An Indian Thanksgiving – 11/27/14

                Our group really poured our hearts and souls into cooking for Thanksgiving. We met at 9 AM to eat breakfast/plan the day and then didn’t stop moving until 7:30 PM when we were all seated and eating Thanksgiving dinner. Our menu was oddly reminiscent of actual Thanksgiving, which was a miracle considering what we had to work with. We had mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, mushrooms, cauliflower, grilled cheese, tuna melts, stuffing, and deviled eggs (not to mention the apple pie, but that’s not technically included in this list since we didn’t make it ourselves). I think the most incredible feat was the stuffing, mostly because the only ingredient we had in common with the original recipe was bread (and even then we didn’t have stale bread). To make things worse, our toaster oven doesn’t get hotter than 250 degrees Fahrenheit (and that’s when the electricity is actually working). The stuffing had bread, carrots, apples, vegetable soup (we couldn’t find broth anywhere), and oregano (from Domino Pizza spice packets) in it and somehow still managed to taste a lot like any other stuffing you could find in the U.S.

We each invited some of our host family to join the feast and the six interns currently living at Nirman and all went around saying something that we’re thankful for and we sang the Johnny Appleseed song for grace (we were originally going to have a person from each faith say a little prayer of sorts, but that quickly devolved as people started eating). Tejbal, Ben P’s host brother, brought Indian-style macaroni to add to the feast and I laughed a little as both Deep and Madhu (my host siblings) commented that their favorite food at the meal was the sole Indian dish present. By the time we were done with dinner and ready for dessert, the pies we bought from Vatika Café were already cold, so we decided that we should heat them up. A few of them were put on the stove (which was off but still hot) and then Jenny and Stephen had the brilliant idea to put a pie in the toaster oven. The one thing that they forgot to do, however, was take the pie out of the cardboard box before turning on the hot coils. The result: a pizza box on fire in the program house. Luckily, it was discovered early and nothing bad happened. Once all the smoke was cleared out and we went to eat the pie, we were depressed to find that even after all of that chaos, the pie was still cold. Nevertheless, it was quite tasty and satisfied everyone’s desire for a pie on Thanksgiving. After everyone’s host families went home, we and the Nirman interns played Salad Bowl, a game that is a mix of taboo and charades. Overall, the day was fantastic and most of us (if not all, but I don’t want to put words into other peoples’ mouths) weren’t even homesick because there was such a sense of family and community during both the preparation and the meal.