Deployed Thanksgivings are hard
This isn't my wife's and my first deployed Thanksgiving together, and we had several of them apart before we met, but it's still never easy.
We did get a turkey. They're called "chini murgh" ("China Chicken"
here. They're called "turkey" in English because the Puritans confused them with peacocks (which they wrongly thought were from the country Turkey); they're called "dinde", "Of India", in French; in Spanish "chompiche", again, "of Asia".
Ironically, the one undisputed North American dish is pretty predictably glossed as coming from Asia. C'est la vie.
The turkey was live when we picked it, and the butcher slaughtered and plucked it later that day. It was a bit more thigh-heavy and breast-light than a Butterball, but damn it was good. For reference:
We took the turkey and covered it in one gallon of water, into which we poured a cup of salt and the juice of seven lemons (but these were Indian lemons, which are basically like key limes; in the US use two yellow lemons). We left it overnight in the water.
Come morning, we put the turkey in the rangetop smoker with foil on top, and hickory smoked it for an hour.
Once it was done smoking, we stuffed more lemons, onions, sage, rosemary, thyme, and parsley into the cavity, and placed it in the oven at 450 for one hour.
When it came out... my God. Crispy skin. Smoked, brined meat. Damn, that was good.
But Thanksgiving isn't really about food. We miss our families, being stationed overseas as we are. And we aren't the worst cases. The Marine guards at the consulate are mostly 21 and 22 year old kids who have never been away from home before. They had a Thanksgiving dinner they made amongst themselves, but we brought some of my cornbread stuffing and two dozen donuts from the newly-opened Mumbai Krispy Kreme (it really is exactly like the ones in the US, praise be).
Anyways: it's always hard to face the holidays without the people you love, so this is just a shout-out to all the other DUers dealing with this. It's also a statement of gratitude for everyone on DU: I'm glad I've "met" you guys here. Take care, all, and happy Thanksgiving.
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Homesickness is an awful thing.
That turkey does sound delicious.
