Fixing the Fixings for Thxgvg

We're going to celebrate Thanksgiving on the 23rd, a Wednesday, because it's a national holiday here in Japan. That's just over a week away, and I am late starting the shopping this year.

It takes many trips to many different stores in Japan to procure all the fixings a Thanksgiving dinner requires. Plus we don't have a car. So I can only haul home what I can carry in my own two arms and sling in canvas bags over my own two shoulders, and that has to be in addition to whatever we need for dinner that particular day. (And yes, I can get the groceries delivered, but last year the international market forgot to deliver my turkey the day I had asked, so it would arrive in time to defrost it, and was I in a panic, though I got it delivered and defrosted in time after all.)

Yesterday I got the turkey and the stuff for the blueberry muffins. The turkey is 11.08 pounds this year, one of our largest ever here. My tiny oven won't hold a turkey over 12 pounds, or so we think...we don't want to haul home a turkey just to find out it won't. Every year we inch closer to what we perceive to be our oven's limit. Last year I got one close to 12 lbs. but this year this one was the biggest under 12, so... One year I got a 5-lb. turkey. When I told my mom, she laughed and said it would be all bone. It was, pretty much. We could just get a turkey leg, I suppose, but somehow I need the hunk of turkey-shaped meat in the center of the table.

I hate stuffing, so my family has never had any. Instead I make a really wonderful Turkish Pilaf (recipe here), and my kids think it's called Turkish because we always have it with turkey. Last year (and again this year) there was a canned pumpkin shortage here, but my sister Jamie sent me her fresh pumpkin pie recipe, and I'll never use canned pumpkin again (well, maybe not never; if I have a lot of writing going on and there is canned pumpkin available, who knows...).

Anyway, everyday between now and next Wednesday, I'll be bringing home a few of the groceries I need for our feast. So that's what I'm thinking about today, whether with this late shopping start I'm going to be able to procure all the groceries in time without any days of double trips to the market...Not very poetic, but it's where my mind's at.