Thanksgiving, Irish Style

This was my first year spending Thanksgiving away from home. Luckily, as I previously mentioned, I have met loads of WONDERFUL people here and I had not one, but two fabulous Thanksgiving dinners. Because Thanksgivng was and always is on a Thursday, it was a bit difficult to host it on the actual day. I had class until late that day, as did many of the other students. And unlike the States, we don't get the day off. So on Wednesday, I hosted Thanksgiving dinner at my apartment with some of my UCD/Google friends, four of which were Americans. We did  it potluck style and I was in charge of the Turkey. I had reserved a Turkey at Superquinn near Blackrock (UCD Campus), but Euro Spar, the market near my place said they could get me one for cheaper.  I figured it's be easier to get it at Spar, so I wouldn't have to carry a 12 lb turkey from the market to the DART and ride the train five stops. So I cancel the Superquinn Turkey and the day of, go to Spar to pick up my turkey.  The butcher was like, the delivery guy isn't here yet, he's usually here by 11, but is running late today, come back at 1. I come back at 1 and apparently it is still not there. I give the dude my number and then get a call 20 minutes later saying that the delivery guy won't be coming today. He's like, he'll be here tomorrow, Thanksgiving's not til tomorrow rite? I was like, well, I am having my dinner tonight. Long story short, I had to improvise, went to the butcher down the road and got an Irish chicken, some beef and a stuffed turkey leg.  Bianca, a fellow American came over early to help me cook the turkey. Unfortunately she had food poisoning the day before and still wasn't feeling well.  She ended up having to miss dinner :(  So, I cooked my assorted meats and got things ready.  

People started to show up and brought an array foods. We had everything from veggies to mashed and sweet potatoes to minced and pecan pie.  We drank wine and ate until we were stuffed, because that is the way Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. Everything was sooo good and of course, I had seconds.  The pecan pie that Stephanie made was super delicious as was all the wonderful desserts that people brought. I tried minced pie for the first time and it was pretty tasty. This whole time I thought they had meat in it, since they have minced meat pies here and of course Shepard's pie.  But it turns out that its just this little delicious tarts with raisin and other sweet fillings.

So the day of Thanksgiving, I had a full day of classes. My one Tech & Innovation class was extended an extra hour since the prof was not here last week.  Obviously he didn't care it was

Thanksgiving. My professor likes to talk and talk until you think he can't talk anymore, but he does.The class is already boring and excruciating, but was way worse with an extra hour added on.  But it was good because it was my very last class.   I went home that night, had some yummy leftovers and ate myself sick because it was Thanksgiving and that's what you have to do. Some of my Google friends were going to Woolshed's in town because they were serving a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and playing football.  So I went and met up with them and had a drink.  

Friday was my Thanksgiving Dinner with Inge and her crew.  Inge was thankfully bringing the Turkey, so I decided to make some traditional American sides. I went to the Tesco that day and tried to find all the ingredients. I gotta say, it is tough trying to make Thanksgiving food in Dublin.  I was able to buy sweet potatoes, and got some strange form of marshmallows. I wanted to make a green bean casserole but they did not have those French's onion crisp things.  So I decided to make my famous butternut squash mac and cheese instead.  Of course, 

they had no buttersquash, but I was able to find butternutsquash, sweet potatoe and pumpkin soup, which worked. Everyone showed up around 8 and everything looked and smelled delicious! We all grubbed til we felt sick, at least I did. After a bit of rest, Sadhbh presented us withher BEAUTIFUL desserts. She is a pastry chef and was actually able to get pumpkin to make pie! She's my hero. And the pie was mouth watering DELICIOUS!! I was seriously so stuffed I wanted to curl up in a ball, but instead, we decided to meet up with some of my UCD friends at Howl at the Moon. Everyone was celebrating the fact that classes were over.

I had missed the prepartying at Proby and when I got to the club, everyone was pretty hammered. The club was pretty interesting, as were the drunk Irish dudes.  And so, we all tried to dance off the loads of food we ate.  I could barely drink a glass of wine, I was so stuffed.  But we all had so much fun. Overall it was a fabulous Thanksgiving week.  I am still eating leftovers and I have to say I am pretty turkeyed-out.  Had turkey fried rice today for dinner...will probably make some sort of turkey soup tomorrow.  One thing I won't be eating when I get home is TURKEY!