowed ovens.  Elder Baxter would go to the Elders' flat to help take them out and butter the top and go back a few minutes later to do the same with the next pans.  I was doing the same with my things in the Moss's oven.  I'm sure the neighbors thought we were crazy running back and forth with all these pans of food.    Then I ended up having to rewarm things in the microwave so they would be hot enough and ready to serve.

     The table was set with the new African place mats that I had made and everything looked lovely.  As we were ready to sit down, Elder Mower asked if he could lie down somewhere as he wasn't feeling well.  He had the same flu that his companion had had a couple of weeks ago and was running a fever of 102.2.  I went to dish up the jello, and the whole container was still jiggly, even though I had set it the night before and had used only half the water that it called for.  (It was the first time I had made their brand of jello.)  Oh, well, we had jiggly jello with whipped cream anyway.  Because I had never cooked or eaten white sweet potatoes, I was nervous about them.  We had found some canned orange sweet potatoes that I had opened and mashed and seasoned with the white ones.  They were OK, but the color was a dirty light brown color.  Not exactly like the orange yams that we're used to eating!

Sister Moss's family brought me French Fried Onions for my green bean casserole.  Hooray!!

When we were looking for turkeys, I couldn't believe it when I saw these chicken heads and feet packaged and ready for cooking!  Elder Baxter had to go get the camera for actual proof!

They call these "Walky Talky" and they make a soup out of them and call it "Walky Talky Soup.

They eat all of the feet and heads.  They don't just use them for the broth!

We have much to be thankful for!

A kitchen full of busies.  Notice all the kinds of sugar.  Brown sugar comes in three different colors, very light tan, medium brown and dark brown.  It is very course, unlike our brown sugar.  Caster sugar is a very fine sugar.  Icing sugar is for making frosting, similar to our powdered sugar, another kind of icing sugar, and white sugar is a very course sugar.  It has been a trial and error experience with my baking and these sugars.

One of my turkeys - 8 1/2 pounds.  $27 @ 3.50 per pound!

Pies done, and dressing to put together.  Cross them off my list!  

In addition to the pumpkin and apple, we had banana and chocolate as well.

Making out the rolls, Thanksgiving morning.  (Looking bad, and yes, girls, I did go to bed.)

Filling the pans of rolls.  (I'm really not asleep.  Lynn just snapped it as I was looking down.)

haha

 Rolls ready to raise.

Thanksgiving table all set.  Notice my new wicker chairs.  Hand made by young people from  Zimbabwe.  They were selling them along the side  of the road for about $15USD each and Lynn stopped and bought them.  We bought the cushions at Mr. Price Home.  It is a very fun, inexpensive store where we've bought a lot of things to make our flat feel more homey.

My African place mats.  They have a design on both the front and back.  

We bought the fabric and I made them.

Hooray for me!

When President Omer was down for interviews, Sister Omer, Sister Moss and I had a ladies shopping day and found these at Valencia.  They were in a large strip of fabric that we cut out, put some light weight batting in between and sewed them together.  Each of us got a set that made 9 place mats.

I was surprised how many of the Elders said, "Wow, I like your place mats."  

They are really cool, and lifted the plates to see the whole thing.

Elder Baxter helping with the preparations.  The container was too big to fit into the microwave, so we had to put it into a smaller container to fit into the microwave.

Elder Laban (from New Zealand) helping with the rolls.  

Thanks Elders for your help and letting us use your oven to get everything cooked.

Elder Baxter carving the turkey.

All our guests ready to sit down to dinner, minus Elder Mower who had gone to lie down because he was running a fever and sick with flu.  We saved him a plate however.  Starting from the left, Elder Baker,  Ephriam, Sibusiso, Elder Brinkerhoff, Elder Mower's empty chair, and Elder Laban.

Our Thanksgiving dinner, starting front left and going around.  Potatoes, rolls, dressing - with and without pecans,  sweet potatoes, turkey, choco loco -(Elder Laban made and brought).  It's an African dish) gravy and green bean caserole.

     Despite all that the Elders had eaten, they still had room for pie.  When I took the pies out of the fridge. I was disappointed to find that my "mile high banana pie, had wilted to pudding.  I don't know why.  It was set up and high when I put it in the fridge.  The only thing I can think is that it was from the humidity from the fridge.  They had ice cream with their pie and also took an extra piece home with them.

     Despite all the problems that we experienced, the dinner turned out and was very much enjoyed by the Elders.  They all went back for seconds and then fixed them a plate to take home for left overs later along with a bag of rolls and a bag of fudge and M & M's. (Thanks Jeanette).  I saved them for the big day).  We truly had much to be thankful for.

     About 4:30, our two Elders had to leave for an appointment.  Ephriam and Sibusiso went along as well.  Our Elders are trying to give them the feel for missionary work.  Elder Laban hung out waiting for his companion to wake up.  About 6:00, he finally stirred, still running a fever.  I fixed him some jello and a roll and gave him some Excedrin.

Elder Laban started feeling a little chilly because our patio door had been open to keep the house cool.  He wanted a blanket to wrap up in.  Elder Mower managed a smile, despite the fever and not feeling well, but that's just how he is--always a smile on his face.

 

    Thanks Elders for helping make our first Thanksgiving away from home so memorable!!