thanksgiving chewicide

For those of you who don't know, "chewicide" is the action you take when you are completely full and then decide to eat more. This unfortunate affliction overtook a small group of students and their roommates in Hanoi around dinner time last night. It was a sad, delicious evening.

Though we all knew that it wouldn't be quite the exact same as what was happening at home, we decided to organize our very own Thanksgiving dinner. We spent several weeks in planning, had a team go out to buy all the groceries, rented out an industrial kitchen, invited all our roommates and put together a feast to remember. This was no small task. We were all in the kitchen for four hours working like a well-oiled machine. There was not a single crisis. Some memorable items on our menu were deviled eggs, salad, garlic bread, fruit salad, cornbread, chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and corn, green bean casserole, mac and cheese, and batata casserole. As far as desserts go, we had both banana and chocolate pudding, yam pie, apple crisp, coconut cake and pineapple upside down cake.

Ann and Sami peeling potatoes and apples.

Kavya makes Pineapple upside down cake while Divya and Joey plot how to dominate their coconut cake, Paula Dean style.

Just a few of the dishes like cornbread, fruit salad, garlic bread, deviled eggs and curried cauliflower.

My contribution was the batata casserole. I was going to do a sweet potato casserole, but we couldn't find sweet potatoes, and batatas are pretty much sweet potatoes only they are a little more starchy and white. I had a recipe, but I mostly just winged it. The batatas, once peeled, were turning crazy colors which made me think they were rotten, but they still smelled and tasted really good, so I persevered on. It turned out really well, and I was really proud of myself! The truth is, it's really hard to mess up something that involves brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg with a walnut, butter, sugar and flour topping. I would have had to work really hard to make that not taste good.

Tara was kind enough to give a pre-meal speech about the story of Thanksgiving and what it means for us. We then went around the room and had to say two things: 1) something we are thankful for and 2) something silly that we are thankful for. Many were thankful for the food, the new friends, the opportunity to be in Hanoi, family, and so on. Some of the memorable silly ones from our roommates involved discarded diets and friends who tell us that we are cute.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening. I thought that I would be more homesick because my Thanksgiving at home is a marathon of good food, great friends and so much family. However, this was just a new way to do Thanksgiving. There was so much joy and friendship to celebrate! I whole-heartedly say that I am thankful for all of my friends in Hanoi, both Vietnamese and UNCers. We came together to pull of one of the best holidays I could ever have asked for. My body is still trying to process the butter (25 sticks for the whole meal) and dairy that it hasn't seen for the past three months.

Let the Christmas music commence.