Green Mountain Girl Travels: A Summer Turkey Day

On a gorgeous 90 degree day two interns embarked upon creating a turkey day to remember. With Fantastic Mr. Fox playing in the background, heat coming from the tiny oven and pots bubbling on the two electric burners on top, they dared to complete the impossible, a 8 person meal that would have them fed for days to come.

This was the first Thanksgiving I celebrated without my family, did a good chunk of the cooking and hosted. Lets say I was feeling the stress that I’ve seen other people have to deal with but never personally associated with Thanksgiving. We were lucky that we were granted the day off so we could fully commit to cooking. And that’s what we did…cook all day. I’m definitely an amateur chef with my only experience really coming from dabbling in a few recipes since moving to Kimberley. So I offered up my time making side dishes and leaving the heavy hitters (turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean and sweet potato casserole, and APPLE PIE (for real he cooked all of that in 1 day)) for cook extraordinaire Mr. Barron. I made mashed potatoes, quinoa salad, cornbread, broccoli fritters (not a great idea), gravy (not well executed), and a cake (burnt bottom). Still I’m very proud of myself, and if you had asked me if I would even ever attempt cooking so much in one day well lets just say I’d have committed you to an insane asylum if I could.

Still can't believe we found turkey in Kim!

Best apple pie ever

I really am so thankful for so many things. A lot of them are similar to what I’ve been constantly thankful for over the years, but this year in particular they’ve been highlighted since I’m away from home. My family being number one on the list. Without their support I would never be able to be in South Africa and working with GRS. I know it hurts them as much as me to be away from them for so long, but they’re the ones who taught me to take chances and also bred in me the need to see the world. So really it’s all their fault that I’m not a homebody. Number 2 has to be my friends who I've been in constant contact with thanks to technology. Every skype session, fb chat, and snapchat makes me feel so lucky that I have such crazy nutty friends that are always there for me even from the other side of the world.

Miss ya gang!

I’m also incredibly thankful for the Kimberley family I’ve gained. I really was anticipating a bittersweet turkey day with me wishing to be with my family in a climate that actually felt like Thanksgiving instead of the sweltering heat of Kim. But the dinner felt like any other great Thanksgiving, with people chatting, cracking jokes at each others expense and of course lots of eating. I really enjoyed myself and couldn’t have asked for a better day. It also helps that Thembi and Christa have the two cutest kids.