Tacksgiving*

Germans don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so the holiday just passed us by without much ado, except we missed it a little when we heard Thanksgiving wishes from people back home. But we also knew that Jacqueline was planning some kind of meal for us in Stockholm—and we were not disappointed. She and Dado prepared us a spectacular feast, with all the elements of a traditional Thanksgiving meal, plus a few surprises.

Jacqueline showed Gwen Wren how to make cranberry sauce from scratch—no gelatinous can-shaped blob for this meal!

Dado, though Finnish, was no stranger to the ways of the turkey.

Dado put me to work making some bread, with his tutelage.

Our first course was gravlox with Finnish bread—delicious!

Followed by a refreshing salad course.

The third course was the coup de gras, with turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. It was just like a Thanksgiving meal back home (a particularly good one, mind you)—with the addition of a traditional Finnish Christmas dish. Dado said it was “cabbage root,” which is, according to Wikipedia anyhow, the same thing as rutabaga.

What did Gwendolyn think? We got the idea that she would prefer some milk.

Desert was crème caramel…

…AND pumpkin pie. This picture is a little blurry; by that point, my vision was a little blurry from eating so much food (not to mention the wine and beer).

I knew we had been treated right when Gwendolyn and I fell into the traditional Thanksgiving stupor. Or at least mine was a Thanksgiving stupor. I suppose Gwen Wren’s was just her normal, late-afternoon-nap stupor.

I wish my belly had been as slender as Gwendolyn’s after the meal.

The next morning, Dado and Gwen Wren each reflected on their first Thanksgiving. They both decided it was a delightful tradition worth revisiting for years to come.

*Tack=thanks in Swedish.