Monday, November 19, 2012

The Thanksgiving Hunt begins and a trumpet solo.

I'm pretty sure that if the title meant that I was actually going out to shoot my own turkey, the task would be less daunting then what we are about to embark upon.

Gathering the fixin's for a good ol' American Thankgiving. With ye ol' blog writer as the sole cook. Some of you just gasped. That's ok.

We need to talk. About Thanksgiving ingredients and how lots of them just don't exist here, or if they do, they are hiding in some far off corner of some abandoned Lidl or Biedronka or Tesco or Segros or Makro or Kuchnie Swiata or Alma or Carrefour or Real or Lewiatan... am I missing one... oh yeah, Zabka, or any other obscure, or not so obscure member of the above grocery store chains.


I plan on making 4 side dishes, two desserts, and one turkey.

-mashed potatoes
-sweet potato casserole (with the sugar and the what not and the deliciousness baked in)
- broccoli cheese casserole
- stuffing (fancy stuffing with sausage and nuts and cranberries)
- cranberry sauce

-maybe some rolls

-punpkin pie
-apple pie

- any turkey that will fit in my oven that is slightly larger than an average microwave...God help us.

The list:

Canned pumpkin... I've given up on this one entirely and plan on roasting the pumpkin on our front porch and making my own gosh darn pumpkin puree for pies and cookies. It is NOT a complete Thanksgiving unless there is some form of that orange gourd somewhere on the table. It will not stand! Canned pumpkin  Poland  Look into it, I promise you won't regret it.

Nutmeg. A spice, usually in the ground variety. I know they have it in the whole variety. But then do you just grate it? Process it? The whole thing or just the nut? Gotta have it. Don't know how to get it. Would like to have some of it. Need it by Thursday.

Brown sugar. Ok, I'm cheating here because we do think we have found brown sugar. Alma came through on that one but I haven't opened the box yet. Kuchnie Swiata has it at an absurdly expensive price if all else fails. Another product that I am completely shocked Poland doesn't have everywhere. Their sugar aisle has every kind of raw and natural sugar you could want. It has every kind of flavored sugar you could want. But no brown sugar (the kind with molasses). Why, Poland? Why?

Velveeta. Honestly, I would be both ecstatic and  a little disappointed if Poland actually had Velveeta. Just a smidge of dignity can keep this heart attack inducing processed cheese product off the shelves and at the cost of a little of my own dignity, I might pay upwards of 20-30 bucks to have it for my broccoli casserole. (and queso... ya'll, I just forgot the name "queso"... and had to Google the words..."Mexican cheese dip"... to remember what it's called... what is happening to me???!!!) Velveeta. Stat!

Turkey. Only at the butcher will I find a whole turkey because in Poland, I have been informed, turkey's only come out "around the holiday's." When asked for a specific date we were told... 3rd week in December. Clearly "the holidays" in Poland are about a month behind. Although their holiday decor is already up and Christmas lights are twinkling, just like back home.

Jellied Cranberry sauce. I'm not even gonna ask. ( I want the kind with the lines and indention's from the can. The kind that comes out of the can in one big log...mmm...cranberry log...)

Wish me luck!

On a completely different note, but with perhaps the same amount of entertainment quality...

I dedicate this video to my friend Lacey. Martin's cousins came over the other night and showed us this on Youtbe ( all three of them are concert musicians). I don't know what this means about what Polish people think about America, Americans, beauty pageants, American musical talent, or anything having to do with choreography. Just a long list of thoughts on all that. Anyway, I dedicate this, once again, to Lacey. Because she and I were in band together in the 4th and 5th grade. She played the trumpet, I played the clarinet. And while we never got much further beyond those two years I know for a fact that she could have done a better job than this young lady. But a more comforting fact is that if this had been her she would never have been caught dead in that outfit or that performance thereby saving all you from what you are about to experience.

I'm sorry.


Now if you'll excuse me. I have a pumpkin to disembowel and roast. Because that's what we do around here at 10pm on a Monday night.


26 comments:

  1. Olivia if thats helps you nutmeg instant is gałka muszkatołowa the best one is from Kamis company you can buy that in every superstore

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    1. I never saw in Poland tins with pumpkin but you definately can buy whole pumpkin if you live in Cracow the best place will be Plac Imbramowski or Stary Kleparz :)

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    2. Brown sugar you can buy in every superstore :) i love brown sugar and I use him often

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    3. We finally figured out the name of nutmeg just yesterday and will be looking for the ground variety today. I also need ground cloves but I can only find whole cloves, which I also can use but for some reason can't find the ground. Brown sugar that I am talking about is just different. Hard to explain. My mother-in-law usually brings it with her to Poland when she comes.

      We roasted our pumpkin last night!
      Wish me luck that it works out!

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    4. About the sugar - you probably want this: http://alma24.pl/produkt/711096/cukier-trzcinowy-z-melasami :)

      Canned pumpkin - http://alma24.pl/produkt/63844/dynia-rolnik-konserwowa

      Cranberries - http://alma24.pl/produkt/88557/zurawina-stovit-do-mies-i-serow and http://alma24.pl/produkt/89919/zurawina-cale-owoce- and http://alma24.pl/produkt/284205593/zurawina-do-mies--pasztetow-i-serow

      My guesses. Good luck! :) And Happy Thanksgiving. :)

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    5. Wonderful suggestions! I will look for the pumpkin you linked to. Right now our roasting pumpkin is becoming a huge pain in the neck.

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  2. Where do you find time for this with 4 young kids? Our 1 (8-month-old) leaves time for almost nothing else.

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    1. Witek, when I had only one child I was wiped out by 6pm every day. No way could I have done all of this. For some reason you just learn to juggle it all and it actually, eerily, gets easier. (and sometimes you give up and order pizza two nights in a row, and that's ok)

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    2. And some days I literally don't sit down, even to eat, until the kids are in bed. Keeps me thin.

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    3. Impressive! We're still looking forward to the easier times

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  3. I remember searching for cranberries when I lived in Slovakia - the closest I got was ligonberries

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    1. They have lots of cranberries here, just not the jellied kind in a can. (the most fake kind, it's probably a good thing Poland doesn't have them. I just like it)

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    2. Try cooking them with orange juice and sugar till they pop - sooo much better than the canned kind. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cranberry-sauce/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=cranberries&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page

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  4. I bought nutmeg in Poland before - its called galka muszkatolowa, and it comes in little packets where you buy herbs/seasonings. I am guessing i bought it at real... but it was a while ago, so i don't remember exactly where. But its in those little plastic packets made by knorr or some other brand.

    And my nose might just lead me to your house all the way from Warsaw for your Thanksgiving dinner, as it sounds DELICIOUS and AMAZING and I haven't had a proper Thanksgiving dinner in many many years.
    Eat some cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes for me :)

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  5. Evita have right about nutmeg he is in small packet but the best is kamis or kotani company


    About cranberries they are called zurawina and usually you can buy fresh one or frozen one other option is cranberries sauce he is in small jar and you can buy him with name zurawinowy sos on every big superstor like real etc in part with jams and marmalade. :-)


    With Turkey i suggest thr best is go to small butcher even on Imbramowski plac or Kleparz and ask them too bring one for you if you gave them small deposit they will do that :-)


    with velveet i cant help i never heard that name :-(

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    1. Thank you for the suggestions, they are very helpful. I really appreciate it.

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  6. cloves is gozdzik and they should be in instant version also kamis or katanyi

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  7. Have you ever tried serek topiony? Looks a bit like that velveeta thing... And I fount this http://www.polishforums.com/food-drink-8/singles-fake-cheese-poland-52798/

    Cheers!
    Snufkin

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  8. I dont remember if I have ever seen ground cloves but nutmeg you should find quite easily. Cranberry sauce as already mentioned before can be found in a jar. not really the kind you look for, but also nice and a bit jelly ;) brown sugar... well we were not familiar with this one for ages since we never had colonies nor living close to a country that would produce it. that's why We have s lot of the white one :)

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  9. here you have instant version of cloves http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1366&bih=638&tbm=isch&tbnid=DHCyzdYpL1VGwM:&imgrefurl=http://www.digesta.com.pl/gozdziki/55-gozdziki-mielone-mala-paczka.html&docid=E1voLxaM_5cTbM&imgurl=http://www.digesta.com.pl/55-59-large/gozdziki-mielone-mala-paczka.jpg&w=320&h=320&ei=d66rUKvNFOqx0AXu1YHwCw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1100&vpy=136&dur=4850&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=158&ty=133&sig=102151531932187471340&page=1&tbnh=139&tbnw=139&start=0&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i:87

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    1. http://www.bogutynmlyn.pl/go/_info/?user_id=1141

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  10. I missed Thanksgiving the most when husband and I lived in France. Meaning, Thanksgiving FOOD. This was in pre-internet day, so we couldn't easily find/order ingredients. You can't (or, you probably CAN) imagine our thrill when a friend discovered corn meal in some small Arab market. We made corn bread and swooned for hours -- and it's not like you don't eat well in Paris! But there's something about those very-American, comfort-food Thanksgiving dishes that can't be beat. Enjoy.
    Dorota in Colorado

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    1. I know. It's silly kind of, but the foods on Thanksgiving day are so special. Thankfully, Polish people understand this, they too have special foods they eat only on special occasions. This way I'm not just the neurotic American!

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  11. First of all, you had to Google "queso"?! For shame.
    Secondly, how in the world did you find that video? My God, it was fantastically terrible. The choreography, the trumpet-as-laser-gun, the outfit, the hair, the tone-deafness, aaaand the total lack of applause at the end. Awesome.

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    1. That poor woman. This video really should buried a lot deeper on Youtube. She may not have won the pageant but at least people still know her name, kind of.

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