Gan En Jie (Thanksgiving)

Thanksgiving in Chengdu was all the things Thanksgiving should be: hectic preparation of too much food; a motley gathering of near strangers and new friends; time to sit and enjoy our home and the space we have created for ourselves; toasts to loved ones far away. It also involved the little details that made the experience oh-so-Chinese: electric shocks, equipment failure, communication breakdowns, excessive challenge and eventual triumph.

First of all, allow me to introduce our kitchen. It is a narrow, tiled affair roughly the size of a broom closet, boasting a refrigerator, a rinky-dink little china cabinet piled high with spices and stirring utensils, thanks to the space-saving wonders available at Ikea (where everything is now locally made!), and a cold water tap which runs into a sink, which in turn drains into a mysterious splash-down zone, a tiled space with another drain, whose sole function as far as I am able to determine is to accumulate bits of food and generate sulfurous and scrub-resistant smells. Our equipment includes a toaster oven (from which I’ve managed to coax frittatas, cornbread, and biscuits so far), a rice cooker, and some weird flat contraption that is supposed to be a hotplate but which works through some miracle of induction rather than actual heat, will cook only with the tinfoil pan it came with, and whose temperature settings are: lukewarm, scorch, and iron smelt. We actually got the pan to turn red and bubble once while attempting popcorn – there’s nothing that adds a little kick to your snack like toxic metal particulates. Note that all of these items run on electricity – no actual fire is used in the preparation of foods here, unless it is a charcoal barbecue or the propane tank that one calmly straddles while enjoying a bubbling hotpot. We assume this is probably for the best.

So, the day before Thanksgiving, I was about to reheat some rice in our trusty little rice cooker. I plugged the cord into the socket that sits above the counter, the only grounded outlet in the kitchen, and heard a resounding “Zzzzzt!”, like a bug zapper exterminating a small bat. Accustomed to the blue arc effect, I managed not to scream, but jerked my hand away from the socket, realizing that, not only was I barefoot and standing in a small pool of dishwater, but that a sound like that probably meant that I was the most reliable ground around. I checked the rice cooker, to see if the light had gone off. It hadn’t, which meant that both the connection and the pot were live. I reached over to remove the lid, and bumped the metal cover, sending a jolt of electricity through my arm. The entire circuit was hot, including the surface of the rice cooker, all of which is metal, minus the plastic knob that serves as a handle on top. Slipping my rubber sandals back on, I grabbed a wooden spatula and eased the plug out of the socket, wincing at the pops and zaps and hissing noises it made. “Hey Paul?” I yelled, not taking my eyes off the socket, willing it to be still as if I were now staring down a cobra and not a finicky bit of juiced up hardware. He came in, expecting an emergency. “I’m okay,” I said, “Just don’t touch this outlet.” Already chastened by his run-in with the radiator, he was more than happy not to deal with it at all. Cold rice really isn’t that bad, when it’s fresh.

The next day we pedaled happily all over the city, gathering the endless list of groceries we would need for our meal. We were determined to create a traditional dinner, leaving out only the turkey, which I never eat anyway. Most of the guests we’d invited were vegetarians as well, which made the decision easier. I hadn’t been looking forward to buying little quail and attempting to roast them one by one in a toaster. It took four different places to find everything we needed, assisted most of all by the lovely little ladies who run “Sabrina’s Country Kitchen,” a western food specialty store, offering everything from Poptarts to french fried onions, Dr. Pepper to frozen bagels – all at a price for the truly homesick. I assume they must be employees for an American, as few of them speak any English at all, yet their inventory reveals a keen business eye for nailing nostalgic tastes. Things are, of course, even more than they’d cost in the States, which means they are ten times what they should be here, but it’s easy to justify paying 50 yuan (roughly 6 dollars) for a can of pumpkin because, what the hell, it’s Thanksgiving. We found dried sage, cupcake tins, graham crackers, and even a can of whole-berry cranberry sauce. I was in heaven. I kept thinking of that scene in “Pieces of April” when April is being chided by her neighbor for using canned cranberries:
“I like it from the can,” she whines.
“Nobody likes it from the can.”
They do if they’re in China.

We returned home, our bikes creaking with the burden of groceries for 7 people, and that didn’t even include the fresh vegetables, which Paul went out for alone as I started cooking. I have always loved Thanksgiving – it seems like the most genuine of all the holidays, the one with the emotional intention still intact, the one most resistant to commercial spoilage. I know for many it means agonizing prolonged contact with family members who don’t like one another; it means drinking to excess to relieve the awkward silences; it means staring at football to avoid conversation; it means sitting in traffic or a freezing airport lounge. Screw that. For me it’s always been about having the opportunity to celebrate the richness that American culture can be, the ease with which we can feed one another if we all contribute a little, the Stone Soup of it all, the stories and new and fascinating dynamics of strangers and orphans and travelers combining for a warm, elaborate meal. I love the smells – the cinnamon and nutmeg, the sage and frying onions and rich dark wine. I love the candles and the sound of plates being set, and the tiny fragments of conversation and laughter that mix from room to room and the sleepy sighs that settle over the table at the contented pause after the meal, as we silently curse ourselves for overeating again, and then look forward eagerly to dessert. I have been throwing enormous Thanksgivings for years, each with their own flavor and place in time: taking over the great hall with the massive stone fireplace when I was in college, gathering the strays and loners together for a potluck and storytelling after; one year in a cold house near the Hudson River, when two strangers came bearing violins, and someone brought a bottle of brandy and we sat and were warmed and listened to the music with tears in our eyes; in Morocco, when I got into a fight with the man selling the turkey in the middle of the souq and a crowd formed to watch the gauria (think “gringa”) ball out the poor man – the turkey watched as I threw my fit and eventually it died for half the price a local would have paid – a bitter bargaining triumph, in retrospect; Thanksgivings in Portland, raucous and beautiful, surrounded by the host of twisted angels I am lucky enough to call friends. Of all the meals, I knew this one would be the hardest – not because it would be more elaborate than the others, but because our facilities were so limited. I was excited for the challenge.

The preparations began. I coolly stared down the toaster oven. “You will obey me,” I said aloud. Mentally listing the things that had to be done, the things that could be made in advance, the things that needed to be hot at the end; we had 5 hours till guests arrived – the clock was ticking.

Dough was in the fridge – roll it out on a plastic cutting board, using a thermos as a pin. Wedge it into cupcake tins. Pour in pumpkin pie, cram onto plate and stuff in toaster. Ding. Reset. Ding. Reset. Two hours later: pumpkin pielets! Also: lemon cheesecake – nobake, with graham cracker crust. Check. Toast bread crumbs. Cook rice. Peel potatoes. Chop squash. Set this aside. Move that. Put that on the porch. Rinse those – no, wait. Use bottled water. Here. Is that the garlic press? Hand me those, k? Um, where’s the butter? Right. Ouch, sorry. Oops. Rinse it off…

And then, around 5 pm – BEEEEEEP. The water that was boiling the potatoes went still. The light on the hotplate went off. The refrigerator went silent. What?
“No, no no no noononononoo,” I think I said. Beep. Beeep. I turned it on again. It boiled for ten seconds, then flickered. BEEEEEEEP. It went off.
Paul and I looked at each other. The wounded outlet had shorted the entire electrical box. I smiled.
“Yeay.”

We immediately picked up the hotplate and carried it into the living room, where Paul calmly continued cooking the potatoes. A neighbor lent us another hotplate, which was only able to be plugged in in the bathroom, sitting on top of the washing machine, next to the toilet. The rest of the cooking went on in there, leaving a lovely afterglow of rosemary and gravy smells over the top of the usual urinal aura that clings to its surfaces, battling the lavender deodorizer in a can on the floor. The preparations continued, unfazed.

Two guests arrived early, since they live in the same building, and provided logistical support: an extra table and several chairs, plus a handful of forks. They also brought a plastic jug of strawberry-tomato juice, the very smell of which made me gag. I appreciated their adventurous spirit, though, and they were pretty jovial about the fact that their tofu dish was being prepared in the john. The other guests arrived at 8 pm on the nose, bearing bottles of baijiu, the heinous booze that seems a requisite part of friendly meals in this country. All in all we were 7: four Americans, a Kiwi, and two Israelis. The Kiwi and one of the Israelis are funny to the point of derangement, and the meal was one of constant laughter, of overlapping conversations, of loud music and louder talk, shouting, yelling, sighing, verbal yums all around. It was lovely.

The menu:
smoked tofu with caramelized onions and three kinds of mushrooms (this served as a turkey substitute, with its dense meatiness and the wonderful smoked flavor)

bread stuffing with black rice, celery, almonds, and dried cherries – very close to home, with the parsley-sage-rosemary-thyme combination and the richness of the rice

roasted candied squash with chilies

mashed potatoes (kept warm by a NEW rice cooker, after the old one bit me)

spicy mushroom gravy

spinach au gratin with a parmesan crust

Waldorf salad, with pecans rather than walnuts; I’ve never been a fan of anything that calls mayonnaise a “dressing,” but Paul put this together with grace, and I have to admit, it was delicious…

green salad with a creamy balsamic/garlic dressing

cranberry sauce

an olive dish

wine, baijiu, strawberry-tomato juice, plum vinegar and soda

lemon cheesecake with sourcream frosting

baby pumpkin pies

chocolate-chunk brownies provided by a guest, which were wonderfully rich and freshly baked (in a toaster oven) : )

Not bad for a hotplate and a toaster, we have to admit. Our guests were happy, the conversations were lively, and we have much to be thankful for. I hope that you all had an opportunity to count your blessings, as well, and to spend time with people you love, and who love you back, fiercely, bravely, grinning.

I send you hugs.

~ by knifemaker on December 1, 2007.