Thanks a lot, weekend!

At 6.45am this morning, my alarm woke me from such a deep sleep that I thought the Rapture had come.  I've never been a morning person, but it was especially hard to put my feet on the floor today.  I guess that's what you get after an extra long and very happyThanksgiving weekend.

All things considered, I was remarkably well behaved over the holiday.  Normally I indulge in every mashed potato I can find, on my plate or somebody else's.  I usually enjoy copious amounts of red wine, roasted meats, and lashings of pan-juice gravy too.  But this year, I wanted to do something a little different.  I've been working really hard since August to lose weight, and through Weight Watchers I'm down about 17 pounds (or 7.7 kilograms).  I just knew that Thanksgiving had the delicious potential to derail those efforts, so I took the rather drastic step of having a solo Thanksgiving this year, and I cooked for myself at home.  This was not a one-woman pity party either; rather, the necessary efforts of someone who has never won a staring competition with temptation in her life.

I even had every good intention of going to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday morning, but I woke up too late and realised I'd slept through a large portion of it.  Not a very disciplined start, was it?  I got over that quickly enough, once I had poured some super-strong coffee and watched a few feather-light snowflakes fall outside.  Very pretty.

The night before Thanksgiving I'd been out to a rehearsal of the New York City Ballet production of The Nutcracker (one of my holiday favourites).  As we were leaving Lincoln Center, the theatre staff gave me a copy of the soundtrack CD and it provided the perfect background noise while I fired up all the kitchen appliances.

Before long, every pot and pan in my tiny apartment was filthy but the tasty, Weight Watchers menu was ready.  Because I'm not a turkey fan, I prepared herbed chicken (but without the wine), brussels sprouts (with bacon instead of almonds, obviously), and this truly delicious sweet potato dish that is now my favourite way of preparing them.  Dessert was a store-bought vanilla mini cheesecake that I devoured embarassingly quickly.

With my pants stretched to capacity and The Nutcracker score on repeat, I settled down to do some afternoon reading, which turned into extensive napping, which was everything the day was supposed to be.

But Thanksgiving is also about being grateful for the blessings in your life - whether they are edible or not.  Foremost in my mind over these past four days, I've been especially thankful for good health - mine, as well as for my friends and family.  I gave thanks for hard work - not just in my day job, but also working hard at weight loss, and on this NYC blog that is growing so well each week.  And I gave particular thanks for the opportunity to spend another Thanksgiving in this beautiful city with no alarm clocks required.

Adopt-A-Holiday

"Freedom from Want" by Norman Rockwell
Image credit here

When you're brand new to this City, or even this country, embracing American traditions can make you feel a bit uncomfortable.  Holidays you'd never previously considered suddenly become a "thing", and you're never quite sure the extent to which you're expected to participate.

Take Thanksgiving, for instance - a very topical example.  It's a national holiday that celebrates a uniquely American episode of world history.  What claim do the rest of us honestly have to commemorate that?  But you know what?  You will.  Through a gut-busting menu, an opportunity to stop and reflect on the people and things that make your life wonderful, and two days off work, somehow you make peace with it.

This year will be my 7th Thanksgiving celebration in the United States and I absolutely love it - in fact, I've loved every single one of them.  In 2011, I actually catalogued all my Thanksgiving adventures and it's great to relive those.  There are a couple of gaps in the timeline though.  I was in London in 2012  so I missed it that year, and in 2013 I was in East Hampton and probably too hungover to write about it so the less we say about that, the better.

With my appetite, you'd expect that food ranks the highest on my list of reasons for loving Thanksgiving, but it's not really true.  I adore the smells most of all.  At this time of year, stores and kitchens across the US are full of delicious, seasonal aromas - cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.  All of this fragrance spills over into the food (and into my mulled wine) and I'm a very happy girl.  But looking back over all my adopted Thanksgivings, I know I definitely loved the occasions, but I just can't wrap my arms around everything.

For one thing, I have reservations about the turkey.  I know, it's "Turkey Day" but the centerpiece of the entire table isn't my thing at all.  Sidebar though, I do maintain a soft spot for the Butterball Hotline, thanks to "The West Wing" (and you must watch the clip here).  Turkey is everywhere here in the US - but especially so at Thanksgiving.  I don't remember growing up with turkey meat in Australian supermarkets or deli counters - it certainly wasn't on our dinner table at home.  It might be an acquired taste, but it doesn't really taste all that different to chicken.  But then again, everything seems to taste like chicken, doesn't it?  But have you seen the size of Thanksgiving turkeys?!  Some are big enough to feed 20 people.  They take 3 days to defrost, and almost a whole day to cook.  Could you imagine encountering a turkey that big in nature?  Surely you'd just lay down, play dead, and hope it went away.

While I'm complaining, I'm also not on board with pumpkin pie.  I can stomach pumpkin muffins, or even pumpkin cake, but a pie crust filled with cold, spiced pumpkin - most often from a can, of all places - just isn't palatable in my book.  It can't be a texture thing either, because I love cheesecake and banana cream pie and other things that I imagine have similar mouth feel.  Maybe it's because I grew up only eating hot pumpkin - roasted or mashed or in soup.  Perhaps this is one of those culinary hurdles I will never clear.

But trust me, the savoury side dishes are all mine.  Pass me the green bean casserole (fried onions from the can are essential).  I'll take heaping mounds of sweet potato casserole with the toasted marshmallows on top.  And I will fight you for the corn pudding and turkey gravy too.  I can usually take or leave the stuffing (which is often cooked separate to the bird), but if it's made from corn bread and cranberries, gimme!

Food is just part of the Thanksgiving tradition though.  And although I'm not a touchy-feely person at the best of times, I'm quite partial to the tradition of going around the Thanksgiving table and taking it in turns to declare the one thing for which you are most grateful.  Does anyone ever stop at one thing?  I think that's a really important part of the Thanksgiving pageantry - and it's a custom that anyone, from anywhere, can adopt.

Oh and once the meal is over, and your stretchy pants are at capacity, there is nothing more wonderful than lounging in front of the annual Thanksgiving football games.  Even after all this time in the US, football is another tradition that I'm still appropriating, but I'll get there eventually.  I have also adopted my friend Jeff's tradition of watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" on Thanksgiving afternoon.  It never gets old.  What a way to give thanks for all the blessings in life!

Given the blogging hiatus of the past two years, I'll definitely be writing about my 2014 Thanksgiving.  As a heads up, it will not feature turkey or pumpkin pie, but there will still be plenty of food, gratitude, stretchy pants, and food coma hallucinations to be had.  And for that, and for so much more, God Bless America!

The intimacy of the holidays

"City Crowd, Cop and Ear" by A. Robert Bermelin (1980)
Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thanks to holiday tourism, Manhattan's population increases by anything up to five times during the November to January period.  Great for the economy, but a nightmare for your nerves!

Having said that, I've started my holiday season in a very positive state of mind.  After all, November is my favourite month of the year in New York.  The weather is cooler, the clothes are more snuggly, and there's holiday anticipation in the air.

I spent the weekend pulling my winter clothes out of storage and donating whatever summer clothes no longer fit, or which had otherwise seen better days.  I'm no fashionista, but it's great to be back in opaque tights and knee-high boots again.

My first batch of home-made pumpkin soup is now in my fridge, ready to heat and serve after a busy day at work.  Such domesticity has a shelf-life about as long as the soup itself, but let's ignore that.

Central Park is at its most colourful right now, and the Fall Foliage map is a great reference point to see all the trees at their best.

It seems that every day I get emails reminding me to order my Thanksgiving turkey - and every side-dish I could possibly imagine!  I worked out that this year will be my 7th Thanksgiving celebration, which sounds terribly lucky.  While I'd usually prefer savoury dishes over sweet, I can never refuse roasted sweet potatoes topped with toasted marshmallows and brown sugar.  Don't knock 'em till you've tried 'em, honestly!

Equally irresistible are the ticket offers for The Nutcracker and the Radio City Musical Hall Christmas Spectacular, both of which I absolutely love and would see multiple times over.

And I was also a bit excited that the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has been selected on a farm in Pennsylvania, and the 85-foot monster will be felled tomorrow.  The tree-lighting ceremony will be held in New York on 3 December, bringing traffic to a standstill and driving all the locals crazy.  I usually avoid Rockefeller Plaza like the plague, but there is something magical about the ice skating rink and the Christmas tree - even just the promise of them is exciting.

For me, even though there are five times the number of people pushing and shoving for spots on the subway and space on the sidewalk, November in New York will always be an affair to remember.