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Living
for a year in Siberia was bound to results in a few laughs. There was no
funnier time than my effort to celebrate Thanksgiving.
The
Set Up
As
an American male, my idea of cooking was dropping by the local Chinese
restaurant on my way home from work. We are talking about a person who
considers cooking rice a culinary challenge of the highest order. This
lack of skill came to the forefront while spending a year teaching at a
university in the Siberian city of Chita.
Thanksgiving
Experiencing
the Russian culture was one of my primary reasons for moving to Siberia.
Experiencing the American culture was apparently one of the prime reasons
the University hired me. These conflicting view points resulted in every
Russian and American holiday being celebrated, even if it wouldn’t have
been otherwise.
As
the end of November approached, I started getting questions about
Thanksgiving. My Russian peers and students were particularly interested
in the concept of Thanksgiving dinner. In turn, I started asking seemingly
innocent food related questions and was pleased to learn most of the
necessary food items were not available in the local market. This included
turkeys, cranberries and so on. Then I made my mistake.
Since
the ingredients weren’t available, I began to mouth off about the
injustice of missing Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, how I could cook a turkey.
To bad everyone would miss out on it. The moral trifecta of justice, fate
and karma rose up to put me in my place.
The
uncle of someone’s brother was flying in from Moscow. If I created a
list, he would buy everything and bring it on the flight.
I
was in deep, deep trouble.
Reverting
to the times of my youthful indiscretions, I immediately did what anyone
in my situation would. I emailed my mother for help. The first response
was, “Very funny. You’re going to cook?” After explaining the
situation, I received a very long list of instructions written at a third
grade level. “This is a knife” and so on…
Well,
the magic day came and everything went shockingly well. The turkey tasted
like turkey. The stuffing tasted like stuffing. Heck, the cranberries even
came out red. Then it was time for the gravy.
In
Siberia, you do not buy ingredients in pre-packaged bags. Instead, you buy
everything in a clear plastic bag with no label. In theory, you should
arrange everything at home so you know what it is when it comes time to
cook. Thus did the flour adventures again.
Cooking
instructions were read. Turkey juices went into the pan. Instructions were
read. Flour went into the pan. Instructions were read. Constant stirring
was undertaken. Instructions were read. Water was added.
Feeling
cocky, I then did a tasting sample and nearly choked. The gravy was
incredibly salty and exceedingly chunky. I added more water, but there was
no change. For the next 20 minutes, I kept adding water and stirring. The
gravy just kept getting chunkier, tasted horrible and actually began to
smoke!
After
awhile, one of my female students came into the kitchen to find out what
was going on. She blanched as she tasted the gravy. We went through the
instructions and I made a passing reference to my suspicion the flour
might be bad.
She
took one look at the flour and started laughing. Hysterically. She was
laughing so hard she couldn’t tell me the reason in English and my
Russian was pretty bad. She recovered after a few minutes and gave me the
English translation.
I
had grabbed the stuff used to paste over holes in the wall, not the flour.
Put another way, I was making turkey drywall.
No
wonder it was so chunky!
After
the crowd left, I repaired a door knob hole in my bathroom.
Rick Chapo is
with http://www.nomadjournals.com
- makers of writing journals. Outdoor activity and travel journals make
great Christmas gifts for him and her. Visit http://www.nomadjournaltrips.com
for more travel and outdoor activities articles and stories.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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