Happy Thanksgiving!/canal turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We've planned to have a potluck Thanksgiving since before reading week, but it really started to gel the week after the week off. We ended up deciding to set up a "turkey day" Tesco.com (a major grocery chain here) account so they'll just deliver our food, and we'll split the costs. It's a good thing, too, since the bill, with coupon, came to about 75 British pounds (GBP). The cart had 96 items, and almost didn't get delivered on the day it was supposed to because half of our stuff was in another truck in North London (we're in East London). I told them that I must have it tonight, tomorrow night (Thanksgiving) would be too late and that I didn't care if they deliver it late. I just need it that night. Luckily, the food got here not more than 30 minutes after the scheduled delivery time, and with only 2 items substituted. So all is well.

I was in charge of salad, so I bought romaine, generic lettuce (the package said "lettuce") and baby spinach. And cheese and onions and all the other fun salad side stuff. Cutting six onions into rings was especially fun.

We had so much food that in order for everything -- not including dessert and utensils, beverages, plates and cups, which all to fit on the kitchen couters -- to fit on the table, we had to just sit around the room with plates on our laps.

The turkey was excellent, considering it was made by someone who has never made turkey before, but the gravy apparently spilled on the stove and caused the fire alarm to go off. We also had amazing corn pudding, green beans, Yorkshire pudding, chocolate chip cookies, mashed potatoes, apple pie, cherry crumble, stuffing, mixed berry pie, ice cream, cranberry sauce and fruit salad. Almost everything was homemade. Pretty good for college kids, I say. :) Will add pictures later. It's pretty impressive, actually.

After dinner, Matt suggested, that in the tradition of tossing food into the canal, that we chuck the carcass of the turkey into the canal, just for kicks. So he laboriously deskinned the turkey and got as much meat out of it as possible. But before the actual turkey-tossing, someone (I think Matt) dared Ethan to put the skin of the turkey on his face .... and he accepted the challenge. So there are pictures of Ethan's face covered with turkey skin among those of us with cameras. That will also be soon posted.

Once the meat and skin were taken off the turkey, someone (not Matt, but don't know who) had the idea to draw a face on the turkey, and so Aaron did the deed. The turkey sported eyes, a smiley, carrots for hair, and a strawberry for nose.

And finally, teh group of us, except for Kate, Brian and Aaron, marched down to the canal and tossed the turkey into the canal. It immediately sank to the bottom.

Tomorrow, to get rid of the massive amount of salad still left, we are having a salad party at 1 p.m., so I am sure there will be more revelry to come. :)