Thanksgiving!!

It is a well know fact (or at least it should be) that every country does not have the same staple ingredients. For example, instead of vanilla extract, germans use vanilla sugar. I tried to pick out recipies with simple ingredients so that I could be sure that I could find them. Well, I wanted to make a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie (both of which, in my eyes, are Thanksgiving staples). Every pumpkin pie requires pumpkin, and every pecan pie requires cornsyrup. Well, the season for pumpkins is over, and my hostgrandmother had never heard of cornsyrup before. I assumed that cornsyrup and molassis are the same thing (I´m still not sure), and asked her if she knew what that was. She did, but said that we can use a molassis made from sugar from turnips instead (it tastes a little different , but still good). She had also never heard of pecans before. I´m almost sure that they do not exist in Germany, because everyone I asked, my hostfamily and some people in school, had no idea what a pecan nut was. So I used walnuts instead. All in all, the pecan pie turned out well. As for the pumpkin pie. As I said, pumpkins are no longer in season, and there is no way that I can buy canned spiced pie-ready pumpkin puree here, so I got a little desperate. I figured any pumpkin is better than no pumpkin, so I bought some sweet and sour pumpkins (in a jar). Well, they were a lot more sour than I had hoped (I had hoped that they wen´t sour at all, but I knew that wouldn´t happen in the label says sweet and sour on it). The whole batter tasted a little sour, so I tried to dilute it with sugar, honey, cinnamin and nutmeg, but you can only do so much. In the end, it didn´t taste posionous, but it lacked that punchy pumpkin taste that pumpkin pies usually have. Oh well. All in all, the meal went well. Everything tasted good, a little different, but good. My host grandma said that I earned a masters degree in cooking for the meal, but she is highly exagerating.

Happy Thanksgiving! Sorry I haven´t written for so long. The past week has been pretty packed. My host parents went to Spain last Saturday (they are taking a 10 day vacation), so my host moms parents came to be with us for the week. Helga and Heinz (my host grandparents) are amazing. Anyway. Last weekend Will came to visit. He came with a bunch of people from his school. That was fun because we go to see a lot of interesting things around Berlin that I hadn´t been able to see yet. There are so many interesting things in Berlin that it is impossible to see all of them in just one weekend, but we saw a lot. Then, on Monday, I started preparing for Thanksgiving. I´m planning of preparing Thanksgiving dinner for my family, so I figured that if normal families cook the whole day or two days for this meal, and they´ve done it before, it would probably be a good idea to start a week ahead of time. So, on Monday I looked up the recipies, went grocery shopping with Helga, and prepared two pie crusts (I had no school, so I had more time to prepare). I also made the cranberry sauce (wich doesn´t actually have much cranberries in it). The grocery shopping was a little difficult because they don´t have everything I need here (such as pumkin puree), so I have to improvise a little bit. On Tuesday I finished the pies (pecan and pumpkin, except that pecans seem to not exist in Germany, so I used walnuts, and I had to use pumpkin that was a little sour, so I´m not sure if I´m going to serve that or not). On Wednesday, I had no time, so today I have to make the turkey (just the breast, not the whole bird), the potatoes, and the green beans. It shouldn´t be too hard. Everything tastes a little different than at home because the ingredients are a little different, but it still tastes good.

I just wanted to put up a quick catch-up post. I changed families yesterday, and am currently living with the Flegels. They have four kids (2 are older and have moved out of the house, the others are 10 and 18). I live right next to Park Sansoussi (a beautiful park), and the family is amazingly nice. I´ll explain a little bit more later, but right now, I have to finish my Kust homework (Kunst = art). Good night!