Thanksgiving Tha Thom Style

November 24th marked our second Thanksgiving in Tha Thom. We remember craving the wonderful tastes of home cooking last year, but since we weren’t able to make such a meal we opted for introducing local residents to pancakes. If you want a reminder check out Taste of Home.

This year we find ourselves living in a beautiful home, blessed with a garden, market with varying vegetables and fruit, a large cooking area plus a NEW addition of a gas stove! With such wealth we decided to try our hand at making our own Thanksgiving meal – Tha Thom style.

Cooking and Listening to Toons

During the dry season the local market is a beautiful burst of colorful, local, fresh produce, but finding the necessary ingredients for our meal required some searching. After looking we located some HUGE sweet potatoes from a nearby village (American football size), various produce from the local market and of course a turkey - ours weighed in at 6 kilos (13 lbs)! Sadly no potatoes or squash were to be found, but an MCC'er was able to bring some from Vientiane.

Spit Roasting our Bird

After cooking all day long, our landlord, his wife, two children and father joined us. We feasted on mashed potatoes, squash, stuffing, turkey, gravy, pickled kale (and some real pickles, too!), bread, sweet potato with pudding and of course ‘squash-kin’ pie! Oh, and it should be noted that there was also sticky rice at the table – no Lao meal could be complete without it! Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, but I was most impressed that Pa (our landlord’s father) tried every dish at the table.

Feasting with Guests

We are certainly thankful to be in our own home. What a blessing to share with our neighbors, to feast and celebrate together.