Japanese people know everything they need to know about Oregon.

As I left the ticket gate at the train station on my way to work this morning, I accidentally kicked something on the ground that make a little "clink" sound. Looking down to make sure I hadn't dropped anything, I thought I saw a bottle cap. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be something far more spectacular: a little pin-back button. But this isn't any ordinary button; it is a concisely-worded treasure map. If you know what I mean.

I'm bragging about my dinner

Last Friday I held my annual Thanksgiving dinner party with a couple of my housemates.  I think this is the one tradition that I've done every year that I've been in Japan- it's my favorite holiday, so I like to share it.

We don't always have an easy time procuring all of the ingredients we need to make the "real" Thanksgiving dishes, but we do a pretty good job of improvising.  And this year there were new recipes!  My housemate Eli made his family recipe for cranberry-citrus compote (which we used as cranberry sauce and was also delightful when added to our pre-dinner gin and tonics) and also made poached pears in spiced red wine.

Pre-funking with Eli's "holiday" gin and tonics

Yummy poached pears

Full disclosure: we cheated with the gravy (it came from a packet), the chicken (cooked by Costco) and the dessert (also courtesy of Costco...), but everything else was prepared in our own kitchen.  By the time we were all ready to go, we had quite a spread!

Our Thanksgiving meal was complimented by sour cream and onion chips, courtesy of Jay...

 
This was, in fact, the most "American" Thanksgiving I've celebrated in Japan, meaning that I had a record three Americans in attendance, along with one of our Japanese roommates who happened to be in just the right place at just the right time. :)

My plate. Wasn't it beautiful?

The biggest short-coming of our authentic American meal was the lack of pumpkin pie.  In Japan, Costco usually carries it around this time of year, so I was feeling optimistic when I went to pick one up.  But when I finally made it to the bakery section...much to my surprise, no pie!

Hoping that I'd overlooked it, I asked one of the staff.  She took a few moments to think about it before finally suggesting that they might have had it, but had sold out.  By that time I had realized that she probably didn't know what pumpkin pie was, but she had to tell me something and "sold out" was the safest answer.

I begrudgingly settled on a cake that would have to serve as a shoddy substitute (pumpkin pie is irreplaceable...), but things turned out not to be quite as disappointing as I'd prepared myself for.  We repurposed some of the spiced wine from Eli's poached pears as a sauce, and drizzled it over the top of our slices of ricotta cheese and apple cake and it was delightful!  The spices from the wine made it taste very much like we thought a holiday cake should.  (Yay for cinnamon!)

In the end, I think we had a meal that pretty much any American expat would have been proud (read: jealous) of.  My guests have already tried reserving their places for next year. :)