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in Bangalore…. Love seat and chair reupholstering. These guys brought
all their own equipment and completed the work in 1.5 days. Amazing!

Originally we had planned to really try to get into Thanksgiving by partaking in the Taj hotel’s advertised “Thanksgiving leftovers’. But as the chef seemed to have a hard time finding his Thanksgiving dinner groove on Thanksgiving night we figured that trying to gut the leftovers of that meal would be like rubbing salt in our wounds (and paying someone lots of money to grind the salt in deep for us). So we decided to go with plan B, suck it up and pay the rather inflated price for a bird (some how branded an ‘American Turkey’ although I’m not quite sure how they imported it. Maybe just a turkey wearing American genes.). This of course meant some process planning. I haven’t seen a toaster over yet that can handle a Turkey, especially an ‘American’ turkey so the BIG question was “how in the heck are we going to cook the thing if we get it?”

Option 1: Last year we deep fried a Turkey. The oil itself was more expensive then the bird. Not to mention that, although tasty, deep frying really isn’t that healthy. Its also dangerous. Its also hard to find a pot big enough to fit a bird and oil into. And after last year I had been counting my blessings that I didn’t end up with a burn somehow.

Option 2: Grill. But no one has a grill big enough for cooking a Turkey here. Grilling is really just catching on as a method of cooking and Webers, though available, are costly.

Option 3: Tandoor oven. Yes, if you didn’t know a few of us went out and bought ourselves Tandoors. We’ve experimented with many things in those tandoori’s but this would be the ultimate challenge. So we took it up. After some research and Turkey prep and kitchen slaving to make the side dishes and pies, we had ourselves a REAL AMERICAN TURKEY!! (but cooked in a tandoori oven)

I’ll save you the read and just give a brief picture story.

The Turkey – Skewered, rubbed, and sliced to cook fast and throughout:

The side dish and pie cook:

The injector (purchased from the local vet) and marinade:

The Beer – yes, it is STRONG:

The bird ready to get in the oven:

The Tandoor, Chiminey, and Coal – Yes it does look like a 50 gallon garbage can and yes we are using REAL charcoal:

The finished product which actually tasted as good as it looked:

The Thanksgiving dinner table with the Thorne’s (our ‘other family’):

The effects of Turkey in India are no different than in teh states… maybe it really WAS an American turkey:

For additional pics and info please visit the Thornes bolg

Thanksgiving in Bangalore feels a bit like any other day here. The sun is hot, the streets are dry and dusty, and no one seems to have that “Lets pig out and watch football” attitude…. except for a few people that I know. I guess that’s because there really is no reason to celebrate Thanksgiving here. No Abraham Lincoln to declare the last Thursday in November as the day to remember the Pilgrims, how they landed on Plymouth rock, and how the Natives, ironically called ‘Indians’, helped them learn the lay of the land and produce sustenance to survive. Or at least that is how I always had remembered it.

Well, that same general feeling of non-Thanksgiving-ness continues its dull existence through Thanksgiving night. Let me amend that statement slightly. Even though every American expat that I know here in Bangalore is thinking about Thanksgiving dinner even in the car ride to work its just not Thanksgiving here in Bangalore. We all reminisce about holidays past but there is no shopping buzz, no Christmas music, we know that football here is really soccer (so no NFL) and we’re pretty sure that even though there are a lot of Indians, there is no understanding of Thanksgiving.

I will say that there are some restaurants that do know that it is Thanksgiving somewhere. They advertise it happily and charge through the nose for their effort. But we wanted Thanksgiving, albeit the easy way. So we decided to get the Target gang together and head to one of those restaurants. It was nice to have freinds together celebrating the day. It really started to feel like Thanksgiving in a very chic, upscale, “Yeah, we know what Thanksgiving is” sort of a way that only a grand hotel chain like the Taj can put on.

It went like this. I got off of work (first that’s just wrong because I’m not supposed to be working on Thanksgiving) went and had drinks while listening to Techno (also wrong anytime), then headed to dinner in the hotel courtyard. The company was nice. It really made the night. BUT, there was dinner. Each plate consisted of dry hard turkey breast slice, some brown sauce, a sweet potato or something and what has been described as some sort of pate or cat food. The chef did redeem himself with his pumpkin pie and some mysterious potato hash brown dish that ended up on teh kids table somehow. Luckily being a dad of one kid at the kids table I had the opportunity to “clean up” after the kids

Here is the brilliant dinner plate:

Here are the kids ‘giving thanks’ that we let them escape the dinner table with food still on their plates:

All in all a Thanksgiving that was only made palatable by good freinds and some pie.

This past weekend we took a quick trip 3 hours south of Bangalore to a place called Georgia Sunshine Village. We took the trip with 3 other families, the Thornes, the Kiothi’s, and the Camerons. We tried our best to get an early start and only left 30 minutes after schedule on Saturday. On the way out of town we stopped at Kamat for breakfast of idly, dosa, pongal, and chai. Great as usual. Then he headed out with our bellies full and morning hunger satisfied.

On the way we passed through many sugar cane and rice fields. We even managed to get a fresh piece of sugar cane to eat.

We arrived in time for a swim in the ice cold pool, a quick refreshment, and then lunch. After lunch a few of the kids took a run around the property, which is really out there and far removed from civilization. As I was watching Elise and Eman made dirt balls, Preston and Jessica started yelling “we found a scorpion!” Since I was 20 yards away I was a bit worried that they might try to imitate their favorite outdoors man and local Herpetologist Gerry Martin who sometimes shows the kids snakes and scorpions. But the kids knew well enough to keep their distance. “The small ones are the most dangerous!” they kept saying. When I got over to them I saw that it was indeed one of the small ones.

It quickly zipped back and forth illustrating its speed then zipped down a hole. We lifted a couple more rocks after that, found a couple more lizards and centipedes that I was informed were poisonous then figured we had enough good luck for one day.

Later that night we all hung out around a bonfire and on the porch and played games. At one point I headed back to our room, which by the way, you could consider rustic as it had an all open air bathroom. I found out that night that an open air bathroom allows a simple means for…. whatever.. to enter your living area. As I walked into the bathroom with the lights still off (they were attracting these big mayfly looking things) I decided to use the facilities. I walked closer and there staring up at me from the bottom of the toilet was a squirrel! I had a hotel attendant come and fish him out. In one motion he grabbed the squirrel and tossed it over the wall never to be seen again.

The next morning a few of us grownups and kids went of a nice nature walk that included spotting lots of farming projects, villages, and even gave us some interesting river crossings. After breakfast we headed out to the real attraction of the area, the waterfalls.

Gaganchukki

We took a few quick pics here and moved on to the next set of falls, Bharrachukki.

The stairs down were steep and slippery

The scene at the bottom was “normal”

We took a coracle ride

One of the coracle tenders was a Slipknot fan I wanted to take him back up the van and let him listen to Slipknot on the iPod. I wasn’t to sure he had actually ever heard them.

We crossed the treacherous stream to teh other side of the falls with Preston on my back

With all the obligatory activities completed we started the arduous journey back up the steps. Elise hitched a ride on yours truly. A cool coconut water at the top to help catch our breath and we headed home. All in all, a great adventurous weekend.

Stacy joins the millions of Indian’s using “two-wheelers” as transportation. She hitched a ride with our cook, Mrs. Pinto, to a party up the block. Yes, that is a margarita in her hand.