CONTEST: "The Keyword of the Week"/ Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving is always on the 4th Thursday of November, but I feel it is right around the corner in our community, so I am here with my story of the same so that I left with no last-minute stress.

  
Let me confess as we reached Australia about 12 years ago, we had just a faint idea of this celebration, but I was surprised to see that Australians had almost no idea of Thanksgiving, barring a few Canadians, Americans, and British. You know Australia is all about people from 80 different countries around the world, and when you check their population of a little over 25 million, outsiders make up a large percentage of the population of Australia.

So on our first Thanksgiving Day, it was a public holiday everywhere but not in Australia and very few people celebrated this day with their families and friends by sharing a traditional Thanksgiving meal and giving thanks for all the good things in life.

My wife wanted to show her culinary expertise to the locals, so she decided to throw a Thanksgiving party. She had no idea about the Thanksgiving party. She knew how to cook but most of her recipes were typically Indian. She wanted to learn all about Thanksgiving traditions and how to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. She had heard that Americans and British living in Australia celebrate Thanksgiving Day by gathering with family and friends to share a traditional meal.

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I told her their food on this day is roast turkey, messed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and homemade pumpkin pie. While my wife had not even heard these names. She said, "Nothing doing, they would be our guests so they would eat what we cooked." Okay, but I am not sure they would even know how to eat what you'll cook for them.

She started reading and watching Thanksgiving feast ideas on different social media platforms and local recipe magazines provided by Coles and Woolworths. I was shuttling around different malls and food stores to look for her preferences.

Meanwhile, I knew planning a Thanksgiving party was not easy, and making a guest list was even tougher. That's right, I didn't know enough people to make a list of guests, so I relied on my coworkers and our neighbors as the first step in planning a Thanksgiving party.

While she was planning a Thanksgiving dinner menu I was busy making a list of guests. Finally, we decorated our house to make it look like we were doing it properly. After all, that was the first step towards getting our guests into the spirit and mood of the festival.

Finally, Thanksgiving day arrived, but I was wondering how we would manage it without the traditional pumpkins, cornucopias, etc. She had no idea that planning a Thanksgiving was going to be so stressful for me. I was kind of amazed at how relaxed she was.

Finally, our first guest arrived around 7.30 and then they all came within the next 15 minutes and soon our side table was full of different wines and champagnes. our guests were now sitting comfortably in the sitting room waiting for the dinner and she was busy setting the dining table. Incidentally, there were just 12 of us there were 10 guests and two of us. Three of the invited women decided to help her set the table and I could see a glimpse of surprise on their faces.

So my wife had made a collection of food dishes for the royal feasts. She made sweet pulao (sweet rice) Kheer (made of rice cooked in milk), royal vegetable kebabs, chutney, and pickles. I didn't know how much our guests would like the chapatis, parathas, and gravy with a lot of spices made by her. She had done what she knew best without taking into account who among them was 'Indian' and who was a 'foreigner'.

But I was surprised to note that everyone enjoyed the food and said something that made her happy. Trust me, everyone was happy with the food, or at least no one said a word that showed their disapproval.

Finally, the dinner ended, and everyone left with a big thanks for us. So that was our first Thanksgiving dinner. Later, we learned a little more, but our guests insisted on her original preparation, and as the number of guests increased with every passing year, so did her list of items and her fans. My wallet kept getting thinner, but my liquor cabinet was never empty.

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