| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| Elaine |
Thanksgiving DayJust one more day 'til Thanksgiving! What's everybody's plans? (those of you celebrate such a thing, that is.)
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| Deborah |
I hope to sleep all day. I'm doing Thanksgiving with my roommate's family, but they're not celebrating until the weekend, because the cook will be out of town until then. | ||||||
| Elaine |
Do you have family in town? Not celebrating on Thanksgiving Day seems so... un-American. 
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| Deborah |
My brother's here and he doesn't have plans, but I think he might also be looking forward to doing nothing. He's invited to my roommate's family's gathering too, but I don't know whether he plans to go. |
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| Uriel |
I have to work. 
But I hope to find somebody I can mooch a plate off of! I've been promised a plate by a friend of mine from not one, but two houses she'll be going to, and I think I can snag some more off my ex-boyfriend's parents -- since I will be covering the day shift for my a.m. counterpart, I can actually drop by his mom's afterwards. She always makes a good spread -- although I'm still not sure about the green chile in the stuffing! |
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| fab |
In what does consist thanksgiving exactly. We often hear of it in American movies, but I don't know much. Is it religious ? | ||||||
| Porthos |
No. It originated with some of the original colonists in America, known as the Puritans. For a short while, a seemingly lasting peace and prosperous co-existance seemed within reach between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. The Native Americans taught the settlers agricultural techniques they would need to stay alive. In a symbol of their mutual friendship and hospitality, they gathered together after the harvest and had a feast and celebration, which the Pilgrims referred to as "Thanksgiving", because they owed their fortune to God. In rememberance of this event, Americans celebrate this day by means of congregating together, often in families, or with friends, and we eat a bunch of turkey and gravy and potatoes, and stuffing, and all that good stuff. And we usually watch a football game or something. It's basically just a day to pig out on a gigantic meal. A day when everyone is entitled to break their diets. |
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| Elaine |
I guess you can make it as religious as you want it. As the name suggests, Thanksgiving is the day of giving thanks for all our blessings and are bounty. So if you're of Christian persuasion who else would you thank but the Lord? Otherwise, Thanksgiving for most of us is a 4-week holiday beginning on the 4th Thursday of November where we get together with our friends and family and have a huge feast centering on a stuffed turkey and all the fixings. But to be honest with you, Thanksgiving can be a real bitch, especially if you're the one hosting the lunch/dinner. The best part about it is the day after, when all the department stores have their Thanksgiving sales, and so, the Christmas rush begins!  
A typical Thanksgiving spead, although the Honeybaked ham is missing! |
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| Pauline |
We havn't Thanksgiving in Belgium, but after I've saw the photo of the food, I would like celebrate it as well !!!! 
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| Porthos |
Except that in my family, there is a little Mexican twist to the food served.
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| Deborah |
It just occurred to me that it's very appropriate, in this case, to have the dinner on some other day -- the person doing the cooking is Palestinian. |
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| Joanne |
Hmm... it'll be much the same as the last three years. Thanksgiving at my parents' house, brother coming up from Miami, younger brother coming down from Boston, other brother and his family coming ...um... across from Pennsylvania, and some of my in-laws coming in from Long Island. While the women are putting the finishing touches on the dinner and gossiping, the guys'll start putting up the indoor and outdoor Christmas decorations and argue over which twinkling lights should go on what tree branch, or whatever. They'll come back inside to watch the Denver-Kansas City game (or Tampa Bay-Dallas or Miami-Detroit games, depending on who wins the annual Thanksgiving remote control battle). Then we'll give thanks, have dinner for five hours, and those of us who are legal (or close enough) will stay up and get drunk.
The next day, Black Friday, we will wake up with hangovers of varying intensities and hit the malls (in this area, there are six of them in a 15-mile radius...no clothing tax in NJ !), and try valiantly to finish most of our Christmas shopping.
I'll bet a lot of Americans are going to be doing something similar... nothing out of the ordinary |
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| David |
I hope to sleep until around 10ish, and then feast with my family.
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| Uriel |
Thanksgiving consists of: 1. Cooking lots and lots of food 2. Eating it 3. Lying around on the couch not moving while you digest, cheering weakly at the football game on TV. This must be done in the presence of as many blood relatives as possible, whom you will pretend to like for at least one afternoon. WARNING: If you are married, the child of divorced parents, or especially popular, you may be forced to attend more than one of these functions [i]on the same day, so plan your intake accordingly.[/i] No, there's no particular religious association; pretty much everybody does it. It's more of a traditional excuse for a family get-together. And it is of course descended from the usual pre-winter harvest festivals common to most northern hemisphere agricultural societies. By the way, I think Elaine meant to say four-day festival, not four weeks. or else I've been gypped all these years.... Since T'giving always falls on a Thursday, many businesses give their employees Friday off as well, making it a 4-day weekend. Not MINE, of course, but you know.... |
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| Deborah |
I'd forgotten that we usually get a 4-day weekend (nyah, nyah!), so it came as a very pleasant surprise this year. Wow, I don't have to go back to the hell-hole for another 3 days! (And in case anyone's wondering why I'm still complaining about my job and haven't found a new one, just let me say that yet another large law firm in SF has laid off its word processing department. I suppose I should be thankful I have any sort of job at all.) My roommate, however, has to work tomorrow, but she's looking on the bright side, because almost no one else will be there and she's been getting pretty tired of the crowd. Since I'm not going to a Thanksgiving dinner until Sunday, I'm free to enjoy this gorgeous day we're having in San Francisco. Maybe I'll do some gardening. Now that the rainy season has started and it's still pretty warm, my plants look better than they've looked all year. André, the Cape daisies are blooming beautifully. And rose bushes all over are going through the 4th blooming of the year. |
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| André in Zuid-Afrika |
How about posting a pic of your Cape daisies? I'd love to see them! |
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| Deborah |
Sure, if I can find my camera. I've been misplacing everything recently. But don't get the idea that the plants are spectacular; I only bought 3 little plants a few weeks ago and potted them in one of those terra cotta-colored plastic planters. Currently there are 7 blooms, although more buds will make it if it doesn't suddenly turn cold. |
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| Deborah |
My family's traditional Thanksgiving was different in that we never watched football (not a sports-loving group). We also didn't have the traditional pumpkin pie. Instead, my grandmother made her incomparable apple pies. Yum. I just now realized that the reason my boss brought in a couple of her sweet potato pies (yum, again) the other day is that Thanksgiving Day was coming up. |
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| Porthos |
I had a very unorthodox thanksgiving today. We made tapas, and I went surfing at the beach. | ||||||
| Deborah |
That sounds like a great Thanksgiving! But I've lost track of where you are at the moment. What beach did you go to? |
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| Porthos |
I went to Pismo. Later on, after writing the quoted post, we made a delicious pub steak, cooked in a red wine and butter sauce, with papas fritas espanolas and vegetables, along with a Riesling. I know, I know about the white wine = white meat mantra, but I'm always one to break the rules.
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| Uriel |
I can live without pumpkin pie. It's all right, but nothing that makes my heart beat faster. That apple pie of your grandmother's sounds heavenly, Deborah! I had some good pecan pie at work (had Thanksgiving food all day, it turned out, free at the cafeteria). When I go to my mom's for Christmas, I will of course be demanding that she make me some of her rich German stollen and her cherry pie, which is lower on sugar and a lot higher on kirschwasser (which she soaks the cherries in beforehand) than the usual gummy red canned filling you're faced with elsewhere. | ||||||
| Julian |
Alright a fellow surfer!  I've surfed at Pismo (around the Pier and in Oceano) many times. Good spot.
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| Deborah |
I like Pismo Beach. I don't surf -- I can barely swim -- but I like the central California coast.
I haven't had steak since 1974, but a red wine and butter sauce sounds great, so that sounds like a wonderful dinner. I'm another wine rule breaker -- I pretty much only drink red wine. Stollen...mm-mmm. I think we discussed stollen last year. |
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| Julian |
Try being married, the child of divorced parents and being especially popular. It was a challenge trying to arrange a schedule so that nobody felt slighted. My God, I've eaten enough food to feed an entire village.
Tita and I had Thanksgiving lunch at my grandparents' house, so we had turkey served with couscous, moussaka, aïoli, and tapenade, then we went over to my mom's house for a "standard" Thanksgiving meal, and then we hightailed it over to Tita's parent's house for a dinner spread consisting of turkey, ham, lumpia, kare kare and sweet spaghetti with meatballs and sliced hotdogs.  I don't think I'll be eating the rest of the week.
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| Uriel |
Dang, boy! And what was for dessert? 
But I know you took a mightly breath, flexed those six-pack abs, and all was well again! |
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| Julian |
Pumpkin pie, chocolate mousse, pumpkin trifle, and these crazy little cakes made of yams.
I planned on doing 100 crunches when I got home, but the trytophan was too overpowering -- ended up doing 20 and went to bed.
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| Uriel |
Shoot, just thinking about 20 crunches and I'd be asleep by 19! | ||||||
| Joanne |
Oh, curses! The Julian six-pack gets mentioned again, and again I have no visual notion of what y'all are talking about! And believe me, I had combed through every frickin' thread in Old Langcafé looking for the infamous Six-Pack Pic, but to no avail 
Well, Julian, I can only surmise that your abs are beautiful, and breathtaking, and probably made out of uranium. ...They are, aren't they? And I bet you power small cities with them, too!
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| Loic |
Julian needs to post a picture of himself again to refresh our fading memories as well as to enlighten the newcomers. | ||||||
| Deborah |
And while you're at it, do you still have the picture of baby Sander playing the euphonium? |
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| Uriel |
Man, Joanne, I so hate to let you down -- I have pics of Frances, Elaine, you, and even Yann saved, but I've got nothing of Julian. The shot we're all reminiscing about is from the very first Langcafe, which was actually Antimoon 2. Mmmm, just picture tall, dark, and handsome, with smoldering eyes and a washboard stomach. Hey, maybe he's really some dumpy slob living in his mother's basement and using pics of swimsuit models as his avatar, but in my mind, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
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| Deborah |
Julian, are you tall? I don't recall any conversation about your height, but for some reason I pictured you as being about 5'8" or 5'9". |
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| Uriel |
Hey, they just have to be taller than me to count as "tall" -- and I'm only 5'6".
You're definition, O Statuesque One, will probably be different!
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| Deborah |
Hmm, yes...to me, tall starts at 5'9" (1.75m) for women and 5'11(1.8m) for men. (Maybe I can go as low as 5'8"(1.75m) and 5'10"(1.78m).) |
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| Julian |
Yes, I still do.
I tell everyone I'm 6 feet, but I'm actually 5'11" Well, if we can round up on our tax forms ... Just curious, what made you think I was 5'8" / 5'9"?
I think you're idealizing me in your memories, Uriel. And now if I post a picture you all are gonna say, "What the hell were we thinking???"  So maybe you should just continue reminiscing.
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| Deborah |
OK, you're tall. (But I'm taller!)
Yeah, at my peak I was a tad under 6' 1/2", but I rounded up, and now I'm a tad under 6', but I still round up.
I don't know; maybe I thought "tall, dark and handsome" was too much for one person to have, and from your picture it was obvious you were dark and handsome, so what did that leave that I could subconsciously subtract?
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| Julian |
I play(ed) the accordion, isn't that enough? 
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| Deborah |
Oh yeah, right. That's how you developed the six-pack. OK, you've paid your dues -- you're allowed to be TD&H. |
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| Uriel |
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| Deborah |
I just got back from my belated Thanksgiving dinner. I'll have to go post something on the "I'm obese" thread. I don't usually stuff myself on this holiday, but I'd hardly eaten anything all day, I had to wait about half an hour to eat, and on the appetizers table there was a bowl of the most delicious homemade hummus... I pretty much got full on hummus and pita and pomegranate kernels, but I felt obliged to taste all the remaining dishes. Blup. | ||||||
| Joanne |
All right, so thanks to André's heroic efforts, I have finally seen Julian's famous picture.
Oh.  " alt="" border="0" />
My. 
Goodness.
Gracious. 
It's ... it's become very hot in here, all of a sudden...
 NOOOOO, she certainly is not!
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| Uriel |
I quote the Colonel: finger-lickin' good! 
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| Julian |
Are you referring to this? Shhhh ... Sander might not appreciate me posting it. |
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| Pauline |
It's really Sander? LOL
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| Uriel |
I thought Julian was the only piece of meat we had!
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