Haiyun Jiang
Thanksgiving: One More Time
Haiyun Jiang
Fall 2015
Wind the clock back to Nov.26, 2014; I was invited by a friend’s family in Vermont to spend my first Thanksgiving in the U.S. One day before I arrived, Vermont started snowing heavily. The haze and “White out” blocked the view of outside of the house, making indoors reassuring.
Food, American tradition: a huge turkey baked for 5 hours; pecan pie decorated by cranberry source; smashed potato. It has been a year, yet the scent and flavor of the incredible Thanksgiving meal still vividly exists in my memory.
The Thanksgiving turkey is taken out of oven after five-hour’s toasting.
This year’s Thanksgiving is different. Staying in Washington, DC, my friend and I decided to prepare our unique Thanksgiving dinner. Bought a big turkey, lettuce, avocado dressing, sweet potatoes, gravy, rice, apples and walnuts from the local grocery, we started cooking at noon on Thanksgiving Day. Sweet potatoes were cut into cubic and put into hot water to boil. We mixed cinnamon, butter and almond milk after the sweet potatoes being cooked and smashed them. The golden color of it reminded me of autumn leaves in Boston Common and the fragrance was sweet and warm, just like home. Salad was tossed in a small pot with slices of apples, smashed walnuts and lettuce with the avocado dressing of sour flavor.
Asian style Thanksgiving dinner consists of: spinach, walnuts and apple salad; turkey breast; white rice; mashed sweet potatoes.
About 3:15 pm, the kitchen was filled with the scent of turkey. It was time to take it out. Excited, we carefully took the turkey out of the roasting pan that was filled with juice. Fully baked, the turkey turned yellow and the skin was crispy. It took some effort for me to hold back the desire to tear apart the leg and have a big bite. Following the right way to cut the turkey not only prevented a waste of food, but also found the “Wish Bone”!
We carefully arranged the food for each plate: turkey legs, salad, smashed sweet potato then the white rice. Unconventional but delicious, this year’s Thanksgiving meal said a lot about our gratitude towards for everything we had, everyone we met, and the fact that we were having each other as friend.
Haiyun is a Graduate Journalism student.
