Lars and I took off Friday afternoon to make a Thanksgiving feast in the house he grew up in. We made the now familiar three hour drive to Tynset and relaxed that evening, making some dinner and catching up. I also made some layered jello salad and my grandma's famous cheese pie in preparation for the feast the next day.
(Downtown Tynset)
The next morning it was into town to pick up some last minute fixings and of course to visit
Waagans for some coffee and cakes.
I ordered the same thing I do every time there--a latte and Napoleanskake. The cake is seriously the most delicious treat and it goes really well with coffee. I am not sure if it has another name in English (it literally translates to Napolean's cake
not Bonaparte's but Napoli's) or if any of you have tried it before, but man oh man I hope I can learn to make it. Although I do think trying to compete with
Waagans' version is a bit of a lost cause. Lars and I have done a bit of
Napoleanskake sampling and honestly no bakery can compete.
And then it was back to Fåset to get our gobble on. Normally in the Gilbert household the turkey gets prepared and into the oven nice and early in the day to prepare for a 4pm ish meal. This year we were shooting for a 7pm ish evening launch. I worked on the stuffing while Lars made the green bean casserole. Randi had taken charge of the turkey (and later made some awesome gravy from the juices). Stine set the table and Jan tidied up the place to prepare for our guests. It was truly a group effort; it made the preparation seem so easy when everyone pitched in (and all the shopping was done beforehand).
Gjertrud and Vidar arrived around 7 and the food was ready to go. After accepting their generous contributions of wine and chocolates we all sat in the living room for a pre-meal toast of...apple cider. That's right, APPLE CIDER.
Last year Gitta and I searched and searched and searched to find some of the fizzy beverage that reminded us so much of our childhood Thanksgivings. We thought it was just another piece to really make this American holiday abroad complete, but we had no luck. This year we had it aplenty (guess I just didn't know where to look). But enough about the cider--on to more important things. While everyone was waiting patiently in the living room Lars and I could finally dish out our big surprise: turkey hats!
Oh yeah, we are
that cool spending much more time than necessary crafting construction paper turkey head bands for everyone (names included). Let me tell you, this made for lots of laughs. Imagine trying to take someone serious with a turkey plastered across their forehead? It's really not possible!
(Me, Stine, Gjertrud toasting before dinner)
The dinner was a total success. Everyone was happy with the food, and helped themselves to seconds! Now that's the American spirit! The pie was also warmly welcomed, with coffee, drinks, laughs and games galore. It was the perfect Norwegian-American Thanksgiving. The only thing that was missing was the cranberry sauce
(plus about 14 other family members, but who's counting?).
I must say that I never would have thought that I would be expressing what I was thankful for in a foreign language. But I guess no matter what language it is in the list stays the same...and I must add that I am beyond grateful to add this group of Norwegians to that long and growing list.
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This is mormor, or my grandma on my mom's side. I totally dig that in Norwegian you rarely have to ask to clarify which side of the family grandparents come from, by the way. It is seldom that Norwegians use the generic grandparent words (bestemor in this case also means grandmother); instead they use mormor (mom's mom) or farmor (dad's mom) to make it known who is who. This, coincidentaly, can give a lot of Poulsbohemians insight into what the heck that restaurant downtown is called and why (Mormor Bistro and Bar)!
