The Great Thanksgiving Melon Pumpkin Adventure-how I saved Thanksgiving

This week there have been two recurring themes in Emily's and my lives: Thanksgiving is ruined or Thanksgiving is saved! Can't find pumpkin pie filling...Thanksgiving is ruined. Find pumpkins...Thanksgiving is saved! No canned green beans...ruined. Frozen broccoli...saved! Burned rolls...ruined. Successful pies made in glass bowls instead of pie pans...saved!

This week has certainly been a shopping adventure for us. We hoped to find pumpkin pie filling in cans somewhere in Beirut, but we lucked out. Still, we did find a beautiful pumpkin that I'll tell you about later. Since last year I'd had to use a real pumpkin, I wasn't too worried about doing again this year. Dreading it, yes, because it is a lot of work, but now I knew it would be ok. Also, I was greatly cheered by the presence of Hello Panda in the grocery store.

Probably our biggest shopping adventure was the saga of the Turkey. Naturally, we assumed that the butcher area at our local grocery store would sell turkeys. And when I asked him for turkey, he had it available. He politely asked how many slices we wanted. When I told him we wanted a whole turkey, he looked confused for a brief moment, and then brightened up and offered us the whole package of processed turkey sandwich meat. No, we said, we want a whole one...we shaped a turkey carcass with our hands in the air to make our point. He smiled and brought out a package that we thought must be what we wanted. Emily noted that you could see the legs in the shape of the package. I agreed that it looked right, but I felt vaguely suspicious of it. I told the guy that I thought that was right, but I wanted to feel it first. He looked at me with concern, but handed it over. To test it, I gave it a little squeeze. It squished. Obviously not what we wanted. We explained that we wanted to put it in the oven. The butcher shook his head sadly and offered us a whole chicken instead. We were on the point of accepting it when the butcher's assistant motioned for us to follow him. He took us out to the frozen vegetable section where they had a wide selection of ridiculously over-priced butterball turkeys! Thanksgiving was saved!!

Later that night we got out the pumpkin purchased earlier in Beirut. Emily put on Avonlea, so that we could enjoy old TV shows and marvel at the abilities of Canadian child actresses. Then we went to work. OK, I have to confess, I allowed Emily to do most of the work. I mean, if she's willing, why not? Soon, though, we noticed something a bit odd about our beautiful pumpkin. First, it smelled like a melon and second, it was greenish inside. Scott began to insist that we'd gotten some weird hybrid pumpkin-melon hybrid. He hinted that he would never have made the same mistake (although we had earlier given him the opportunity to go out and buy them for us and he had declined). We worried that it wouldn't work for our pie and bread, but chopped away anyway. We decided to risk it, and amazingly I can testify that the bread and pie were successful. There were some lumps, but that was because we didn't cook it long enough and we had to beat it out by hand because we have no blender. I actually had to sift through the pumpkin pie batter with my fingers to find the biggest lumps. (I didn't tell you that before, Emily, but don't worry-my hands were clean.)

Meanwhile, Emily decided to prove to the world that she is capable of cooking EVERYTHING required for a complete Thanksgiving feast by herself. I mean, it's possible that I could be expected to chip in a bit, but really she knows that the kitchen isn't exactly my happy place. I agreed to sit in there with her and chop and stir, which I did. (Yet another example of me saving Thanksgiving.) She made broccoli casserole, corn casserole, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pineapple salad, green bean casserole, crescent rolls, dressing, and turkey. Also pecan pie with no corn syrup. It was all amazing-mostly because she did it all herself. I tried to help out by offering to let her use instant mashed potato stuff that I have at my house from its previous owner. But when I mentioned this, Emily looked at me like I'd suggested to let her roast up her cat instead of getting a turkey.

So in all, it was a successful Thanksgiving. We ate until we were very full and then laid around on the couch watching stupid things on TV. I'll put up photos on facebook soon. Those photos will include the ones we took when decorating the house for Christmas as well. That was also an exciting time involving stringing popcorn, making snowflakes and homemade clay ornaments. I think I'm going to get a job with Hallmark selling a new line of Christmas ornaments entitled: random animals eating Santa Claus. So far we have a crocodile and a whale eating up the old fat guy. We'll do some market research to decide which animal is next for the collection. Precious Moments? What is that crap?

Hello Panda!

"Hello Panda is a brand of Japanese biscuits (cookies), manufactured by Meiji Seika. Each biscuit consists of a small hollow shortbread layer, filled with either vanilla, strawberry, peanut butter or chocolate filling; chocolate is the most commonly available variety. Recently a yellow-boxed version containing the biscuits with a chocolate shell (instead of the usual shortbread) was released.
It was first released in Japan during the Summer of 1979. Printed on the biscuits are cartoon style depictions of giant pandas; presumably this is where the product derives its name.
Hello Panda was originally baked in Japan by Meiji Seika, but production later began in Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia.^[1] The Singapore bakery facilities started producing other Meiji products in 1974. The biscuits are exported to most developed countries, such as the United States.
The biscuits are commonly sold in a tall, hexagonal box with 2 oz or 57.5 g. In some countries, Hello Panda biscuits are available in small 21 and 35g aluminum pouches, as well as 350g boxes and 450g tins."


The article above was from that acclaimed website Wikipedia to which all dedicated scholars must go at various times in their lives when they desire some important piece of knowledge that cannot be found anywhere else. In this case, I'm cutting out the middle man for all of those scholars. I already know what Hello Panda is, and, true to my generous nature, I thought I'd share with all of you the joys of this cute snack little from Japan.

I discovered Hello Panda while living and studying in Jordan. Jordan does not completely fit into the "developed countries" list that Wikipedia mentioned in the second to last paragraph of the article above, but Jordan is moving up in the world, and evidence of that is the availability of Hello Panda in most small convenience stores in the capital city of Amman. The delectable flavor of this scrumptious treat is described above so I do not need to go into much more detail, but truly the Japanese outdid themselves with this one. Hello Panda certainly kicks Hello Kitty in her non-existent tail. I mean, does Hello Kitty come with chocolate in her face? I don't think so... You can see that Hello Panda is vastly superior to a great number of other Hello Animals. So naturally, when I left Jordan behind, I was very sad to say goodbye to my Hello Panda friend. Until yesterday when my life re-gained its meaning.

Yesterday, after an hour of driving around in circles trying to find an entrance to City Mall that was not under construction, we finally made it in. Scott had been waiting for us in the mall for several hours at this point. His original intent was to watch a nerdy Star Wars cartoon that Emily and I, being the true film connoisseurs that we are, refused to watch with him. Instead we went to the travel agent where I was planning to buy a ticket to the States for my sister's wedding. I didn't end up getting the ticket there due to a small error on the travel agent's part where she told me the ticket was $380 cheaper than it actually was. I ended up buying the cheaper ticket online because I am a nice person who tries to save her sister money even though that sister didn't have the courtesy to wait for me to get home before she decided to get married. At least this way I get to see her early... As it turned out, the geek-movie was not playing contrary to internet information (not everything on the internet is as reliable as Wikipedia). So Scott went on to the grocery store to wait for us to come back from what was supposed to be a short trip. Several hours later we met up with him in the store, relieved (Emily was anyway) to find he had not yet spent all their hard-earned money on random crap. He was also relieved to see us and proceeded to play grocery store tour guide for us. He has since contacted an agent and will soon be publishing a map and book detailing the finer points of the store layout and product availability.

Happy to have companionship again, Scott quickly ushered us towards the shining aisles. "Here we have Taco Bell salsa! And here on your right there are Fritos! Look up to your left-Poptarts!" We ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the appropriate moments, and Emily, competent housewife that she is, selected the least over-priced items that will make great meals for when I come over accidentally on purpose at dinner time. I admit to being tempted by things like salsa (a staple food for me that fulfills the vegetable requirement on my food pyramid), but I am also almost as cheap as the man who raised me. (We never got to buy cheese puffs because you got more grams for your money if you bought pretzels.) But then, while Scott and Emily were looking at some kind of sauce that I didn't know existed, I saw it!! A beam of light illuminated them on the shelf of assorted crackers and cookies. That's right! HELLO PANDA!!! I did a little happy dance and began to sing the song inspired by Hello Panda right there in the store while Scott and Emily pretended not to know me. I selected a bag of individual Panda packs and then floated after them throughout the store, no longer minding the monotony of the Great Search for Quaker Oats by Emily that is still going on today. Occasionally I would burst into song whenever I glanced down lovingly at the package of Hello Pandas cradled in my arms like a baby.

The real test came later in the car when I, being the selfless person that I am, tried to share my Hello Panda joy with Scott and Emily. For some reason, they were hesitant to trust my cultured taste buds' testimony. They claim it was the chocolate jam-filled marshmallows that I made them try. I maintain that those are an amazing feat of edible chemical engineering. But eventually Emily agreed that Hello Pandas are quite tasty. I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm, but Emily can't help not being as refined as I am. She grew up in America and thus derives her joy from such mundane things as Reese's Cups. Reese's cups...they don't even have a face!

Martyr's Day

November 11th is the day to remember those who blew themselves up in crowded marketplaces or died a suspicious death in a hospital. I also recently found out that it is something called "Memorial Day" in the land of my birth...I'm not sure what Memorial Day is but I think it's something similar to Martyr's Day. You know, one of those days that are not special enough to be an official holiday but are still marked on calendars for some reason. Still, it was a memorable event for us over here.

Last night, I put on high heels and hobbled out the door to the Yasser Arafat memorial show. Once there we found a nearby place to park (for which I was happy because of the aforementioned painful shoes), we followed the crowd into the brightly-lit arena. The important men sat soberly in front, impeccably attired in their camouflage outfits which rendered them almost unnoticeable amongst the concrete and plastic chairs surrounding them. There were many AK-47s present as well. Scott kindly described to me, with intricate detail, the many differences between the AK-47 and the M16. And what I remember from that discussion is that, contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as an AK-45 or an M13.

As the only foreigners, we were given special seats in the front, right beside the loud speaker which we appreciated greatly. Throughout the whole show, helpful camera men took many videos and photos of the crowd directly behind us. Since we were politely watching the show, we never discovered what was so fascinating about our particular part of the crowd, but whatever it was definitely deserved an infinite number of photos and videos for posterity's sake.

The show was a typical one. There were several passionate speeches yelled loudly in classical Arabic. Interspersed throughout the whole program were various emotional poems also delivered with great feeling and volume. Finally there were many dances involving shiny costumes and flags turned into dresses. As is also typical of these kinds of programs, the speaker volume was so loud that you couldn't actually hear what people were saying (screaming) into the microphones. My brain was throbbing in my skull to the beat of each syllable that came bursting out of the impressive sound system.

Throughout the program I concentrated carefully on my attentive face. I had to maintain the right mix of enjoying the program while soberly pondering the reason for the season. Facial expressions are always crucial to your foreigner image. Still, while I'm mocking, because that's what I do, it always makes me sad to see children dancing around with coffins and authentic-looking fake guns to violent songs calling for war and martyrdom. These people have suffered a great deal, but continuing to foster a culture of violence in their young hasn't helped them either. Case in point: an exciting little fight broke out in the back section of plastic chairs during one of the acts. Everyone got up and turned to watch the fight instead of the cute little boys who were actually putting on the best act of the night (Arabic drums). The men broke up the fight and kicked out the perpetrators, but these kids have a lot of frustration that they want to get out. They can't get certain jobs or educational opportunities because of their lack of citizenship in the country where they live. They are doomed to follow in the footsteps of their fathers, fixing cars or running a little store no matter what their education level. But I have hope that things will change. I overheard one of my friends emphatically telling another lady that they need to take all the violence out of these kinds of programs. I was surprised to hear her say that, but happy. Of course, there's always the chance that I misunderstood and she was actually calling for more violence. The loudspeaker was right over my left ear...

This photo isn't from the Martyr Day event, but it is an example of the same sort of costumes and dances that are typical of these types of events.