Although Zach and I are the only “native Americans” living in Tung Ka Mang, we still felt it was our duty to host a Thanksgiving like Baan Ling had never seen before. Carola arrived in TKM on the 26th bringing all sorts of goodies from the States- including stovetop stuffing, cool whip mix, canned pumpkin and cranberry, and instant cheese sauce. I spent the day cooking and decorating (the best day off ever, really) and in the evening we had all of the farang and Thais from both monkey teams over for dinner. Omnoi and Zach went out to Lui Lai after their shift to collect four (live) chickens and spent the rest of the afternoon preparing them for the feast. Khun Kitti brought “new” sticky rice and brown fried rice, but otherwise it was an all-American feast: mashed potatoes (Zach’s family’s secret recipe), cauliflower with cheese sauce, stuffing, cranberry sauce, curried fruit (my family’s favorite and quite a surprise for everyone else but me!), steamed snowpeas . . . plus for dessert I made us an apple crisp and a pumpkin pie (with fresh cool whip). This pushed our kitchen to limits (see photos to see what I could work with!), but we managed to have most of the food hot(ish) at the same time- which is a treat in and of itself. We tried to explain some of the idea behind Thanksgiving, though I had been preparing Chet and Omnoi for weeks with stories of “the holiday based around eating.” It was great to be together with everyone but I missed you all lots! I’m really excited that my family is coming in 17! Days and that we’ll be together for Christmas in Chang Mai. Enjoy the pics and Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!
