Thanksgiving in Dhaka

We spent Thanksgiving here much as we would have in the states, cooking food, socializing, eating food, socializing, eating more food, etc. The party was held at our new friend Kristin's apartment in Gulshan. Kristin is a former Fulbrighter who has stayed on in order build an "eco-resort" tourist destination in southern Bangladesh that she hopes will draw ex-pats out of Dhaka and give them a chance to experience the country away from the city. Kristin likes to entertain (note how the flowers match the table cloth which matches the chairs) but doesn't really cook much. So she envited her friends over to help with the preparations. We baked some pumpkin pies and supervised the roasting of the turkey. Tuni and Clay made mashed potatoes and "orange fluff." Kristin put together a green bean casserole and Jen whipped up some stuffing out of a box. The chief difficulty in preparing the meal was the fact that the numbers on the temperature dial on Kristin's oven bear no correlation to the actual temperature in the oven. So we were forced to use the somewhat low tech stick-your-arm-in-and-see-if-its-hot method of temperature monitoring. Consequently, the turkey took about 2 hours longer to cook than expected. Gee, that's never happened before...

The food was all yummy. The Americans ate plenty. The Deshies ate less. Watching the six-year-old daughter of one of Kristin's friends pick gingerly at the food on her plate we realized, "oh yeah, kids don't like weird food, and this food is weird to them." We had cooked for twenty Americans and so had lots of left-overs. That's all right with me, though, 'cause I love pumpkin pie.