On Thursday, everyone in the India Studies Program had to go to their internships for the last time. In case any of you were wondering, there is no Thanksgiving in India. It's a purely American thing. (Actually, Canada has one too, but it's a different day...)
We wanted to have a Thanksgiving meal with our neighbors, but we knew we wouldn't have time to do all of our cooking if we had internships all day. Instead, we dubbed Saturday our official Thanksgiving celebration and called it good. I mean, our neighbors didn't care! So yesterday we cooked all afternoon and had a delicious feast with seven of our neighbors, one friend, the program assistant, and the seven of us ISPers.
The challenge that remained was how to cook Thanksgiving using almost exclusively stovetop. We had long since given up the idea of turkey because you can't even buy them here, not to mention non of us has ever cooked one. And some of our neighbors and Hannah are vegetarians. But we still had to look up lots of versions of recipes to be cooked on the stove. We had a stovetop stuffing (no, not the brand; it was cooked from scratch in the wok), mashed potatoes, honey glazed carrots, and apple crisp (that's what I made!) all prepared exclusively on the gas burners. Additionally, Kelly made a green bean casserole that utilized our neighbor's microwave oven and Morgan made biscuits in the McClelland's oven (which is only about the size of a small microwave and sits on the counter in their kitchen). Morgan's family is Southern and she had a different biscuit recipe than mine. I still prefer my Bakewells, but hers were really good in their own way and I was impressed because she hasn't made them very much before and she had to modify the recipe for what was available here!
To make my apple crisp, I cooked oats, chopped almonds, brown sugar, and butter up in the wok til it was crunchy (basically, a stovetop granola), and cooked apples, raisins, sugar, and cinnamon in the wok separately. The recipe tells you to put the apples in a pan and then put the crunch over it, but because I made such a huge amount, we didn't really have enough space for that. So instead, I left them in their separate bowls and we put them together when we served them onto everyone's plates. It came out pretty well for what it was.
Since there were so many of us that we wouldn't really fit into any one apartment, we had a picnic on the roof. We spread sheets out and lit little Indian lamps and had all the pans of food up there. I bet none of you have had a nighttime picnic on the roof for Thanksgiving before! But it was like the perfect temperature up there and it was really lovely!
I think for me the most memorable part of the Thanksgiving time though was when I talked to my family on the phone. They all got together for desserts at about 5 pm EST, which is 3:30 am for me here.I wasn't planning on staying up to chat with everyone, but I ended up being awake until after 7am my time because I was working on a final project anyway, so at 3:30 I called them up. It was really nice to have a few moments talking to everyone individually, but the most impactful conversation was the one I had with my brother, Zac. Honestly, our ten minute conversation was probably the longest that I've had with him in a few years. At one point in the conversation, he commented that it's weird because I'm here living in India and he has literally no idea what that's like, no idea what India is like at all. That was the first time anyone acknowledged that verbally to me before, and I know it's something that the other members of India Studies Program have been dealing with, too. Most of us called home or skyped for Thanksgiving, but a lot of people felt more distant after skyping than they did before. It boils down to the fact that even though it's kind of a better glimpse of our lives here, skype will never do justice to our lives in this place. Even when we go home we'll never be able to fully articulate what we've experienced so that our friends and families will understand everything that's happened here. Several of my fellow participants have expressed their frustration with attempting to explain things to their families and not getting what they felt was an appropriate reaction. So we all thought it was neat that Zac took the time to verbally acknowledge that he literally has no clue what it's like for me to be here. After that fact was established, I explained a few small things so that he might have some kind of picture, but it was nice to have it out in the open that he didn't, couldn't and wouldn't fully grasp what I've been up to.
We wanted to have a Thanksgiving meal with our neighbors, but we knew we wouldn't have time to do all of our cooking if we had internships all day. Instead, we dubbed Saturday our official Thanksgiving celebration and called it good. I mean, our neighbors didn't care! So yesterday we cooked all afternoon and had a delicious feast with seven of our neighbors, one friend, the program assistant, and the seven of us ISPers.
The challenge that remained was how to cook Thanksgiving using almost exclusively stovetop. We had long since given up the idea of turkey because you can't even buy them here, not to mention non of us has ever cooked one. And some of our neighbors and Hannah are vegetarians. But we still had to look up lots of versions of recipes to be cooked on the stove. We had a stovetop stuffing (no, not the brand; it was cooked from scratch in the wok), mashed potatoes, honey glazed carrots, and apple crisp (that's what I made!) all prepared exclusively on the gas burners. Additionally, Kelly made a green bean casserole that utilized our neighbor's microwave oven and Morgan made biscuits in the McClelland's oven (which is only about the size of a small microwave and sits on the counter in their kitchen). Morgan's family is Southern and she had a different biscuit recipe than mine. I still prefer my Bakewells, but hers were really good in their own way and I was impressed because she hasn't made them very much before and she had to modify the recipe for what was available here!
To make my apple crisp, I cooked oats, chopped almonds, brown sugar, and butter up in the wok til it was crunchy (basically, a stovetop granola), and cooked apples, raisins, sugar, and cinnamon in the wok separately. The recipe tells you to put the apples in a pan and then put the crunch over it, but because I made such a huge amount, we didn't really have enough space for that. So instead, I left them in their separate bowls and we put them together when we served them onto everyone's plates. It came out pretty well for what it was.
Since there were so many of us that we wouldn't really fit into any one apartment, we had a picnic on the roof. We spread sheets out and lit little Indian lamps and had all the pans of food up there. I bet none of you have had a nighttime picnic on the roof for Thanksgiving before! But it was like the perfect temperature up there and it was really lovely!
I think for me the most memorable part of the Thanksgiving time though was when I talked to my family on the phone. They all got together for desserts at about 5 pm EST, which is 3:30 am for me here.I wasn't planning on staying up to chat with everyone, but I ended up being awake until after 7am my time because I was working on a final project anyway, so at 3:30 I called them up. It was really nice to have a few moments talking to everyone individually, but the most impactful conversation was the one I had with my brother, Zac. Honestly, our ten minute conversation was probably the longest that I've had with him in a few years. At one point in the conversation, he commented that it's weird because I'm here living in India and he has literally no idea what that's like, no idea what India is like at all. That was the first time anyone acknowledged that verbally to me before, and I know it's something that the other members of India Studies Program have been dealing with, too. Most of us called home or skyped for Thanksgiving, but a lot of people felt more distant after skyping than they did before. It boils down to the fact that even though it's kind of a better glimpse of our lives here, skype will never do justice to our lives in this place. Even when we go home we'll never be able to fully articulate what we've experienced so that our friends and families will understand everything that's happened here. Several of my fellow participants have expressed their frustration with attempting to explain things to their families and not getting what they felt was an appropriate reaction. So we all thought it was neat that Zac took the time to verbally acknowledge that he literally has no clue what it's like for me to be here. After that fact was established, I explained a few small things so that he might have some kind of picture, but it was nice to have it out in the open that he didn't, couldn't and wouldn't fully grasp what I've been up to.
Wow...Zac gets the most impactful conversation award...who would have guessed?!?! It was great to hear your voice on our Thanksgiving day. We all miss you, and you're right...not one of us has any idea what your life in India is like. Charlie thinks we should send Jonny to check it out. :) Love you. xoxoxo ~mama
ReplyDeleteHow fun your thanksgiving sounds Aleena! Hope you're having fun on your road trip!
ReplyDeleteLove you - see. You soon!
Daddy