Shopping for Thanksgiving

If I were back in the USA, I'd be knee-deep in Thanksgiving leftovers (not a bad place to be) or battling my way through bargain shoppers at the mall. Of course, only American-ex-pats celebrate Thanksgiving, but dinner shopping was more difficult than I thought. To start with, I didn't see a single fresh turkey at my local Sainsbury's because any sensible local would know that turkey is for Christmas -- not the odd Thursday in November. The boys reminded me that they would really would prefer roasted chicken with stuffing. Ah well, it IS still a bird and less leftovers because we have fewer people eating them.

Cranberries! Yes, cranberries are available in the produce department, but I didn't see any of the canned cranberry sauce of past years. Again, the boys reminded me that they really didn't like cranberries, and Mark admitted that he really just tolerated them in honor of the day.

Then I looked around for a frozen pumpkin pie, giving in to the fact that I don't really have the right equipment to make a homemade pie. I couldn't find a single pumpkin pie, cake, muffin, cookie, tart... nothing! Pumpkin pie is one of my favorite parts of the meal, even if we usually have to wait about three hours for the rest of the meal to digest before we can even look at the first slice. In the end, I settled for toffee cheesecake, which was absolutely delicious, and comes in a lovely fall caramel color. Of course, the next time I see a can of Libby's pumpkin on either side of the ocean, I'm going to grab it!