Thanksgiving is one of my favorite U.S. holidays. I don’t particularly enjoy the cold fall Midwest weather during that time of the year but what I do love is the food. So this year, we wanted to bring Thanksgiving to Poland and we decided to celebrate it in Grajewo, my home town. We still had to figure out all the dishes involved, the recipes for those dishes and whether we were going to be able to gather the proper ingredients here. First order of business was the turkey. Where and how were we going to secure a fresh farm raised turkey here in Poland. Marzena (my step-mother) was put in charge of that task. Then it was the “need” list of items and ingredients that were needed but not available in Poland. Babcia Grażynka to the rescue. We put together a list of items we’d need and Grandma would send us a package with those items from the U.S. We had about two months before the holiday to make this happen. It took about five weeks for the package to arrive with plenty of time to spare. The turkey was also reserved for our specified date. Marzena found a local farm that raised a few turkeys for their own family and were willing to sell one to us. Our bird weighed about 10 kilos or 22 pounds. It was the smallest one they had but it was a good size for the nine of us including three kids. We had everything secured for a successful Thanksgiving in Poland. We ended up leaving Tarnów on November 29th with a Turkey Day planned for December 1st.
The turkey was brined a day prior to soften the meat a bit and to make sure that it would be tasty. Then the day has finally come and Sylwia got to work.
Everything turned out as delicious as we were accustomed to back home. Mission accomplished.
