Thanksgiving

By Amanda

Last week, Alex and I achieved what I consider to be a major life milestone: hosting our first Thanksgiving. There was a lot to be nervous about: trying to recreate our favorite family recipes, ensuring that our guests (a lovely Swedish couple) enjoyed themselves, and finally, properly cooking our frozen Butterball turkey so as not to infect our guests and ourselves with salmonella. (We were particularly concerned with the last item on the list!)

Since it was our first Thanksgiving 1) as hosts, 2) as a married couple, and 3) in Brussels, it was particularly important to us that it be successful. So, in classic overachiever fashion, I created a menu and food preparation schedule weeks out so that we would be able to pull it off. Our menu combined recipes from both our families and a few extras that we've picked up along the way.

Amanda & Alex's Thanksgiving Menu

Hors d'oeuvres

Homemade onion dip (We made it once for a NYE party, and it became legendary)

Cheese plate with sliced baguette

Main course

Classic green bean casserole (A favorite of my brother, Will, and I)

Potato filling (A delicious Pennsylvania Dutch take on stuffing--it was always my favorite thing on my mom's Thanksgiving table)

Spinach salad with candied pecans, pomegranate seeds, and goat cheese

Cranberry chutney (Alex's mom's delicious recipe)

Turkey (Fingers crossed!)

Gravy (Another terrifying charge)

Dessert

Apple crisp with vanilla ice cream (My mom's yummy recipe)

Since our dinner was planned for the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we used Alex's Thanksgiving holiday to start cooking.

Alex preparing the chutney. Cute apron, huh?

Me working on the onion dip. It's time-intensive, but always a crowd pleaser!

When the big day came we were set...except for one thing: the turkey. Due to the lack of fresh turkeys in Belgium, we bought a 10-pound frozen turkey at the American Air Force base. Following the instructions on the packaging and my detailed schedule, we popped it into the refrigerator on Wednesday morning to allow 3+ days for the turkey to defrost. When we unwrapped it on Saturday, however, it was still frozen. Starting to get concerned that the principal dish would be missing from our Thanksgiving table, we threw the turkey in a cold water bath and crossed our fingers. (Then I made the first of a series of panicked calls to my mother in California for advice.) After 30 minutes in the bath, it seemed pretty well defrosted (and we were running out of time), so we threw it in the oven. Four hours, one broken meat thermometer, and two additional panicked calls to California later, we took the slightly underdone turkey out of the oven, just as our guests were starting to arrive. Though the turkey could have used a couple more minutes in the oven, it was good, and the sides and dessert were great. My personal victory of the night: making delicious gravy. I didn't know I had it in me!

Alex serving our guests, Mae Liz and Daniel.

The plated meal. Not bad for Thanksgiving rookies!

After dinner we played Trivial Pursuit, girls v. boys. Harry volunteered to referee.

Overall, a great debut. Not as good as our respective moms' spreads, but a good start nonetheless. We're looking forward to next year's feast...

The Move

By Harry

At the age of three, I consider myself a fairly well travelled cat. I was born in a posh apartment in Manhattan, lived in two different D.C. neighborhoods, and have taken several trips to West Virginia to visit my grandparents for the holidays. That said, I’m not a big fan of change, so when I found out we were moving to Brussels, I was a little nervous.

The experience could not have got off to a worse start. First, we moved into a hotel room in D.C., and I was locked in the bathroom whenever my humans went out because they were scared I would scratch the furniture or terrorize the maid. Whatever...I’m a very well behaved cat. One night, the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, and I was evacuated in my carrier. There was no fire, but it was very scary, and my humans were grumpy the next day and gulping coffee. The only upside to the temporary living situation was that we all slept in the same bed, which meant that I was able to walk on them while they slept and wake them at odd hours by licking their faces. I think they appreciated it. One morning, Alex gave me a big squirt of some of this treat paste I like. It was uncharacteristically generous, and I realized why once I started to feel drowsy: I was drugged! Then, they stuffed me into my carrier, and we boarded a bus to the airport. It was my first time on an airplane, and I didn’t like it very much—my ears hurt a lot during the takeoff and landing, and I cried a little bit, but otherwise I was too scared to do anything but sleep. Eight hours later, we arrived in Brussels, and shortly thereafter, we were home.

Even though I was close to calling PETA during the move, I have to say, I really like Brussels. In addition to having a new identity as a sophisticated European cat, my humans and I have a much bigger apartment with a lot more room for me to run around and chase my toy mice. Here are some photos of my new digs:

Here I am in my new living room. Nice deck, huh? For some reason, my humans won't let me out there without this horrible, restrictive harness, so I mostly stay inside.

All my toys arrived in Brussels a few months after we did. This is one of my favorites.

The apartment has lots of good places for naps, including this cozy couch.

That's all for now. I'll write more later, hopefully with tales of a delicious turkey dinner!

Bienvenue!

By Amanda

Alex and I have called Brussels home for three months now, and I have to say it’s starting to feel like it. It’s my first time living overseas (except for a quick summer abroad in Paris between my junior and senior years of college), and Alex’s fifth go-round as an expat. In many ways our life in Brussels, so far, is the exact opposite of what we expected: First, we’ve been treated to a lovely (sunny!) fall, despite reports of perpetual overcast, gloomy skies. Second, though located in Western Europe, Belgium is hardly a model of efficiency. (Three months later after moving in to our lovely apartment we still have only seven of nine living room curtains, two sad, bare curtain rods, and repeated promises that the remaining curtains will be ready “any day now.”) Finally, English is spoken much less frequently than we imagined, meaning that I communicate with my very patient Belgian neighbors through an awkward mixture of butchered high-school French and hand gestures. (All those years of miserably conjugating verbs are starting to pay off…)

That said, I think we’re finally starting to understand the pace of the city. Yesterday, after conducting much internet research to impress a new friend with hip brunch spot suggestions, we arrived at the selected restaurant to find that despite claiming to open at 11 a.m., chairs were still on tables and waiters were only starting to arrive for work. A few months ago, we would have been annoyed, rolling our eyes as we pointed out that when D.C. restaurants say that they open at 11 a.m., they do, in fact, open then and often to a line of hungry patrons waiting outside. Yesterday, however, Alex and I just shrugged and suggested to our dining companion that it might make sense to walk around and try to find an open place.

The hardest part of being here is being so far away from friends and family in the U.S. (A nine hour time difference from my native California!) So, in addition to wanting to chronicle our adventure, this blog is a way to share our overseas life with them. Keep reading for updates from all of us, including Harry!