Thanksgiving 2017

Tuncay invited us over for Thanksgiving --- something you do not want to say no to. We had very nontraditional Thanksgiving foods: amazing foie gras, wonderful meatz and cheeses for lunch, and a full dinner with sous vide duck (pictured above).



We started with pumpkin soup which was even better than it looked.



Then we had this beautiful salad with goat cheese.



And then there was the pièce de résistance: duck that was first sous vided, and then pan fried.



Also, veggies.

We are very thankful to Tuncay!

Thanksgiving

And Now: A Message from Our Dentist

Thanksgiving part 2

After the thanksgiving lunch at our secretary's house, we joined a colleague for Thanksgiving dinner.

Apart from more Turkey and homemade Romanian wine, we were treated to five children holding fashion shows, performing circus acts, and god-knows-what-else.

Giving Thanks

Yesterday, we gave thanks for the fact that we don't have to live in Germany anymore (hopefully, no Germans read this blog :)

We were invited by our department's secretary, who celebrates Thanksgiving with three of her grand sons, and her three cats.







Frans spent most of his time sprawled on the floor to take cat pics, but also managed to get up at some point to take a few photos of our secretary's snowman collection.

She has about 400 of them, but apparently this one is her favorite.

Giving thanks

To be honest, it was not so bad. A Mexican guy brought some tortilla (= Beijing duck pancakes) with I-forgot-what-it-is-called meat and salsa, which was great. A fellow postdoc brought some food made by the Chinese grandma (his own) that he is keeping locked up in his apartment (just kidding about the locked up part-- I think). And then there was the obligatory turkey, sweet potato roast etc, which I guess you have to have more emotional ties with than we do, to fully appreciate them...

I know I should not be saying this, but I will do so anyway, because many of our readers are American(ish) and I recently learned that tooting your own horn is encouraged/expected in the U.S. of A.*: my favorite dish of the evening BY FAR was the apple pie with cardamom scented cream.



* Apparently, on page 86 of this book they recommend that Chinese people dealing with Americans develop an "Understanding that modesty is equated with low self-confidence and that enhancing and crediting oneself is expected."

"Thanksgiving" - epic fail

Here is what we will be bringing to the "Thanksgiving" party in a few moments.

As you can see, we failed miserably.



The sweet potatoes are about as watery as they were yesterday (apparently, storing overnight in the refrigerator does not remedy this).



The mashed potatoes lack any chicken-y flavor, and where are the onion-y bits?



The apple pie smells funny, of some weird foreign spices. Even worse, the whipped cream that goes with it does not come from a hygienic spray can, and -- oh horror! -- it seems like someone accidently spilled some cardamom in it!

We can only hope that our fellow postdocs won't notice.

"Thanksgiving"

Being completely Americanized as we are, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow (admittedly three days late) with our fellow postdocs. However, seeing how we are always complaining about our work environment, I would not be surprised if our blog post on this event will be more "Complaintgiving" then "Thanksgiving".

Now, I know that some (all?) of you think that we are nasty whining people, who complain about our poor coworkers who surely are very nice and interesting people once you get to know them.... we have hair-raising news that will change your mind (although maybe not about us being nasty whining people):

During the yesterday's planning meeting it turned out that none of the other postdocs can cook. Gasp!!!



The fact that they say this is bad enough in itself.



But wait until you hear how badly they cannot cook: They believe that the way to make mashed potatoes is to use a sachet with instant grossness. Yuk!



When F said we would volunteer to make the mashed potatoes, he was queried extensively on how he would undertake such a challenging mission. Understandably, F has been terribly upset the rest of the day.


Come back tomorrow to find out whether or not F will succeed in peeling, cooking and then mashing some potatoes, possibly with the addition of some butter and cream. Oooohhhh, sounds hard!!!!

Thanksgiving

Obligatory turkey:

And as an added bonus:
Emma and b.t., BFF!